The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-11-06
Business Houses Even Have Lit
tie Plats Of Green.
MANUFACTURE OF BRONZE WARE
Some Curios Customs - Bars to
Keep Out Foxes Low Tenn
perature at Night.
Especial Correspondence.

Especial Correspondence.
EDITOR P. c. A.:
It rained all day long while were
travelling from Myanoshito to Kyoto
and as we ratified through the streets
after leaving the station, the jinriki-
sha men splashed through torrents OF
water pouring down the hard gravelled
pavement, the usual cutters being toe
small to discharge the large amount
Of rain water that had fallen. We
hear of great damage done by the
floods, bridges swept away and tun-
nels caved in. Ours was the last train
to come through and it will take many
days to put the road in order.
But the morning after our arrival
was as bright as CHEEKY as any of our
Indian Summer days in New England.
The air was crisp, the atmosphere
clear, and the thermometer stood at
81 deg. in the early morning, getting
up into the seventies before noon. The
general impression made by Kyoto is
that of the cleanest, and most home
like city in Japan. The barred frames
that are supposed to keep out the
foxes" very much feared in Japan, are
of a reddish brown, not the funereal
black. we have seen elsewhere.
Ghmpses within the open gates show
miniature gardens with rock work
stone lantern and all the other con-
ventionalities of Japanese home life.
Large wholesale warehouses and man
ufactory establishments are hardly
distinguishable from ordinary dwell
ings Indeed, such as we have visited
have their inner gardens in conven-
tional style as if they were the resi-
dences Of the proprietors. We have
seen some marvellous manufactors,
and mandatory they are with none
of the wonderful adaptations of mo-
dern machinery. None the less mar
Yelous are they in the products that
come from the hands of the deft work.
men with the simplest rudest kind of
tools. The combination of different
metals, silver, gold, iron, brass is one
of the triumphs of Japanese artisan
ship. We saw mere boys and girls
hammering gold iron wire on to rough
ened iron, and producing landscapes
and flower pieces with the minutest
lengths Of finest wire and smallest of
hammers and chisels, all by the eye
alone, without a pattern to guide, but
working out some design of their own
originating. Then clOisonnee work was
shown us, the men with steel chop
sticks and small brushes laying On the
others that on the finished work would
be clusters of wisteria blossoms on a
back ground of lOvelieSt of hues And
the pottery work, which with thumb
and finger. the workman squatting on
his heels, turned off in such shapes of
beauty from the wheel which an old
woman in another corner of the floor
was whirling as she turned the bamboo
in her hand round and round on a
horizontal wheel. And the embroidery
and brocade; it is of no use to recount
the many patterns and colors as yard
after yard was shown us from the
piled-up shelves around the room, the
time and patience that many fingers
for many years must have taken to
achieve such an amount of work-for
what? for the admiration of an idle
moment and then to be set aside. to
gather the dust of ages in the treasure
house of priest and noble, thence to be
tumbled and tossed in the hands of
hucksters, chaffering for the best bar
gain they could get from the foreign
curio hunter.
y>1o 60 ol ted ,o
spent s23, 900 for articles bought There
we saw one of the famous pair of
screens that were made for the Chicago
Exposition, worth $4,000 each. having
taken five years to manufacture. A
pair of vases was being made to the
order of the Emperor for $500, of ex-
quisite design and workmanship. Then
from these modern marods of high art
ia Japan, we stepped into the stores
where they had old bronzes and uten-
sis to sell, and again the incongruity
that strikes one so much and so often
in Japan was obvious in the hideous
and ugly shapes that are to be found
In close juxta position with forms of
elegance and delicacy. 1t is the old
story of human nature in object les
sons of impressive startlingness, in
scope how like an angel. in its condi-
ton how like the wriggling creatures
of the slums.
We have watched the varying as
poets of human life and toll, as we
have whirled along the streets densely
filed with a moving mass of sombre
clothed humanity. We have wondered
why and how these myriads have life
and sustenance. AS we have looked
into the faces of the women. many of
them with blackened teeth, giving
their open mouths a toothless cavern
GUS appearance; as we have seen the
babes. tied on the shoulders of chill
dren not much older than themselves,
and their heads bobbing as If their
necks must break in the helplessness
of sleep: as we think of 40,0O0,OOO of
such fellow creatures, we are reminded
of pictures that impressed our child
hoods thoughts Of a negro slave with