The fact that the county was in a remote part of Japan may be held, perhaps, to account for the fact that there were in it, I was assured, only 14 geisha and 8 women known to be of immoral character. All of them were living in the town and they were said to be chiefly patronised by commercial travellers and imported labourers. I was told that there were pre-nuptial relations between many young men and young women. Two undoubted authorities in the district agreed that they could not answer for the chastity of any young men before marriage or of "as many as 10 per cent." of the young women. In an effort to save the reputation of their daughters, fathers sometimes register illegitimate children as the offspring of themselves and their wives. Or when an unmarried girl is about to have a child her father may call the neighbours to a feast and announce to them the marriage of his daughter to her lover. The figures for illegitimate births are vitiated by the fact that in Japan children are recorded as illegitimate who are born to people who have omitted to register their otherwise respectable unions.[118] In the county in which I was travelling I was assured that half the still births might be put down to immoral relations and half to imperfect nourishment or overworking of the mother. In this district girls marry from 17 or 18, men from 18 to 30. The town was full of country people who had come to see the festival. One feature of it was the performance of plays on four ancient wheeled stages of a simplicity in construction that would have delighted William Poel. Formerly these plays were given by the local youths; now professional actors are employed. The different acts of the historical dramas which were performed were divided into half a dozen scenes, and when one of these scenes had been enacted the stage was wheeled farther along the street. At the conclusion of each scene some three dozen small boys, all wearing the white-and-black speckled cotton kimono and German caps which are the common wear of lads throughout Japan, would swarm up on the stage, and, with fans waved downwards, would yell at the pitch of their voices an ancient jingle, which seemed to signify "Push, push, push and go on!" This was addressed to a score or so of young men who with loud shouts hauled the heavy stage-wagon along the street. The performances on the four moving theatres went on simultaneously and sometimes the cars passed one another. The performances were given on the eve and on the day and through the night of the festival. The acting was amazingly good, considering the July heat and the cramped conditions in which the actors worked. Happy boys sat at the back of the scenes fanning the players. Our kindly and voluble landlady was not satisfied with the number of times the stages stopped before her inn. She loudly threatened the youths who were dragging them that she would reclaim some properties she had lent and tell her dead husband of their ingratitude!