JAPAN
rangement so violent as to expose the foot or the ankle would have been a solecism. On the other hand, some incidents that are shrouded in careful secrecy by Occidental peoples have always been treated with unaffected frankness by the Japanese, and it has never appeared to them more immodest that folks should take off their clothes in each other's presence for the purpose of bathing than that a labourer at work should divest himself of garments which hamper the exercise of his muscles. The intention is everything. If a woman bares her arms and strips herself to her shoulders for the sake of looking attractive in society, she disturbs Japanese notions of propriety much more than a woman that bathes in the presence of others where the alternative is to go without a bath. It should be understood that all families of the better classes had bath-rooms in their own houses, and that in these places anything like commingling of the sexes was carefully avoided. But the small tradesman, the artisan, and the labourer were obliged to frequent the public bath-house, and there no sufficient arrangements existed for separating the sexes until Iyenari's regulations went into force. Another abuse connected with Yedo bath-houses in Tokugawa days was that their upper storeys were converted into a species of café, where girls of doubtful character waited on the guests. The third Shōgun, Iyemitsu (1652), sought to correct that immorality by limiting the number of
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