[15] The Japanese bed, _futon_, consists of a soft mattress of cotton wool, two or three inches thick. It is spread on the floor, which itself consists of mats of almost the same thickness, 6 ft. long by 3 ft. wide. [16] Most of the really big men of Australia have left political life in comparatively impoverished circumstances. Not only did Sir Henry Parkes die poor. Sir George Reid took the High Commissionership in London; Sir Graham Berry was provided with a small annuity; Sir George Dibbs was made the manager of a State savings bank; Sir Edmund Barton was lifted to the High Court Bench.--_Times_, January 11, 1921. To the last day of his life, executions were levied in his house.--Rosebery on Pitt. [17] For his figures see Appendix I. CHAPTER III EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS ACTIVITIES I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of partiality. On the other hand, there is, I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious assentation.--MORLEY "The alarum clocks for waking us at four o'clock in the summer and five in the winter"--it was the chairman of a village Early-Rising Society who was speaking to me--are placed at the houses of the secretaries, and each member is in turn a secretary. The duty of a secretary, when the alarum clock strikes, is to get up and visit the houses of all the members allotted to him and to shout for the young men until they answer. Each member on rising walks to the house of the secretary of his division and writes his name on the record of attendances. Then the member goes to the shrine, where we fence and wrestle for a time. At first we thought that if we fenced and wrestled early in the morning we should be tired for our work, but we found that it was not so. "Sometimes a clock gets damaged and does not ring, so a few of us may be getting up later that morning. Or a man becomes afraid of sleeping too late, fears his clock is wrong, and gets up at 3 o'clock and then goes off to waken members. Hence complaints. Some cunning fellows ask their friends or brothers to write down for them their names on the list of attendances. But we find out their deceit by their handwriting. It is very difficult to form the habit of early rising, because members are not expected to report at the secretaries' houses on a rainy day. As there is no control over them that day, they are easy in their minds and sleep on. Thus they break the habit of early rising that they are forming. Getting up early is necessary not only because it is good to begin work early but because early rising overcomes the habit of gadding about at night which is customary in many villages.