Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, April 18, 1909, Page 18

THESE GIRLS GET % CENTS A DAY. \Copyright, 1009, by Frank G. Carptenter.) YOTO, 1909.~(8peclal Correspond- 'ence of The Eee)-Have the Japanese bitten off more than GIRLS MAKING STRAW BRAID FOR ¢ CENTS A DAY. present wages, which are considered ex- off at § a. m. and another half hour at ceptionally high. Take the clothing fac- 3. There is a full hour at noon, and the torles, where women are now getting % 1lat and 16th of each month are considere cents & day, working seven days of the rest days. On all other days, including pushing It from them, and they pull the hand saw. Nevertheless, their joints fit and a great part of their housemaking consists of sliding walls which move in with your dress rolled up to your knees, planting the rice sprouts with your bare hands in the filth at 1 cent per hour, and you have an idea of one feature of ] i | | { { { they can chew? Can they sup- port the westorn civilization with its luxurles and its ex- trhvagances? Have they the natural SOUFCAs t0 hold their own as a great world power? These are: some of the questions which are staring the statesmon of this country in the face. Japan has, all told, good farm lands of aboMt halt the size of Kentucky. It has some coal and a little iron. It is dlscover- ing petroleum, but this is of poor quality, 4nd it has a considerable amount of copper and plenty of fish. All these resources, however, ere not enough to warrant the support of the lricreasing population, and the country must have outside lands or dovelop Itself along the lines of industry and commerce, Buppose you should crowd more than half of all the people of the United States into the southern half of Vitgiiia, could we live as well as we dc now? Would we have meat three times a day, carpets on our floors and planos in our parlors, and, over and above all, money to burn? As to cultivable territory, that is the state of Japan. It has now 60,000,000 irhabitants and it s adding 500,00 new stomachs to its consumers overy year. It has added 10,000,000 within the last two de- oades, and the avalanche of new bables tolla on. A to outside lands, Formosa, which came a8 o result of the Thinese war, is the only properly absolutely in hand. It s just about twice as big as New Jersey and it Is alreddy supporting twice as many people. It has 8,000,000 or 4,000,000, mostly Chinese, Wwho have gobbled up the good land and capnot be moved. In addition there is Corea, which is controlled by Japan and Wrieh many think i3 to be exploited for the good pf the Lome population. Corea 18 twice large as Kansas, but it also is mountainous and its population s about 14,000,000, There may be some chance for expansion in southern Manchurla, but al- together the chances for emigration are few, re- A —— Simple Life va. New Japan, This being the case as to the territory, the only thing left Is expansion along the lined of Industry and commerce. Japan fs pushing both of these possibilities with all her might, and it may be that the natural skill and Indefatigable work of her people will make her win out. If she does #0, it will be by retrenchment and econ- omy, rather than personal extravagance and ineredsed government expenditures. Today the country is $1,000,000,000 in debt. It owes on the average $200 per head, or $1,000 per family. It is taxed enormously, and there would sesm to be but little room for either the people or the government to Increase thelr expenses. The officlals realize this and have cut down their estimates for this year. The people are already so burdened that they dare not branch out, and the gutiock iy that the s'mple life of the old Japan will have to continue with the masses for some time to come. This letter s to be devoted to the Japanese laboring classes. 1 want to tell you how they work and the wiges they get, and also the prices they pay for their dally necessities. You can then judge of their abllity to support a civ- {'sation llke our In the ese Factories. Only & short time ago everything in Jipan wae made by hand In the houses. There were no large establishments and practically no factories. Today there is still an enormous house Industry, but there are, all told, over 10,000 fectories and they em- plog altogether about 0,00 workmen. There are thousands of men who labor in the mines, and millions in little industries of every kind which go on in the homes of the people. A8 to the factories, I have already writ- ten of the shipyards and cotton mills. In the spinning factories the women are now récelving about 22 cents a day and ehil- dren as low as G cents, while