The three-storey hotel at which we stayed had been taken to pieces and transported twenty miles.  Such removal of houses to a more convenient or, in the case of an hotel, a more profitable site, is not uncommon.  I sometimes patronised at Omori a large hotel on a little hill halfway between Yokohama and Tokyo, which had formerly been the prefectural building at Kanagawa.  In the hotel in which I was now staying I was interested in the “Notice” in my room: 

1.  A spitting-pot is provided. [Usually of bamboo or porcelain.]

2.  No towels are lent for fear of trachoma.[158] [The traveller in Japan carries his own towels, but a towel is a common gift on a guest’s departure in acknowledgment of his tea money.]

3.  There is a table of rates.  Guests are requested to say in which they desire to be reckoned. [To the hotel proprietor, landlord or manager when the visit of courtesy is paid on the guest’s arrival.  Otherwise a judgment is formed from the guest’s clothes, demeanour and baggage.]

4.  Please lock up your valuables or let us keep them. [There are no locks on Japanese doors.]

5.  Railroad, kuruma, box-sledge or automobile charges on application. [The box-sledge shows what the country is like in winter.]

In conversations about local conditions I was told that “landowners of the middle grade” were suffering from “trying to keep up their position.”  I remembered the song which may be rendered: 

        Would that my daughter
        Were married to a middle farmer. 
        With two cho of farm
        And a tan in the wood. 
        No borrowing; no lending;
        Both ends meeting. 
        Visiting the temple by turns—­
        Someone must stay at home. 
        Going to Heaven sooner or later. 
        What a happy life! 
        What a happy life!

Tenants were rather well off because their standard of living was lower than that of owners.  Economic conditions were improving in Yamagata, but in the adjoining prefecture of Miyagi on the eastern coast of Japan “whole villages” had gone to Hokkaido.  Some poor farmers were spending only 5 sen a day on food, the rest of what they ate coming entirely from their own holdings.  Some farmers said, “If you calculate our income, we are certainly unable to make a living, but in some way or other we are able,” which is what some small holders in many countries would say.

I was told that a labourer’s 5 tan could be cultivated by working half days.  Generally more was earned by labouring than could be gained from a small patch of land.  But for half the year labourer’s work was not obtainable.  My informant found small tenant labourers “well off” if both husband and wife had wages:  “they are able to buy a bottle of sake in the evening.”  Their position was better than that of a small peasant proprietor.

One in a thousand of the families in a specified county slept in straw.  I heard of the payment of 20 to 25 per cent. to pawnbroker lenders.