The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-31
JAPANESE WOMEN.
According to This Account They Are Not
Beautiful Creatures at All.

Beautiful Creatures at All.
| Among the numerous objections Of a
moral and physical nature to the Japanese
''Musme" is their peculiarly offensive
odor. They dress their coarse black hair
but once, or, at the very most, twice a
| week, caking it with some kind of evil smell
ing fat or pomade for the purpose of giving
the coiffure the required amount of stiff
ness and consistency, and likewise anoiut-
ing it with peculiarly pungent oil of the
castor oil species. So careful are they not
to disturb this arrangement of the hair
during the entire week that they use little
paper padded blocks of wood, which fit
just in the nape of the neck and leave the
head clear, as pillows at night. Toward
the fourth and fifth days both the pomade
and the oil acquire an exceedingly rancid
perfume in addition to their other quail
ties, and it requires nose Of altogether
oriental obtuseness of smell to remain I'M
moved thereby.
Then, too, their dress is not as clean as it
might be. True they battle great deal
can vouch for that as an eyewitness, sincs
they mostly perform their additions coram
publico-but they are not particular as to
the condition of the water, nor as to the
number of men and women who have been
parboiled therein before them, and they in
yariably put on the same old picturesque
but dirty dresses which their female an
cestors of the third and even fourth genera
ton have worn before them. These dresses
are made of such durable fabrics that they
seldom wear out, and inasmuch as they are
never laundried they may be said without
exaggeration to harbor the impurities of
almost centuries.
Women ia civilized countries are always
compared by the poets to lovely flowers,
such as the violet or the rose, whose dainty
beauty and delicate perfume they are as
serted to possess. How is it possible, then,
to believe that man accustomed to the
alteration of woman, whose entire being
suggests exquisite flowers, can form any
serious or lasting attachment for yellow
skinned girl who is redolent, not of the
rosebush, but rather of the castor oil plant?
Nor is it possible to agree with Sir Ed
ward Arnold when he describes the Japan
csc woman as graceful. Her walk, or
rather waddle, is so ridiculously awkward
and ungainly, that it would provoke
laughter were it not for a pathetic, i'm
ploring, Observation-Disclosures sort Of
look apparent in the eyes. She shuffles
along with her toes turned. not outward,
but inward, and with her "kimono''
wound so tightly around her legs that she
progresses exactly as if her knees were
bound closely together with a cord. Her
feet are very broad, very short and stumpy,
and without even any suspicion of an in
step. Indeed, a glimpse of them is suffi-
cient to dampen any enthusiasm about the
almond eyed houris to whom they belong.
Nor is there anything beautiful about
the figure of a japanese woman. AS a
general rule the trunk of her body is far
too long in proportion to the length of her
lower limbs, a radical fault per Sc. Then,
too, her shoulders are narrow and sloping,
her bust pitiable, and the whole attitude |
of her body doubled up and deficient in
grace. There are no superb figures such
as one sees among the lowest classes in
India, Egypt, Persia and Central Asia,
where the women acquire physical devel- |
opment of the most perfect kind from the |
fact of their being trained from earliest |
girlhood to walk with more or less heavy |
Jars of water balanced on their heads
The hands Of the japanese women are |
usually well cared for. plump, soft and |
pretty. The arms, however, are badly |
formed and unattractive. With regard TO |
the face, it is never beautiful or even pretty, |
while it is absolutely hideous when the |
woman happens to be married. For on the |
day of the wedding, before leaving her !
fathers house TO enter that of her husband, |
she is obliged by sumptuary law or usage, |
which has been in force for 800 years, TO |
shave off her eyebrows and TO blacken her /
teeth. The latter is done By means of /
horrible sticky mixture in which powdered /
gall nuts and iron filings form the princi- /
pal ingredients. The biackiBg has to be
applied every day; for if more than twenty
four hours is permitted to elapse without
its renewed, the color begins 20 wear away
and the teeth assume a dullish gray hue
streaked with black - Ex-Diplomat in !
(Ga.) Chronicle.