men get, on the average, about 34 cents. Cotton wea @rs recelve about the same and silk weav- Oré & cent or two more. The seat of the silk Industry is here in Xyoto, but there is an Immense deal of #ilk made In Osaka, and that place has more textile workers than anywhere else In Japan. Coming to it is like approaching Piitsburg or Chicago. You see the smoke polluting the alr; there are hundreds of #tacks rising above the low black houses the surroundings are those of the new . The oity now has more than 1,000,000 people, and its population is largely com- Posed of those who work in the faotories of varlous kinds. There are long lines of 10w houses, the homes of the workmen and life seems hard. In Osaka some of the factorles work thelr hands six days of the wepk. Others work seven, and In the textile trades the hours are ten every day. There is con- \siderable ehild labor, but not so much as is generally supposed. In all Japan only elght hands out of 100 are under 14 and of those tour-fifths are girls. In the house industry the proportion of children is much larger. Fully & per cent of the factory employes are women and only 35 per cent Meh. An Incresse goes on from year to year in the number of women laborers, and more than thelr share of the work of the country. This is s0 notwithstanding their wages are often only P before me'a table of wages which been made. It has been gotten at from the cohild employers of wnd Kyoto and it may be relled corvect. It showe the increase in the last three years, and the week of nine hours each. They recelved only 12 cents ten years ago and 10 cents in 184, Bewing machine operators are now getting 27 cents per day for thelr work. They were pald 20 cents three years ago, and only 15 cents in 18%. As to tallors, thoy now recetve from 35 to 4 cents a day and are gotting about three times as much a8 they dld ten years ago. They have some glass factorfes here. The blowers, who are especially high-priced men, are getting 51 cents, and they havé only two rest days during the month. Some of the wages are as low as 2% cents and a few are paid as much as $1, but this is only for extra time or night work. Clgarette makers, working nine hours, get from 123 to 65 cents per day, and the girls In the trade receive from b to 25 cents per day. They have 2 per cent extra for night work ana double wages on national holl- days, They have one hour off during the day, ous this does not affect the nine hours of actual work. PP ey ‘Wages of Steel Workers. I wonder how our iron and steel men would like to labor at the wages paid here. Take the Bessemer furnace em- ployes. The blowers get less than 33 cents & day on the average, and their day Is twelve hours long, with one or two hours' rest, which, as is the custom here, comes on in sections. They have thirty minutes —_— e Bunday, the work goes on. This Is the custom In many factories. As to other {ronworkers, the bar-iron heaters get 32 cents, rollers of steel rails 32 cents and iron men 674 cents. With some of these workmen a bonus equivalent to about ten days' wages ls Clstributed twice a year. —— What Mechanies Get. about as good Japanese mechanics are workmen as you will find anywhere. Every c(pmmon carpenter is a -cabinet maker, and many of the stonecutters would pass as sculptors. The painters have some artistic ability, and ordinary masons lay walls which would be a surprise to our peoplo of that trade in the United States. 1 have been doing some building at my country home in the Virginia mountains and my contractor's account of the wages pald les before me. They are lower than those of our clities, but still high enough. The carpenters are receiving from $2 to $3 per day, and my plasterers are pald $, while the plumbers get $3. Here in Jupan the master carpenters receive 6 cents a day, and the best men under him 40 and 5 cents. This is for nine or ten’ hours' work. These carpenters are fully the equal of any we have at home, They do the work in just the opposite ways from ours. They pull the plane toward them Instead of grooves. Bricklayers, equal to those who receive as much as 8 a day In the United States, are gotting 46 cents for nine hours' work here, and this Is 10 per cent more than they got In 1906. Brick masons get 32 cents a day, stone cutters 42 and plumbers 3, and that without helpers. Indeed, even an ordinary ‘man can afford a plumber in Ja- pan. X - Other Low Wages, Our printers will be Interested in what the compositors receve, There are’ now dailies in all the towns of any size, and Osaka has several journals, each of which has several hundred thousand circulation. The day's work begins at § a. m. and ends at 6 p. m. The wage scale is from 8 to 6 oents, the average being about 45 cents. Coal miners get from 28 to 41 cents, blacksmiths, 28 cents; iron molders, 2§ cents, and machinists almost $1. 