Omaha daily bee., 1888-11-18

and / saw a statement in a newspaper las
night of a fire in the interior of Japan which
burnt 1900 houses. 1t is said that Toxic
burns down every seven years, and fires of
from one to five hundred houses are COM
mon. When a fire breaks out in one of the
interior villages of Japan, if the wind is
blowing, the town is practically gone. The
roofs are in many cases of thatch. There
are no fire departments to speak Of, outside
of the large cities, and the six little steam
engines which form Tokio's fire department,
would not weigh altogether the more than
two American steamers. The fremen of
Yokohama wear blue hats like butter bowls.
Their pants stop just above the knees, and
their blue gowns have a round white ring
on the back, inside of which is printed in
faring letters-the Yokohama fire brigade
THE HOME LIFE
of the Japanese Is such that fires can hardly
be avoided. Instead of using matches for
lighting their cigars they have little bowls
of charcoal called hibachis, and these are
kept on the floor, which is usually covered
with straw mating. The kitchen stove is
merely a stone box, and the partitions of
the houses are Of thin paper or OF
boards which will spring into flame
at a touch. There is no such thing
rs gas in the ordinary japanese house. and
the candle and the coal oil lamp are the il
Illuminating powers. The lanterns are the or
binary paper lanterns which you sec at
American lawn fetes, or square boxes of
oiled paper stretched over a wooden frame,
in which Il lamp or candle burns. The lamps
and lanterns are placed on the floor and
about them the children play and the family
sprawl. 1t is a wonder, indeed, that there
are not more fires, and when it is emembered
that there is not a chimney on any of the
houses of Japan, and that the fuel of the
country is to a large extent charcoal, the
danger from fire Is appreciated. The ordi-
nary Japanese smokes a pipe and the fact
that this pipe must be retilled about two
....N- 800. IA a. H. rn-N - 6 G--
The bowl of a Japanese pipe is not bigger
than the bottom of a thimble. 1T holds aboul
two puffs of smoke and it is usually made of
brass or metal.
THE BABIES.
But the smaller a thing is the better the
Japanese seem to like it. This may account
for their fondness for babies. The Japanese
babies seem smaller than ours and their
crack like eyes drop little tears while their
squeaky little voices cry out in the language
of Babylon which is the same the world
over.
Japan Is a country of the little. The men
here are from five feet to tive feet, SIX inches
high and the women are smaller. Notwith-
standing the fact that they raise themselves
three inches off the ground on their wooden
sandals | am continually looking down at
them, and a fair-sized American girl towers
above them like an Amazon. Japanese trees
are dwarfed, and in fact all nature seems to
be made on the six by nine plan.
EVERYTHING is SMALL.
The chickens are nearly all bantams, and
the cats with their bobtails look like kittens
compared with our American tommys, and
the horses are ponies. The houses of the
common people are but one story, and the
rooms look like children's playhouses. The
country, though as big as several states, is
full of picturesque scenery, but 1t is the
pretty rather than the grand, and you have
beautiful bits rather than sublime land.
scapes. 1t is the same with everything. If
ask for a cup of tea at a little wayside tea
house it is handed TO me in a little piece Of
shell like china, no bigger than an egg cup,
and the little Japanese beauty gets down on
her little knees when she brings it before me.
As for the Japanese meals, they are car
ried about in boxes about the size of those
which hold one hundred cigars. The farms
are small in Japan. The fields are like gar
den patches and very small garden patches
at that, and as for little babies, which are in
course of time to grow into little Japanese,
you see more of them to the square yard
here than any other place on this big round
earth. FRANK G.. CARPENTER.