A Yankee in the Far East Part 4

Many wide thoroughfares and narrow streets lined with low one- and two-story buildings--a clean city, covering a tremendous area.

You occasionally see a three-story building and they have one "skysc.r.a.per" that towers up into the air five stories--a landmark.

The _Mitsukoshi_, j.a.pan's one great department store, is now housed in a modest three-story building, but they are building a new store.

The general factotum of the store who can speak English showed me a drawing of the new store. I exclaimed with admiration: "And she is going to be five stories high, isn't she?" "Yes," he said, proudly, "and a bas.e.m.e.nt."

The government buildings are not so imposing as in many other of the world's capitals, and there is no single business center. The business of the city is widely scattered. Rapid transit in Tokio is in a state of transition. The trolley has come, but not sufficiently strong to be adequate for the traffic, but enough to discourage the rikisha boys--the rikisha boy has run his legs off in Tokio. He is still here, but in decreasing numbers, and what there is left of him is the beginning of the end, so far as Tokio is concerned.

He is an expensive proposition. He wants ten cents to take one any distance at all, and that is equivalent to a ten-cent car ride at home; and to take one any considerable distance is twenty-five cents.

[Ill.u.s.tration: They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my three days' stay]

They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my three days'

stay. They have automobiles, but not to such an extent that one has to do much dodging. In an hour's ride across the city I counted six--and it was a fine day for automobile riding, too.

To get around in Tokio is a problem. Like Washington, it is a city of magnificent distances. The street cars go where you want to go, but they don't come where you are. The charge is only two and one-half cents for a ride, but it costs ten cents for a rikisha boy to take you to the car. The boy will land you where you want to go for twenty-five cents, but there is a two and one-half cent street car fare against a twenty-five cent rikisha ride; so you tell your boy to take you to the car. Then it percolates into your mind that you have ten cents invested in that ride. But there is still a fifteen cent salvage if you take the car, less the two and one-half cents the car will cost--twelve and one-half cents net. While you are working out the problem your car pa.s.ses, and you tell your boy to go on and take you there--you'd only save twelve and one-half cents anyway.

But that's another ride--twenty-five cents--new deal--and you sigh for the days of your old Tokio, before the street cars came to fuss you up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: While you are working out the problem your car pa.s.ses]

Also, they have raised the price of laundry in Tokio--yes, sir, the price of laundry has gone up. They now have the effrontery to charge you two and one-half cents to wash a handkerchief or a pair of socks.

Of course it's two and one-half cents for a shirt, a white coat, or a pair of pants--flat rate, two and one-half cents, "Big or little piecee all samee." But it used to be one and one-half cents.

Those were the days when you didn't have to hold a shirt in one hand while you speculated with the other as to whether it would go one more time--under that old scale you just put it in the wash.

VII

j.a.pANESE GIRLS IN AMERICAN COSTUMES--THEY MAR THE LANDSCAPE

I noticed the following account of the death of the Empress Dowager in the _j.a.pan_, a magazine printed in English in Tokio:

"Whilst as yet the earth mound set up over the august remains of the late lamented Emperor Meiji at Momoyama, Fushimi, is fresh and damp, the j.a.panese have been stricken with a renewed sorrow and bereavement, none the less profound, at the demise of their cherished, beloved Empress Dowager, the First Lady of the Land, who graciously shared the glorious throne of j.a.pan with her lord and sovereign, the late ill.u.s.trious Emperor Meiji, for forty-five long years of brilliant progress, splendid achievement, and the 'Reign of Enlightened Government.' As the beautiful, fragrant blooms of the cherry fall, ere the dawn comes when the stern, pitiless tempest ravages the tree in the evening, so the exalted person has sunk to rise no more at the inevitable, nay, unexpected, touch of the death's cold fingers.

"Although her recovery from the illness had been ardently prayed and hoped for by all her devout subjects, and although the medical attentions, the best the modern sciences can procure, having been concentrated upon the n.o.ble patient, the rays of hope for her recovery seemed to beam, the fatal crisis came suddenly and unexpectedly.