1In the shoe factories, from 4 to 50 cents is paid, all the work being done by hand, thers belng no factories, such as we have, In Japan. Ordinary laborers recelve from % to cents a day when employed by the muni- cipality, and farm hands get from 10 to M cents for ten hours' work, according as they are women or men. Think of wading through the mud of & rice fleld, women’s work in Japan. Among the poor- est pald are the cart men, who drag loads over the country for a few cents per day. i What the Government Pays. Our government pays big wages to all its mechanics, and as a rule the eight- hour law holds everywhere. The Japanese government has more factories than Uncle Sam and its hours are much longer. There are altogther 1,000 government factories, covering a great varlety of industries. In the government printing office the wages are 12% cents a day for women and from 16 to 2 cents for men; in the mint men recelve 2 cents and iIn the paper factory about 20 cents. In the tohacco factories which the gov- ernment runs as a monopoly, there are over 22,00 hands, and they get from 9 to 18 cents a day. The lower wages are recelved by the women. The government has woolen mills, can- non factorles and military clothing estabe lishments where proporticnately low wages are pald. In the woolen factory at Senju, for instance, girls are pald 11 cents and men on the average about 18. In the government shipbullding yards the pay from 12 to 21 cents and In the arsenals of Toklo and Osaka, which alto- gether have about 150,000 hands, the wages are from 1 to 8 cents an hour. CARTMEN ARE AMONG In the steel works at Kure and In the naval arsenal at Basebo there are tens of ‘thousands of men employed who get on the average less than 30 cents a day, and this is for high-class labor. In those yards all kinds of fine steel work is done, includ- ing the making of armor plate for gun- boats and the bullding of big ships Similar wages Are paid In the govern- ment rallway works scattered here and there over Japan. In the whole thousand factorfes there is only one where the aver- age wages of the men are over 8 cents a day, and only three where they are over % cents. Of the 20,00 men and women working in these factories the average wage of the man is less than 2 cents and that of the women less than 12 cents per day of nine or ten hours. Offices Big, Salaries Small. The same policy of small wages prevails throughout the government. The emperor himself has a civil list of about $1,500,000 a year, and he has refused to accept more on account of the hard times, although the people have requested him to do so. His cabinet ministers are pald much less Jules Lumbard, Sweet Singer, and His Services to His Fellow Men ULES LUMBARD was so long a famillar figure in Omaha that it seems strange to refer to him as living in Chicago, but there he has made his home for ¥ the last three or four yars, and there he 1s now, quietly passing the last days of his life. It is not likely that his massive form will ever tower over the other singers in choir or concert, or that he will ever again shake back his leonine mane and lift his tremendous voice in a Joyous outburst of melody. We have heard him sing “Are Ye Sleepin’, Maggte?" or “The Low Backed Car' for the last time probably. He is suffering from the effects of & paralytic stroks of a peculiar nature, and the Chicago physicians, while they do not say that it will be immediately fatal, hold out no hope for the recovery of the great singer. Jules Lumbard's death will be sincerely mourned by hundreds of men and women throughout the entire country, but by none more sincerely than those Wwho knew him In Omaha, and that practi- cally means every man, woman and child in the community. For almost twenty years he gave his life to this city. He sang in choirs and at concerts, in homes and at convivial gatherings, and was always a welcome guest wherever he visited. Here his last active work was done; here he buried his beloved wife, and here he spent what he sald were the happlest years of his life, as well as those of his greatest grief after the death of the woman he loved so well. The ones who knew him best know how sincere that griet was, for they knew of the gulet hours he spent be- #ide her grave, a vigil of love and devo- tion. The great heart was fondly true to the very end. Jules G. Lumbard was born at Honeoye Falls, Monroe county, New York, April 18, 183l. When he was § years old he left the parental roof and went to live with a married sister at Seneca Falls. Later they went to Jackson, Mich., when that city was the western terminus of the rallroads In these parts. Later still, with his father and family he lived in Green Omks, Mich., and when still very young began work as a printer's devil in the composing room of tho Ashtabula Citizen of Astabula, O, then edited by Joshua R. Glddings, a noted abolitionist. In 1847 a telegraph line was bullt between Buffalo and Detroit and the Astabula office was In the same bullding where young Lumbard was working. He became a friend of the operator in charge and almost without effort learned to be an expert telegraph operator. Having earned but §170 in the printing office in three years' time and being then $20 in debt, Lumbard forsook the composing stick for the tele- graph key and became well known In the east as one of the best manipulators of the Morse instrument anywhere. He was fin- ally assigned to an important relaying station at Tuscumbla, Ala., where he re- mained for several years, meeting his wife, Miss Mary Elliott, the daughter of a landed southern family. Climatic conditions and impalred health caused Mr. Lumbard to leave the south and he went to Chicago and studled law, being admitted to the bar in 184, becoming & member of the firm of Farnsworth & Burgess. As an attorney the young practitioner met with success, not only with this firm, but with another which had as a partner the man who became Governor Beveridge of Illinols. In the midst of this prosperity Mr. Lumbard married his southern sweet- beart and brought her north to a tranquil home, as he supposed. The war and the troubulous events leading to it interferred with the contentful routine, however, and it was about this time that the self-made lawyer became famous—not through his skill in legal tools, Lut by his natural gift, singing. He sold his law library when the war broke out, and made arrangements to fight for the union as adjutant in the Bighth Illinols cavalry, which Colonel Farnsworth commanded. In this he was deterred by his wife, whose people were fighting on the other side. “It was elther not to enlist or to break her heart,” sald Mr. Lumbard, “and 1 decided that I would net do the latter. But I determined JULES LUMBARD., that I T could not be In the ranks, I could send other men there.' Jules Lumbard and his brother Frank sang patriotic desire Into the hearts of thousands of thelr countrymen. A writer on the Chicago Record-Herald in 13% said: “It Is estimated that the Lumbards won 2,000 soldlers for President Lincoln during the war by continuous good eervice of song. Tt will be as & singer that the name of Jules Lumbard will b> longest remem- bered. Hundreds of thousands heard his tremendous basso-profundo in churches, recrulting stations, trenches, on battle- flelds, theaters, concert halls and at re- unions, conventions and all kinds of gath- erings. Musical critics found it commend- able; others discovered it to be soul stirrin One of the proudest eplsodes of the singer's life and one upon which he liked to re- flect was when he sang Dr. George F. Root's famous “Battle Cry of Freedom,” before & Chicago audience of 5000, just after the composer had finished the im- mortal stonzas and set them to music. Lumbard had become intimafe with Dr. Root through thelr love for music. Sald a reminiscent Chicagoan some years ago: “It was Jules Lumbard who gave the first rendering of ‘The Battle Cry of Froedom.! The cocasion was & momorable one. Recrulting tents were pitched In a public square and & great throng gathered 1o hear the song. I imagine I can still see the scene as I look down the strest. The tune and the words were such that the people knew them after they were repcated twice. Jules stood on the court house steps and his powerful volce Arowned every other sound. Then the crowds took up the refraln and the chorus. The recrulting tents did a thriving business a few minutes later. Regiments were organized and the war feeling ran high. “Upon several occasions Jules went to the front among the soldiers and sang the hymns which live on, although the soldlers dle and are forgotten. In these hustling times we do not stop to think of the many foot-sore, weary soldiers who imbibed new life from Jules’ songs and the memory of them. He became known throughout the whole army, making new friends and al- ways ‘willing to start anew the patriotic tervor with ‘The Battle Cry of Freedom' or other national songs. I always regarded the two Lumbards thereafter as the fore- most exponents of our national battle songs. Bald Congressman Johm