Furthermore, freedom and ease of travel, and liberty to change one’s residence at will, and thus the ability to escape unpleasant restraints, have not a little to do with this collapse in morality.  Tens of thousands of students in the higher schools are away from their homes and are entirely without the steadying support that home gives.  Then, too, there is a wealth among the common people that was, never known in earlier times.  Formerly the possession of means was limited to a relatively small number of families.  To-day we see general prosperity, and a consequent tendency to luxury that was unknown in any former period.

To be specific, let us note that in feudal times there were some 270 daimyo living in the utmost luxury.  About 1,500,000 samurai were dependent on them as retainers, while 30,000,000 people supported these sons of luxury.  In 1863 the farmers of Japan raised 30,000,000 koku of rice, and paid 22,000,000 of it to the government as taxes.  Taxed at the same rate to-day the farmers would have to pay 280,000,000 yen, whereas the actual payment made by them is only 38,000,000 yen.  “The farmer’s manner of life has radically changed.  He is now prosperous and comfortable, wearing silk where formerly he could scarcely afford cotton, and eating rice almost daily, whereas formerly he scarcely knew its taste."[BS]

It is stated by the Japan Mail that whereas but “one person out of ten was able thirty years ago to afford rice, the nine being content to live from year’s end to year’s end on barley alone or barley mixed with a modicum of rice, six persons to-day out of ten count it a hardship if they cannot sit down to a square meal of rice daily....  Rice is no longer a luxury to the mass of the people, but has become a necessity.”

Financially, then, the farming and middle classes are incomparably better off to-day than in olden times.  The amount of ready money which a man can earn has not a little to do with his morality.  If his uprightness depends entirely or chiefly on his lack of opportunity to do wrong, he will be a moral man so long as he is desperately poor or under strict control.  But give him the chance to earn ready cash, together with the freedom to live where he chooses, and to spend his income as he pleases, and he is sure to develop various forms of immorality.

I have made a large number of inquiries in regard to the increase or decrease of concubinage during the present era.  Statistics on this subject are not to be had, for concubines are not registered as such nor yet as wives.  If a concubine lives in the home of the man, she is registered as a domestic, and her children should be registered as hers, although I am told that they are very often illegally registered as his.  If she lives in her own home, the concubine still retains the name and registry of her own parents.  The government takes no notice of concubinage, and publishes no statistics in regard to it.  The