"Her Majesty had been suffering from chronic bronchial catarrh and nephritis, which became complicated by angina pectris on March 29, followed by a urine poisoning toward the end of that month. She seemed to be recovering from the urine-poisoning and the heart trouble due to angina pectris, until April 9, when at about 1:30 A. M. the second attack of angina pectris came, followed by the failure of the heart.

The latter proved fatal; and the exalted patient in this critical condition returned to the capital from the imperial villa at Numazu, where she had been laying ill. The sad event was officially announced two hours after Her Majesty's arrival at the imperial detached palace at Aoyama, Tokio, the demise having been recorded as taking place April 11 at two A. M."

I was moved over that account more than I was over the fact that the Empress Dowager had pa.s.sed away. I was not acquainted with the Empress Dowager, and therefore only felt that general interest one naturally feels in an event of the kind; but over that account I had emotions.

I had still more acute emotions when I saw a j.a.panese girl dressed in American girls' clothes. The j.a.panese girl in her own clothes is an old friend of mine.

I have known her for forty years--in her clothes--on lacquer boxes, screens, and fans; and for fifteen of those forty years, on periodical visits to j.a.pan, she has danced and sung for me, and bowed and smiled to me, most bewitchingly--"belitchingly" in her native garb. But to see her tog herself out in high-heeled shoes, a basque, and a polonaise, and a hat with heaven knows what and then some on it! The editor of the _j.a.pan_ in his account moved me some, but that girl gets me going good.

I hope she will get well, and go back to her kimono, with her cute little feet encased in white mittens, pigeon-toeing along on her wooden sandals, held on with thongs between her toes, and her bustle on outside of her dress. She is part of the landscape that way. She fits in, and makes me glad.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She is a part of the landscape that way. She fits in and makes me glad]

There is only now and then one of her stricken, but if it spreads, becomes universal in j.a.pan, that editor will be called upon to tell us: "The j.a.panese girl has had a fatal attack of heart failure--and from this she did not recover."

VIII

CEREMONIOUS GRANDMOTHER--"MISSOURI" A HEAVENLY TWIN

Returning from a trip to Tokio on a Monday forenoon I found at my hotel in Yokohama the following letter from my shipboard friend "Missouri":

_Dear Mr. Allen_:

You'll be surprised to learn that I am in jail. I started out this morning at 8 o'clock to go to church. At 8:30 I stopped at a saloon and met a delightful bunch and didn't get away from that saloon till 5 o'clock this evening. At 5:30 I was pinched and put in jail on a charge of a.s.sault with attempt to kill.

If the victim dies, please find out for me whether they behead, hang, or electrocute in j.a.pan for capital punishment.

I've learned the j.a.panese language today, but don't want to talk to the jailer, as it might prejudice my case. For heaven's sake come and see me and I'll explain it all.

Hastily yours,

"MISSOURI."

On his own statement it looked bad for "Missouri." I had left him at Yokohama, where he had some business to look up, while I went to Tokio.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was disappointed in "Missouri"]

I had expected to find "Missouri" on my return to Yokohama that Monday forenoon, and instead of him I found his letter.

Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was disappointed in "Missouri." A countryman in trouble under circ.u.mstances like these, however, called for prompt action, and I started off post-haste in a rikisha to see what could be done about it.

I conjured up a picture of "Missouri," the erstwhile prepossessing chap (even minus those side teeth "Missouri" was a fine-looking man), now battered, bruised and blear-eyed, disheveled and disreputable; probably he had been on a long toot--a relapse from rect.i.tude, I surmised.

He had been entirely abstemious on the voyage, but there may have been chapters in his past life o'er which he'd drawn a veil in our shipboard confidences--anyway, it looked bad for "Missouri." His reference to starting out to church was probably only a vagary of a befogged brain.

These thoughts were mine as I was being rikishaed along to "Missouri's" rescue, when, whom should I see coming toward me in an automobile but "Missouri," the same "Missouri," in company with another just as smooth-looking individual, who was driving the machine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lord, Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you" he said, as the machine stopped]

"Missouri's" mouth was stretched from ear to ear in a joyous greeting as he caught sight of me. Those "gaps" showed tremendously--one couldn't blame his wife for wanting them "filled in."