F. Lacey of Iowa In a Memorial day address in Des Molnes in 1597: “It was on the road from Bull Run to Appomattox in 1868, away down at Vicks- burg, one of the great way stations on that journey, that on one occasion we had & striking illustration of the bharmony pro- duced by the concourse of awset sounds. Jules and Frank Lumbard of Chicago visited some friends in the trenches. Slow firing was going on here and there along the lines and the scream of shell and whistle of minie ball kept eveiyone in a state of eager attention. Some of the Lumbards' friends asked them to sing, and thelr clear volces rang out amid the roar of the guns. As they sang the firlng slack- ened and nearly ceased, when a confederate called out from the rifle pits, ‘Hello, Yanks, isn‘t that Jules and Frank Lumbard singing there? “The response’ was, is the Lumbard boy ‘Hello, Johnny. It ; keep still and you can hear them better” And so the firing ceased and the Lumbards sang songs of love and war, songs that pleased the hearts beneath both blue and gray, and then they sang ‘Home, Sweet Home,' and many & rough sleeve in either trench wiped away a tear, as the distant homes in the city and farms of the morth and planta- tions of the south were brought back In loving memory by the cadences of the song we loved so well. But the music ceased and a shot rang out and the con- cert was ever and grim war resumed its sway.” SBuch was the way In which Jules Lum- bard served his country. It might be added that when Abraham Lincoln told the peo- ple of Illinois why he wished to be presi- dent, the Lumbard brothers accompanied him on the speechmaking campalgn, lend- ing melody to the meetings. They were personal friends of the great war presi- dent. But this singing propensity of Jules Lumbard lasted all his life. It made a way for his sunny nature and generous heart everywhere and he was welcomed in more citles and in more homes than is the good fortune of even the greatest of public men. “Music,” he sald once, “is like flowera. It was meant to be given away. God gave me the gift and I do not flatter myself with the thought that I possess it. I be- #an studying music when I drove the cows home; I used to practice the scales when I fed the chickens, and I used to walk three miles bare-footed to singing school. 1 knew do, re, ma, fa, sol, la, s, do, be- fore 1 did my letters and I have been sing- ing ever since.” He came from French stock ‘and his father followed the sea and all the family —long since dead—loved song. Touchlng tributes to the power of this great old singer were constantly reaching him. Bome letters thanked him for rellet in bours of sorrow, others for courage In moments of timidity and despair—all penned from the heart and all sincere. “You are always doing more for others than you are for yourself,” wrote Philllp D. Armour in 1895 in a characteristic let- ter, “and it 1 ever wanted you to do anything in particular I should not hesl- tate one particle to tell you so, as I know it would give you as great pleasure to do anything as it would for me to have it done. And while I like to hear you sing (and I think you sing better than any man I ever heard), I wouldn't listen a minute to your traveling back and for- ward from Omaha. You and I have got too old to do that or to think of doing it. You have a delightful way of making people like you; in fact, I never saw any- body in my life, man or woman, that didn’t like you, and all the“feturn I ever want for anything I may do for you ls just the privilege of liking you. I have never done anything for you, but if you ever get In the police court 1 hope you know where my latchstring ls.” In March, 194, Jules Lumbard said: “I made the mistake of my life when I got rich. After I bhad ceased slnging in the war I went into the Pennsylvania ofl flelds and made a fortune of 300,00 all in three months. Then I took my wite and we went to New York to spend it. Two or three years did the business. The money was spent neither ju dissipation nor speculation, but as vou would lose water carrying It scross the street in & sieve. The experience left me with the habits of o prince and the means of & pauper.” Of this excursion in the land of plenty, Mre. Blia W. Peattle wrote a good many years agp: “Up to this time life had been a serious matter with him. His nose had been kept to the grindstone. He considered that now he was entitled to a little amune- ment. Perhaps It was wrong, but at any rate that was his view of the case. He took his wife to New York. They lived at the most fashionable hotels. His voice charmed everyone. His heartiness and his wife's vivacity delighted the