The embroidery and brocade and painted silks of more modern days possess exquisite beauty. A comparatively recent invention is the birōdo-yūzen, in which ribbed velvet is used as the ground for pictures which are real works of art, the velvet being partly cut, partly dyed, partly painted. Pity only, as we could not help noticing on a recent visit to Kyōto, that the embroiderers tend more and more to drop the patterns of dragons and phenixes and flower-cars, etc., etc., which made their fame, and actually elect to work from photographs instead, thus degrading free art to the level of slavish imitation. They informed us that the globe-trotters prefer these less esthetic pieces with a real jinrikisha or a real street lamp-post to the formal, but oh! how beautiful, fancies of an earlier date. Doubtless new-comers have to be educated up to these things. However, being but a man, while some of our readers are sure to be ladies whose sharp eyes would soon detect mistakes, we must abstain from entering into any further details or disquisitions. We would only recommend all who can to visit the Kyōto embroidery and velvet-shops, and to take plenty of money in their purse. There may be two opinions about Japanese painting; there can be only one about Japanese embroidery.
Note in passing, as an instance of topsy-turvydom, that comparatively few Japanese embroiderers are women. All the best pieces are the work of men and boys.
Empress. The Salic law was only introduced into Japan with the brand-new Constitution of 1889. Before then, several empresses had sat on the throne, and one of them, the Empress Jingō—excuse the name, O English reader! it signifies "divine prowess"—ranks among the greatest heroic figures of early Japanese legend (see Article on History and Mythology. All Japanese empresses have been native-born. Doubtless the remoteness of Japan from other lands precluded the idea of foreign matrimonial alliances. The monarch's life-partner was habitually sought in the families of the native aristocracy, one consequence of which is that the Japanese Imperial Family is absolutely native and national, not
