the non-folding kind. Fans are used as bellows; they are even used as trays to hand things on. A man of the lower class will often hold a partially opened fan in front of his mouth when addressing a superior, so as to obviate the possibility of his breath defiling the superior's face; but to fan oneself vigorously in the presence of a superior is not good manners.
To attempt a description of the quaint and poetical conceits with which Japanese fan-makers adorn their wares, would be to embark on a list of almost all the art-motives of the country; for nearly all are made to contribute. The little picture is often accompanied by a verse of poetry in black or gold letters, or else there is only the poetry and no picture.
Fans have been extensively used as vehicles for advertisements; but the Japanese advertiser of the older school generally disarmed criticism by the, so to say, apologetic moderation with which he practised that most detestable of all arts or rather artifices. In these latter days, however, when Europeanisation has corrupted every-thing, one has much to suffer from while fanning oneself on a hot day. Art has surely sounded its lowest depths when it comes to pourtraying a lager-beer bottle on one side of a fan, and to providing a railway time-table on the other.
Book recommended. Fans of Japan, by Mrs. Salwey; also a paper by the same in Vol. II. of the Transactions of the Japan Society.
Fashionable Crazes. Japan stood still so long that she has now to move quickly and often, to make up for lost time. Every few years there is a new craze, over which the nation, or at least that part of the nation which resides in Tōkyō, goes wild for a season. 1873 was the rabbit year. There had been none of these little rodents in Japan. Hence, when imported as curiosities, they fetched incredible prices, as much as $1,000 being sometimes paid for a single specimen. Speculations in $400 and $500 rabbits were of daily occurrence. In the following year, 1874, the government put a capitation tax on rabbits, the price fell in consequence from dollars to cents, and the luckless rabbit-gamblers
