The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-05-23
ENVI0US OF OUR GIRLS.
Some of the Things the Women Put
Up With In Japan.

During my recent visit to Japan,
says Henry T. Finck. several girls
told me how glad they would be il
they had the opportunity and means
to go to America They had probably
heard of the United States as being
the paradise of women, and felt that
Japan was not exactly an earthly
Eden for them.
Americans call pretty girls angels,
and adore them as goddesses. The
japanese, on the contrary, compare
men with heaven and women with
earth. Probably no foreigner
knows the Japanese rs thoroughly
as Basil Hall Chamberlain, who has
been professor of philology at the uni
versity of Toxic. Most japanese
men, he says, ''even in the very year
of grace 1890. make no secret of their
disdain for the female sex. The way
in which they are treated by the men
has hitherto been such as might aus
a pang to any generous European
heart
This contempt for women is shown
in the minutest details of life. as for
example in mourning etiquette, which
prescribes that animal food should be
abstained from and mourning gar
ments worn for $50 days in case of a
paternal grandfather; but only ninety
days in case of a maternal grandfather;
ninety days for a paternal uncle, but
only thirty days for n on the ma
ternal side, etc.
According to the sGreater Learning
for Women" there are five feminine
vices which four women of every five
possess-disobedience, malice, SANDER.
jealousy and stupidity-whence arises
their inferiority to man. Even wo-
mans four possible virtues are such
as chiefly benefit man -S~entleness.
obedience, mercy and quietness.
A japanese Buddhist text says that
"a woman's exterior is that of a saint,
but her heart is that of a demon.n
Every tourist who has visited Japan
will agree as to the malicious f~alseness
of these ungallant remarks on the
gentle, courteous, sweet and graceful
little women of the island empire.
1t is not easy to observe these
women in their homes, because it is
not the custom among the Japanese
to invite friends, least of all foreigners,
to their houses to dinner, tea-houses
being always chosen for such a pur-
pose; but in these tea-houses tourists
have opportunities abundant to dis
cover and resent the untruthfulness of
the charge that these low and aggra-
waiting girls have had no proper edu-
cation; they are stupid, obsti,\te and
vulgar IN their speech which is
brought against the poor handmade
ems, whom he, on the contrary, always
finds ready to serve him, yer smiling,
and even willing to fan him on a
sultry summer afternoon.
Who Says A Woman Can't Keep Quiet?
A Chinese wedding party in Canton
recently lost one of the most import
ant items in the wedding ceremony
the bride. says the North China
Herald. The little lady had been car
ried to her bridegroom's home, hidden
in the customary embroidered red
satin chair decorated with flowers,
and put down at the door to await the
duspicious moment for crossing the
threshold. Her escort had come a
long way and was weary, so they re-
tired into a neighboring opium den
and went TO sleep.
They awoke late in the evening,
rushed to the door, and, concluding
the bride had left, carried the empty
chair back to its loft. Soon after the
bridegroom and his family dressed in
their best, lighted the candles and
their incense sticks, laid out rice and
the orthodox viands, and opened the
door. No sign of either chair or
bride.
They Immediately decided that she
had been carried off by brigands, and
alarmed the whole district, the search
going on fruitlessly. At last the dis
tracted bridegroom woke up the chair
bearers, and they, struck by a sudden
idea, ran off to the loft.
They opened the chair, and there
sat the poor little bride stiff. frighten-
ed and hungry. She had felt that she
was being carried off, but dared not
cry out, as no well-bred bride ought
TO open her lips till after the marriage
ceremony. Hence all the trouble.