New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-09-03

"
rides on its tramways on an average In the
same year the average number of rides the
people of Toxic took was 1f3 per head The
more recent figures show that the average
number of rides per capita in Toxic amounted
to 182, which is about one-third of those of
the great cities in Europe and America. The
stay-at-home habit of the Japanese women is
the one and principal explanation of this dis
crepancy in comparative figures
But this particular condition in the life Of
Toxic is changing very fast, ike everything
else. For new army Of business and pro-
fessional women, clerks, typists, officials is
coming into being in Toxic with swiftness
that fairly takes ones breath away.
The establishment of the downtown business
section of Toxic meant the building up of her
residential sections out and away from the
noise and dust of the city, The American
ideas of garden cities and of residential
parks have been imported with great enthusi-
assn in the development of outlying districts of
Toxic by real estate promoters. MIR. Sadao
Ipohara owner of the Omori Hotel and a num-
Der of others, has taken over this summer
the extensive estate of the wealthy watch man.
+
site, overlooking the Bay of Toxic. Mr. Ino-
hara is going to erect large structure, with
no fewer than 240 apartments in it They are to
be of three to six rooms with "all modern
conveniences," in the most up-to-the- minute
American sense of the word The apartment
house is to have a roof garden with dancing
floor. Every apartment is to be fitted with
bath and kitchinette. In the basement of the
house will be installed the electric laundry and
drying ROOM
The city government of Toxic itself is to-day
building number of apartment houses to
solve the housing problem. They are fire.
proof, steel and concrete houses, three stories
high Most of them contain forty-three two
room suites. These are built with all the
conveniences familiar to the apartment dwell
ers of New York. These leading activities
are making Toxic more and more like the great
cities of Europe and America, in putting dis
lance between the places where the city people
live and where they transact their business
And the more the city develops in this drec-
ton the greater, keener and more imperative
will become the demand for rapid transit.
And then there is the rapid and tremendous
change in the position and activities of the
Japanese women. They are no longer the
''home bodies they were even decade ago.
They are going into all sorts of professions
and business with the enthusiasm which natu-
rally accompanies any discoveries of new
world.
Now, the people in New York can travel at
the rate of about four and a half to eleven
miles in thirty minutes from the residential
sections of the city to the business center. In
+l,a ia - how, ;1ac
half an hour; in Paris it is four to eight miles
in the same space of time. In Toxic as it is
to-day the theoretical speed is from three and
one-haf to four miles in half an hour. Bot
that is theoretical and beautiful only in d
poetical sense. 1t does not take into serious
consideration the crowded streets, the jinriki-
sha, the people, pullman carts and babies
which get in the way. But the motormen of
the electric tram take these things pretty seri-
ously-they have to. And clerk living on
the outer rira of the greater Tokio--that is,
ten miles from Nihonbashi--wond count him
self a darling of the gods if he could get to
his Office in two hours That is at the rate of
two and one-haf miles in thirty minutes.
Now, half an hour is considered everywhere
about the standard amount Of time wfi.ch a
working man can afford to sacrifice ar the
altar of modern city life in getting from his
fireside to his Office. And the dwelier along
the banks of the Sumida River is getting
more and more Of that same opinion. When
he is condemned 70 such a preposterous pura-
ishnaent as to waste two to three hours every
morning in getting to the place Of business
and two or three hours in getting back To-
his home, there is bcund to be some sort of
rcise that is not gentle.
And such noise has been heard IN Toxic
for many a weary year
Some years ago certain interest advocated
the construction Of elevated railways as the
satisfactory answer. People did nor take
kindly to the suggestion. The Toxic people
dislike noise and they dislike dust. In the
manufacture of these two highly unpopular
commodities the elevated railway through