Bohemians. Thelr rooms got to be the resort of the musicians from both the thiaters and the churches. Mr. Lumbard sang in Beecher's church and Dr. Taylor's tabernacle. The organ-ltke qualities of his volce were con- sidered phenomenal. The first time he sang In New York was at some sort of a memorial meeting at Irving hall. He sang as he had been in the habit of singing and without any thought of extraordinary ef- fect. But the next morning the New York Tribune, which at that time was the public mentor In matters artistic, gave two col- umns of discriminating and critical praise to his work, saying that he compared favorably with LaBlanche, the great French basso, and that his volce promised to be the leading one in oratorio in the country. In these days Mr. Lambard indulged him- self In the luxury of “glving away music.’ Mr. Beecher once sald in his pulpit that Mr. Lumbard had done more singing for charitable purposes than any other singer in New York or Brooklyn.” ‘When his money was gone Mr. Lumbard signed a two-year concert tour contract with Major Pond—this upon the recom- mendation of Dr. Beecher. Helping others had in the end made it necessary for Mr. Lumbard to help himself. The tour was a dismal fallure to Lumbard, so far as his personal happiness’ was concerned, but successtul otherwise. When his agreement was filled he resumed the practice of law in New York and continued until he was offered a place as general traveling agent for the Pennsylvania lines. This he ac- cepted In 1878, and his services were emi- nently satisfactory. On July 2, 1888, he was appointed general agent at Omah: with jurlsdiction over an immense terri- tory. He held the place until he was 70 years 0ld, when he was retired under the pension system of the Pennsylvania road, being left independent and with a compe- tence, although not in munificent clroum- stances. Bome years ago his wife died, and, being childless and without much to do, he declded to resume the practice of law. He was admitted to practice in the supreme court in February, 100, and soon after removed to Chicago. Hale and hearty in his last years, his spirit and his nature as gently robust and as sweetly hopeful as in the days of his youth and wealth and vigor, the tone of the man— outwardly a large commanding presence, with long, white halr, cut even at the collar, and a ruddy face, lighted by kindly eyes and mascullned by a heavy white mustache—is struck in the follow- ing words which he penned in & letter of condolence: “The darkness of the present skies should be lightened by reflecting that the hereafter will reunite us all in absolute and indissolute bonds, and that all the partings of the grave are necessary to the meetings planned beyond. The funeral dirge is but the anthem to the anthems of trilumph and rejolcing of heaven's morning to the soul. It had to be in his career; it has to be In yours and mine—small dif- ference In language and in faot.” A Fixed Income. A southern congressman who formerly practiced law in Mississippi tells of an amusing case he once tried In that state. He was then a student in the office of his uncle, a Colonel Martin, who figured in local politics. The main figure In the trial was a lazy darky named Dick Sutton, arrested at the {pstance of his wife, who alleged that he contributed nothing to her support and re- fused to work. During the examination of Sutton the young lawyer asked “Dick, have you any fixed fncome?" Button was puzzied by the term. Coun- sel explained that the expression meant a certainty, money paid not for odd jobs, but for steady employment; in other words, a compensation at stated intervals on which one could absolutely rely. Upon the conclusion of covnsel's remarka the durky's foce brightened. “I think I has a fixed income, sah,” he sald. “And what is this fixed income?”’ w; the next question. ‘“Well, sah,”" answered Dick, with a broad srin in the direction of Colonel Martin, “de colonel dere allers give me fo' dollars an' a sack o' flour on 'lection. dayl Rochester Herald, THE POOREST PAID than ours. The premier receives less than §7,000 a yeas and the minister of state, $3,00. The chief of the rallways is pald $2,600, the governor general of Formo $3,000 and the resident general at Seoul the same. The forelgn ambassadors get $2,500 a year, with from $11,000 to $16,000 for en- tertaining, and the foreign ministers less. The ordinary consul general has from $900 to $1,250 per annum and an allowance. The judges get little, their salaries rang- ing from $1,000 to $2,600 and the university professors are in the same category. The admiral of the Japanese navy and the general-in-chief