The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-07-23
The Little Bridge Over the Little Ditch
Burdette in L. Angeles Tim es
E, in Los Angeles Tim es.

fashion. I DO not ike these discursiye
channels into which l am so frequently
led by your irrelevant questions. What
| saw was little irrigating ditch with
q little bridge over it.
/ Now, there was no more need for the
little bridge over the little ditch than
there was for field battery TO guard
! the little bridge after It was placed
there. For the little ditch was only
about SIX inches deep, so that II any
BODY had fallen into It, even BABY,
! which was impossible, as the japanese
/ babies are all strapped to somebody :
! hack-the victim could have gotten out
without swimming. And then the little
| ditch was only foot wide, so that only
the most expert faller could by any
means have fallen into it. 4 child could
| step across the tiny trickle. And beng
| an irrigating ditch it was not subject
10 tidal waves. And had there been
anv necessity for a bridge, any piece
of plank fourteen inches long laid down
fat would have spanned the stream.
But that would be the American way.
The japanese way, when placing
bridge when there was no need for one.
was to find two bits Of limb wood curv-
ed by their natural growth into shapely
stringers Then little lengths Of BAN
boo fastened on with weave OF split
bamboo. made the floor Of the bridge
and there YOU find it pretty little or
namentaI bridge eighteen inches long
twelve wide, eight inches above the
water at the highest point Of the arch.
Pretty as a picture and enduring as
oak, because nobody except perhaps a
child at play ever set foot upon It.
Oh. yes. some Americans did. We
walked across it and back again, for
the simple Joy Of it. And then, said
the practical member of the firm. lit
Is an axiom of business that there
should be no dead capital about the
house. Therefore. since we have the
little bridge we must use the little
bridge. Else viii it be dead capital,
impairing the working efficiency of the
plant So we walked over and back,
with very little steps.
Whereby we placed the stamp of oc-
cdental modernity upon the little
bridge and began the AUGMENTATION
of Japan at another culture point.
Now. why can't we do such things as
that-the ornamental little bridge, [
mean.
Well. we can't exactly We don t,
save in very exceptional cases. make
our bridges ornamental when we have
to build them. We build steel bridges.
And a steel bridge is about as orna-
mental as any other skeleton
One day We passed by little Japa
nese farm. And the owner in making
a gate that led into his possessions,
had found an old log, full of knots with
the soft part of the wood rotted out.
And he had trimmed it just the least
touch or so in the world, and made a
cross beam above the gate. That was
all. And we fairly chortled with ad-
miration. Isn't it perfectly artistic"
How exguisitely Japanese!' "Why
don our farmers do such things?'
Well, suppose some rancher in the
San Gabriel Valley should put up such
gate. How we would laugh at it, and
how we would deride him. "How per-
fectly horrid.' How wretchedly shift
less.' 'Couldn't that Teller git
piece Of 3x4 and plane it; an then git
pot Of paint and make a decent gate
while he's at it,' Moreover we would
say, Glow does that lunatic expect to
drive a load of alfalfa under a gate
only seven feet high?''
"Well," you say. "now does the Jap
anese farmer do ite''
Son, the japanese farmer carries his
load of hay or rice straw on his back,
or his wife's back.
You see, a three-acre farm and TO-
000-acre ranch somehow call for differ
ent kinds of gates. When our civiliza-
ton is as old as that of Japan. and we
have fve-acre ranches. and carry our
loads of hay on our shoulders, we. too.
will make ornamental little gates lead
ing to the alfalfa field