The Mena weekly star., 1897-01-13
JAPANESE IN NEW YORK.
They Are Becoming Prominent Factor
 in Domestic Life.


 in Domestic Life.
 The Japanese are slowly but surely coming to be factor in New York life. A short time since they were only to be found associated with few impor- tant houses, or identified with such business as dealt exclusively with Jap anese goods -callings that brought them in no very close contact with the people; now they are entering our homes as domestics, acquiring scholar ships in our colleges, finding positions as clerks in our great mercantile houses, and otherwise coming in touch with the essentials of everyday life. There are nearly 400 of these warm-skinned islanders in New York and Brooklyn. Few if any of them have been in this country over ten years. They come iE small nlimbers, but they come often. In group adyenturing together from Japan, the larger portions lay over in San Francisco or some adjacent town. but the movement in this direction con- tinues, and the newcomers speak of the growing interest which their coun- trymen feel for America and American institutions.
 Sanguine people see in this Altering emigration a way out of the complex ities of the servant problem. At the Japanese club, in Brooklyn, at the Japanese mission room, at certain un- advertised headquarters in New York, are to be seen young Japanese men reading diligently. They are only awaiting a call to enlist as buffers cooks, valets or men of all work in well-to-do families. In their own coun- try their services would only give them the equivalent of $1o month. Here they are paid from $25 to $40, and have a good and comfortable home besides Some of these candidates look forward to higher vacations in future, and ac- cept the menial position only to gain money for pursuing their studies, for many of them regard a good place in an American household as distinct ad- vantage over anything they could do at home, and these may be looked upon as permanent retainers. It is said of them that they do not like to change employers often, and that invariably they give entire satisfaction.
 As regards Japanese women, there are very few in this country, compared with the number of men. Some pros porous Japanese importers and public officials, who have established their families in New York, have brought along a serving maid or two to further the comfort of the household. A few trading houses number among the other employees one or two women, in sack-shape kinomos and quaint head dresses. Certain Japanese strays and waifs, left over from the Japanese viii lage and exhibition at the Chicago fair, have entered household service here as the only alternative to the dancing and singing that no one cares to hear. These have places in third or fourth-rate boarding houses, where their chances for advancement are slim, and their gifts as tea-makers little apt to be app preciated. Others, nursemaids and housemaids, are domiciled in the house holds of people who knew them in Japan, or of people who got their Jap anese-American friends to send them over. In days when distance is so an initiated, and people pass year or a half year in first one cline and then another, the American housewife be- comes acquainted with the excellence of all lands and gratis on her establish ment such treasures as suit her best. Of these the Japanese maid is an ex- ample.
 he Japanese woman-child draws ill obedience with her earliest breath, :" says one of these returned nomads. ''She is taught it at home, taught it in the school, taught it even in the plays that she sees in the theaters when she grows up. She is her husbands upper servant, and the servant of her mother and father. Trained from her birth to sink her own identity in the interest Of those around her, she is by nature a msrvelously comfortable serving wom- ar. My Japanese maid is methodical and painstaking, intelligent and indus trious. She never obtrudes herself, and, having few acquaintances, never wants a day off. ."-N. |. Cor. Pittsburgh Dispatch.
 A Recent Casabianca.
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