The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-11-25

with the present, but she at once re-
moved it from her neck and fastened 1t
to her girdle in the region of the hustle.
The japanese girls meyer wear ear
rings, and their only ornaments are On
this belt. The belt is the costliest part
of the dress, and | have seen some
which l am told cost as high as 500
and upwards. The cheaper ones go as
low as few dollars, and some can be
bought which are made OF cotton OF
bright colors. and which cost only
cents.
The dress for winter is much the
same, save that the stuffs are wadded,
and that more underclnthes of the same
shape are used. Tie sleeves probably
pinch the arms a little tighte: than in
the summer. and still they have the
same bag-hke appearance. Yum
Yum's sleeves are her pockets. In
them she keeps her lunch and her
paper pocket handkerchief, and in
them, as little girl, she carries her
play things. They hang fully yard
down from the wrist, and they form one
of her most useful instrument of tllrta-
ton. She does not use the fan for
this, but she has a language of ges-
lures which will tell love story in her
waves of the hand. She uses her eyes
too, but never winks. Ire same mean
ing is conveyed by the rolling of the
eye balls, or the tWitching Of the left
corner of the mouth. She has no
language of the handkerchief. and she
does not shrug her shoulders if dis
INV
noweve~, with quite as much scorn as
her little red upper lip to the same pur-
pose. She Is above all things friendly
and good-natured, and she will giggle
and laugh at the least provocanon.
The japanese womeI-or rather the
Japanese young women have very good
forms. They are q full head shorter
than the average American woman
but they are plumper, and their non
use of stays, or corsets, seems to have
produced a better bust development.
They lean slightly to the front as they
walk, and in old age they become
stopped. believe that the women age
quicker here than with US. This is
especially so in the lower classes.
A woman married among the lower
classes in Japan is indeed a woman
spoiled as far as beauty is concerned.
According to the old japanese custom,
when a girl has arrived at old maiden
hood, when she NO longer expects a
husband, or when she has got one, she
shaves off her eyebrows an0 blacks her
teeth. This produces an effect which
it is impossible to understand without
seeing. My stomach turned sick when
the first Japanese married woman l
saw, plump rosy checked girl of about
20, open her mouth. If you will paste
strip of black court plaster over your
teeth and try to laugh, you may ap-
proach it. You cannot get the full
ugliness of the custom until you have
your eyebrows shaved. 1t seems to
take al of the life and beauty out of
the face, and to turn it into thing of
loathing. The teeth look as though
covered with black varnish, and l am
told that the preparation for coloring
them is made of mixture of iron and
vinegar. This custom prevails
throughout the interior of Japan. In
the cities it is falling into disfavor, and
the court ladies and those of the better
classes at Toxic have entirely given it
up. 1t is very old custom, and its
origin is ascribed to different reasons.
One reason is that woman upon her
marriage shows by this that she has
devoted herself entirely to her hus-
band, and has rendered it impossible
for her to be tempted by making her
self unattractive. The fact that she
must also become disgusting to her
husband does not seem to have en-
tered into the calculation.