The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-21
Picturesque Peddldrs Notable Feature
 Of Japan

Here anu tHere, sOlHetiHeS IHCOu- gruously intermixed with symptoms of westernism, sometimes discoverable in remote towns and villages, the charac- teristics of the old, the romantic, the picturesque Japan remain to attract and to enthrall the foreigner.
 Neither fire nor earthquake has cx- pelled the little tradesmen from the streets of Tokio, says Tokio letter in the New York Times. They hawk their wares from house to house, from hut to hut-visiting the wigwans and the almost cocoon-like dwellings in the parks and open spaces-with as keen an assiduity as lately they hurried here and there through crowded highways loud with traffic, or sheltered pas sages where housewives--kimonos tucked up and heads bound in white erchiefs-exchanged the gossip of the day.
 For all that they are printed in strange, fantastic characters, the news papers have given their tinge of color to mingle with others that spread of veneer of the west over the far east but when Japan sells its newspapers, then the thinness of the veneer be- comes at once apparent, for here we have no roaring boys hurling their bodies through traffic-crowded streets and bawling the latest tidings into the startled air.
 A special edition of an evening pa per is here q ''gogai," and the coolie who sells it on the streets may be IS or so years old, but his procedure is ever the same. He lopes along with his specials (the size of half sheet of note paper). and for the piercing yell of the London newsboy he substi- tutes the ringing of a tiny handbell. And even though there are many bells rung through every hour in every Japa- nese city, none can be mistaken for that of the gogaiman.
 The Wandering Pipe Cleaner
 Walking in the old days, in any of the streets between Shiba Park and the Imperial hotel in Tokio. one heard, sooner or later, a piercing and con tinuous whistle. It might have been q gigantic insect that made the sound, some vast mosquito clamorous for prey, or one might have thought that far away the siren of factory called back the tagging hands from dinner. But mosquitoes--even the biggest have to pause for breath and factory sirens are amenable to discipline.
 "No hawkers, no circulars" would mean even less in Tokio than in Lon don, and street cries prohibited" less still-if possible. No watch committee or other vexatious body need ever hope to control the whistle of the wandering pipe-cleaner of Japan. By street and lane and alley he trundles his barrow and wherever he goes there is that whistle of his piercing with the fine ness and precision of gimlet the ear. drums of the stranger within the gates. It is thin sort of sound, but very pen etrating. The pipe cleaners equip ment consists of sundry wires and brushes, q scraper or two and cop per pot of water kept at boiling pitch by tiny spirit stove. The super heated steam from the pot streams off through brass pipe, fashioned like reed, and wherever men smoke pipes in Japan there are the white feather of steam and the shrill whistle of the pipe cleaner @
 Druggist And Noodle Man
 The vendor of medicines and drugs goes ambling through the streets with a pole across his shoulders, wherefrom at either end is slung wooden chest of herbs and charms and plasters. On either chest is fastened a clapper of painted iron, and as the medicine man moves with that slow, swinging gait which is characteristic of every man, woman and child who carries anything in such fashion in the far east, so the twin clappers beat out a tattoo in per feet time with every stride. The sound is harsh and metallic and disciplined, different enough from the wistful air of the noodle mans bugle.
 The noodle man must have been an artist long before he ever thought of selling anything. He wanders through the alleys and the side streets where Nthe number folk dwell, blowing from hls bugle of brass and copper little air of four notes. At night the noodle man no longer is himself and the tune that comes now here. now there marks stations won and passed in some an- tique and spiritual pilgrimage. One listens and the tune becomes less and less an air blown from fleshy bugle by human lips with mortal breath: it is itself living, wandering thing. Lis ten again. and from under the long shadows below the wide caves rikisha. with painted paper lantern, darts out into the moon soaked wilderness of the street and into the deeper shadows be- yond semi whirs for an instant and is silent, a gong thrills in the temple on the hill and then afar the tiny tune comes Altering down anew, comes breaking through the gloom from here, from there, like thin flame that flickers and dies out and lives again and passes on and still faintly on into the da arkueSs which is tomornou,