The _Samurai_, deprived of their swords and military privileges, were given the name _shizoku_ (Samurai families) and were paid off in lump sums, thereafter being thrown on their own resources. There are 439,154 shizoku families, numbering altogether 2,169,018 individuals. The remaining classes were designated as _heimin_ (common people). Statistics show that they number 8,471,610 families, totaling 44,558,025 individuals. The eta were elevated, hence popularly called _shin-heimin_ (new common people) and allowed to live anywhere and take up any desirable calling. The hi-nin also were classed along with the rest of humankind. As a matter of fact, the eta and hi-nin were but a small fringe of the whole population, the descendants of the former being now estimated at something less than one million, and those of the latter amounting to about 35,000. With the national reorganization it was inevitable that the new executive offices from the highest to the lowest should be given to men of experience. At first, therefore, the reorganization amounted to little more than a great shuffle of names and titles. Peers took the highest governmental positions, while Samurai and their sons as a rule filled the lower posts. Many Samurai, however, received no appointments and had to go to work. In time, as education has progressed, sons of farmers and merchants have become qualified and have been appointed to government offices. The new departments, such as the educational, the postal and telegraph offices, the railroads, and especially the army and navy, call for large numbers of efficient men. These posts are filled almost entirely on the basis of fitness. While ancestry is not entirely ignored in the making of appointments, nevertheless old class distinctions are gradually being obliterated. The fortunes of the women have naturally followed those of the men. All families that lost their hereditary income had to go to work; this was true chiefly of the Samurai. Where the men were fortunate, the women could maintain the old customs, limiting themselves to their familiar domestic work, with a servant or two to help, but tens of thousands of Samurai families found themselves reduced to the direst poverty; women having generations of genteel ancestry were forced to enter the ranks of the workers. Let us define what we mean by a working woman. Women whose husbands or parents provide the support of the family are not to be included in this term. These women may, and indeed doubtless do, labor abundantly and fruitfully in the home; their time is fully occupied. Probably no working women toil more diligently or for longer hours than do these wives and mothers in hundreds of thousands of homes, in most of which there are no servants. All the cooking, sewing, and housecleaning is done by them, so that they are indeed workers. But they are not "working women." They are the true gentlewomen of Japan, whose culture, graces, and charms are not easily described.