The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-09-01

shops, young men with simple appli-
ances, working in the dust of the
roadway, jostled by 'ricksha men and
ball-throwing youngsters, reel off silk
into skeins or quickly twist it, in q
sort of wayside ropewalk, into varie-
gated silken cords.
Perhaps the most interesting of all
are the women in small, open rooms
who sit all day at primitive frames
throwing by hand the shuttles in and
out that weave the web of silk or cot
ton. 1t is a pretty and poetical way
of achieving the fabric we are to wear.
I can but contrast the lives of these
quiet workers in their open doorways,
under the blue of heaven, their eyes
sometimes wandering away with pleas
ure to the shifting street panorama
before them, with those of the thrice
wretched seamstresses, factory hands
and sweat-shop women in our own
cities. It is small misfortune to be
bare-limbed, perchance; to wear cheap
cotton, to eat only rice, in a land
where the fashion for all, even the
well-to-do, is not widely different. I
have seen the weary and old counten-
ances of little children and the hard
ones of young girls, thronging out of
our mills and manufactures, but these
better faces of the Japanese women at
their hand looms are less hopeless.
And I would that this callous, hurried
scrambling world had time to weave
it's textiles all in the old way of those
early ages when SO much sorrow was
not.
There seems nothing grim, over
severe or crushing about japanese
labor. 1t is essentially sociable and
cheerful. Every third shop is place
of eatables, where hot sweet potatoes,
rice coated with delicate seaweed, hot
fish or shrimp fritters dipped in soy,
rolls of fish wrapped around bean and
sugar paste, buckwheat macaroni with
soy, tasty morsels broiled on skewers,
sugared beans and roasted nuts,
parched or popped rice kernels, rice
waters and cakes Drowned over the
fire land If still pale, painted to the
right tinge with brown dyes), rice
paste or jelly, sweet millet paste candy,
popped rice candy, cups of shaved ice
and numerous other dainties and
sweetmeats, are ever at hand for the
delectation of the workers. But this
is not enough, and men with vans and
boxes of cooked food perambulate the
streets still more conveniently to re-
fresh the toiling masses. The meager
coppers so scantily earned jingle all
day right merrily into the pockets or
pouches of the caterers.
Babies are everywhere swarming
about, afoot and aback, with their
share of the good things going. No
body seems ever to startle and depreSs
them with "You mustn't do that, "
You can't have this "You mayn't
go there" Among the common peo-
pie. ut least, there is no sequestering
of women: they, too. are everywhere,
cheek by iowl, helping and doing, ap-
parently. rs freely as the men. If it
is only a wooden tub which they have
to scrub ont, girls with bare feet and
arms, elaborately dressed hair and
clean and pretty blue and white kim
onos, are apt to bring it out Oh the
sidewalk and scrub away gregariously
for the next half hour or more.
Unloading great stones from the
sampans in the canals, women work as
cheerfully, Justify and effectively as
the men. They share, seemingly on
equal terms, in the small shop keep.
ing, and help in all the labors Of the