of the army recelve only $3,00 a year and a rear admiral gets about $1700. A colonel in the army has less than $1,20, a major a little over $00 and a captain $421. These are far below the amounts paid In our country, where a cabinet minister gets four times as much, or $12,000, and the other salaries are pro- portionately high. It should be sald, how- ever, that many of the high officers of the government have officlal residences furnished by the emperor, with & special fund for entertaining. Cheap Livin Wages like those of the m: are only suited to life on the cheapest scale. The average Japanese working man lives on rice, fish, vegetables and tea. If he is very poor the tea Is of the cheapest quality and the rice is somewhat of a luxury, milet and other coarse grains taking its place Indeed, the finer qualities of Jap- anese rice are too costly for the poorer classes. They are exported to other coun- tries and cheaper rice is imported for home consumption. The table furniture of such a man costs almost nothing. He uses wooden chop- sticks instead of knives and forks, and a few bowls suffice for his dishes. His cooking stove s a oclay bowl, and his whole housekeeping outfit would not cost more than $10. His furniture consists of little more than straw ma‘s and ome or two Lttle tables about a foot high. The mats cover the floor, and they take the pace of a bedstead at night. Many of the people sleep in the clothes that they use in the daytime, rolling them- selves up in cotton comforters and resting their heads on hard rectangular pillows, stuffed with straw, or up'm wocd'n blocks. The latter are always used by the women, dsarrange their halr, under the neck. The hovse of the prorer working man seldom has more than three little rooms, and it may have only one or two. There are outside walls of wood, which can be #lid back during the daytime, and inner walls of sash, with paper panes, which slide back and forth. The rcof s of thateh or of tiles. There are no chimneys and no stoves. The only means of heating such a house Is by a firebox filled with charcoal or by a square ®inc oOr copper lined fireplace sunk in the middle of the floor, in which wood is burned, the smoke making its way out through the roof. Wood Is sold in Infinitesimal quantities A sma'l Japanese city will not burn as much an American village, and the average American family consumes more fuel in one week than a half dosen Jap- anese houses do in a month. It costs the Japanese mechanic com- paratively little for clothing. He dresses in cottons winter and summer, and sel- in order that they may not the pllow resting dom has underwear. His shoes are of wood or straw, and his wife's head al- ways goes bare. The clothes of the work- ing woman cost less than the ribbons of Uncle SBam's hired girls. A few dollars will buy a whole year's outfit for a man or a woman, and I venture that one could 80 to housekeeping on $% and have money to spare. Cost of New Civill tion, Some of these features are those of the ol Japan. They represent the conditions which still prevall among the masses of the empire and under which Japan is now paying its big taxes and carrying on its mighty public Improvements. At the samo time the new civilization is bringing in new wants and new customs. The blg army which went to Manchuria contained hundreds of thousands of mechanics. While abroad they were fed to some extent on forelgn food, they had forelgn shoes and clothes of forelgn cut. The: cer- acqulred tain habits which, in contrast with their simple lives were extravagant, and they brought back innovations to all parts of Japan. They want more than they had ever wanted before, and it is probable that they will demand higher wages. If such changes continue, they will gradually ask for all that the American laborer now gets, and 1t I8 a question whether their country will stand the strain At present, prices are higher than they have ever been, and the taxes are heavier, Bverything pays s duty, and tho necessi- tles of life cost more than ever before. % & bushel, wheat at Tce I8 now selling at over ¥ barley at more than 8, and about $2.50 per bushel. Chickens are sold by the kwan, which is a little more than elght pounds, as are alwo fish and meat. Chickens bring #$.2 per kwan in Kyoto, or over 15 cents a pound. Ducks sell for more, and salted trout for About the same Sugar is over ¢ cents a pound, and salt which ts a government monopoly, costs more than 1 cent per pound. Other things are proportionately high, so that, to say the least, the Japanese working man on full thme has all he can do to make both ends meet. FRANK G. CARPENTER. ———