some rooms on which the sun never shone, and others exposed to the sun all the year round.[1]
Books recommended. Murray's Handbook for Japan.—Japan in Yezo, by T. W. Blakiston.—Vol. II. of Mrs. Bishop's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan.
Yoshiwara. When Yedo suddenly rose into splendour at the beginning of the seventeenth century, people of all classes and from all parts of the country flocked thither to seek their fortune. The courtesans were not behindhand. From Kyōto, from Nara, from Fushimi, they arrived—so the native accounts inform us—in little parties of threes and fours. But a band of some twenty or thirty from the town of Moto-Yoshiwara on the Tōkaidō were either the most numerous or the most beautiful; and so the district of Yedo where they took up their abode came to be called the Yoshiwara.[2] At first there was no official supervision of these frail ladies. They were free to ply their trade wherever they chose. But in the year 1617, on the representations of a reformer named Shōji Jin-emon, the city in general was purified, and all the libertinism in it—permitted, but regulated—was banished to one special quarter near Nihom-bashi, to which the name of Yoshiwara attached itself. This segregative system, which became general and permanent, has had at least one excellent result:—the Japanese streets at night exhibit none of those scenes of brazen-faced solicitation to vice which disgrace our Western cities. Later on, in A. D. 1656, when the metropolis had grown larger and Nihom-bashi had become its centre, the authorities caused the houses in question
- ↑ A specialist in such matters calls our attention to the fact that the story has, as the common phrase is, "not a leg to stand on," for the reason that the deviation of the compass is so slight in this part of the world as to be practically insignificant even when doubled. We leave the story, however, as an instance of modern myth-making.
- ↑ The weight of authority is in favour of this account of the origin of the name. According to others, the etymology is yoshi, "a reed," and hara, "a moor," and the designation of "reedy moor" would have been given to the locality on account of its aspect before it was built over. There is another Chinese character yoshi meaning good," "lucky;" and with this the first two syllables of the name are now usually written 吉原.
