Connecticut western news., 1883-04-25
Inari's Journey
ILLUSTRATING JAPAN FOLK LORE.

The great fox-god, Inari, once deter mined that he would make a journey through the city to find out where true honesty and goodness existed. It was bad age of crime and corruption. Civil wars tore the heart of the fair island the rich plundered the poor the poor could get neither justice nor reparation i; mems minds were afame with avarice. and the sun shown upon as foul scene of depravity as it had ever seen since the fifth great Deluge. The first place that Inari visited was the counting-house of one of the great merchants of the City of Yedo. At any rate" he said. "I shall find fair dealing and honesty here, for this mans junks float on hundred waters, his word is as good as a bond, and his name is 8 by-word for upright ness and integrity"
 He took up his figure in the shape of 8 cobweb in a corner of the sample room. The tide of customers and merchants flowed in and out the money rattled Into the coffers the clerks were bnsy with pen and scroll but no one saw what lnari saw. His heart smote him to see the tricks of trade and the decep- tions practiced the chests of tea were nlied with colored leaves and dust sweep mgs; the bales of silks were weighted with false materials, and their contents dyed with false colors; lacquer and bronze manufactured in the next stre t were sold as the veritable productions of old times; the very scales used were false; the entries in the scrolls were false and the stories told to the custom CTS were false. The next day the whole city was thrown into state of conster- nation at the news that the great firm had failed, and that the head partner had gone away no one knew whither.
 The next journey of the god was to the ''yashiki. or palace of the great lord of Bizen, one of the haughtiest and proudest of the nobles of the empire. As he seated himself in the guise of fly on the top of sword-rack in the ban quoting chamber he said: "He is too great to be ambitious he is too rich to be avaricious he has too great expenses to be extravagant; he has nothing to scheme for, his fame is too bright for him to dare to sully it by dishonesty j; he is too familiar with pleasure to be vicious
 The banquet was spread, and the great lord entered in gorgeous apparel. The sweets with which the meal con- menced were served in dishes of the purest Nagasaki porcelain, the rice was in the finest of old gold lacquer, the wine-that prince of wines, the "F'lower in Full Bloom missed and bubbled in vases of the choicest Bizen ware. while the rarest of fish and fowl came up in quaint dishes brought from China. Merrily the feast proceeded, the wine cup circled necessarily, cheeks grew flushed, eyes began to sparkle, and tongues wagged fast. There was noth- ing in this with which Inari could find fault, for the Prince was wealthy, and il became his dignity to keep sumptuous table, but he was annoyed and disgustec to observe with what brutality the Prince treated his wife, poor, modest retiring creature, whose only faul seemed to be that she brooked her hus bands insoleace too meekly. If she spoke Bizen answered her roughly; i she smiled he frowned, and the poor wo mln knew not which way to look or hov to behave. When the dancing girl, were ushered in, retainer, humbly prostrating himself as he crawled along the floor, brought the Prince note Inari, who Of course could sec througl