JAPAN
mi-ya) that he caused the floor-mats in his house to be resurfaced for each new party of guests,—which is as though a Western householder should lay fresh carpets for every entertainment,—and of another that he spent thousands of pieces of gold, in other words, thousands of pounds, on the occasion of a visit to the haunt of the Phrynes. A great Osaka merchant (Ibaraki-ya Kosai) actually built for himself a mansion in Yedo, that he might compete with these magnificent spendthrifts on their own ground; and Nakamura Kuranosuke of Kyōtō became equally famous for reckless extravagance. Umaya-gashi in the Asakusa district of Yedo was the Eldorado of the capital, and from that quarter the middle classes took their models of fashion and finery. The merchants of Umaya-gashi had an easy road to riches. Through their hands passed the rice allotted for the maintenance of the samurai; and the latter, studiously indifferent about money matters and perpetually impecunious, made im- provident drafts in advance on their incomes, and so fell an easy prey to the shrewd tradesmen. Concerning one of these Asakusa merchants, it is related that on his luncheon alone he spent as much as the total revenue of a samwrai with five hundred koku of rice (about as many pounds sterling), a sum which may not seem remarkably extravagant until one remembers that a family of the lower middle class could live comfortably at that time on an income of thirty shillings a month.
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