The foundations of Japan : $b Notes made during journeys of 6,000 miles in the rural districts as a basis for a sounder knowledge of the Japanese peopleRobertson Scott, J. W. (John William)
General
The foundations of Japan : $b Notes made during journeys of 6,000 miles in the rural districts as a basis for a sounder knowledge of the Japanese people
Robertson Scott, J. W. (John William)
Agriculture -- Japan; Country life -- Japan; Japan -- Description and travel; Japan -- Social conditions
[248] One thinks of Takeuchi Seiho who lives in Kyoto, of
Toba Sojo (11th century) for monkeys, frogs and bullocks, and in the
Tokugawa period of Okio for dogs and carp, of Jakchū for fowls and
birds, of Hasegawa Tohaku and Sosen for monkeys, of Kawanabe Kyosai
for crows, and of Kesai and Hokusai for birds, fish and insects.
[249] Nevertheless it is well not to be hasty in judgment. On the day
on which this footnote was written, April 7, 1921, I find the
following items in the _Daily Mail_. On page 4 the Attorney-General
regrets that the law tolerates the "cruel practice" by which 30
pigeons were killed or injured at a certain pigeon-shooting
competition and expresses inability to bring in legislation. On page
5, col. 2, an M.P. is reported as mentioning a case in which a puppy
had been kicked to death and as asking the Home Secretary whether the
law imposing imprisonment for a short term could not be strengthened.
On the same page, col. 5, a railway porter is reported as having been
fined for flinging three small calves into a farm cart by the tails.
[250] For poultry statistics, see Appendix LXVII.
[251] Before the extensive use of _yofuku_ (foreign clothes) the dress
of Japanese men and women was entirely of cotton and silk or of cotton
only. Much of the material from which _yofuku_ are made is no doubt
cotton.
[252] See Appendix LXVIII
[253] The number of cattle, which was 1,342,587 in 1916, was only
1,307,120 in 1918. See also Appendix LXVI.
[254] For photographs and particulars of the milk sheep, see my _Free
Farmer in a Free State_.
[255] The value of the well-bred and well-cared-for goat as a milk and
manure producer is underestimated. The problem of keeping goats in
such a way that they shall not be destructive and shall yield the
maximum of manure is discussed in my _Case for the Goat_.
[256] This question as it affects an agricultural country is discussed
in _A Free Farmer in a Free State_.
[257] There is a consensus of scientific opinion that "non-meat
eating" races such as the Japanese have longer alimentary tracts than
flesh-eating Europeans. It is difficult to be precise on the subject,
an eminent Western surgeon tells me, for bowels are as contractile as
worms, which at one minute measure 100 units in length and the next
minute have shortened to 30. So much depends on the state at death.
[258] On the other hand, the Japanese have taken up many new things at
the point which we in the West have only recently reached. They begin
to produce milk and supply it, not in the milkman's pail, but in
sterilised bottles. They abandon candles and lamps and, practically
skipping gas, adopt electric light or power. The capital invested in
electric enterprises in 1919 was about 700 million yen or seven times
that invested in gas.
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