There were formerly several teahouses in the village, but under the influence of the young men’s association all houses of entertainment but two had been closed.  These two had become “inns.”  In one of these the girl attendant was the proprietor’s daughter; in the other there was a solitary waitress.  One of the abolished teahouses had taken itself two miles away, where possibly it still had visitors.  There seemed to be two public baths in the village, both belonging to private persons.  The charge was 1 sen for adults and 5 rin for children.  At one of the baths I noticed separate doors for men and women; in the bath itself the division between the sexes was about two feet high.

The smallest subdivision of the village is called kumi or company.  Each of these has a kind of manager who is elected on a limited suffrage.  The managers of the kumi, it was explained, are “like diplomatists if something is wanted against another village.”  The kumi also seems to have some corporate life.  There is once a month a semi-social, semi-religious meeting at each member’s house in turn.  The persons who attend lay before the house shrine 3 or 5 sen each or a small quantity of rice for the feast.  The master of the house provides the sauce or pickles.  I heard also of a kind of ko called mujin, a word which has also the meaning of “inexhaustible.”  By such agencies as these money is collected for people who are poor or for men who want help in their business or who need to go on a journey.

We have seen that the village is by every token well off.  What are its troubles?  Undoubtedly the people work hard.  I imagine, however, that there are very many districts where the people work much harder.  The foreigner is too apt to confuse working hard with working continuously.  Whether outdoors or indoors, whether at a handicraft or at business, an Oriental gives the impression of having no notion of getting his work done and being finished with it.  The working day lasts all day and part of the night.  Whether much more is done in the time than in the shorter Western day may be doubted.  During the brief silk-worm season many of the women of the village in which I stayed are afoot for a long day and for part of the night, but the winter brings relief from the strain of all sorts of work.  Owing to the snow it is practically impossible to do any work out of doors in January, February and March.  The snow may stop work even in December.  Here, then, is a natural holiday.  Whether with their men indoors the women have much of a holiday is uncertain.  But indoors should not be taken too exactly.  There is some hunting in the winter.  Deer come within two miles and hares are easily got.

Well-off though the village is, there is a strong desire to increase incomes.  The people are working harder than they have done in the past because the cost of living has risen.  An attempt is to be made to increase secondary employments.  Corporately, the village is said to possess 10,000 yen in cash in addition to its land.  It is said that this money is lent out to some of the more influential people.  What the security is and how safe the monetary resources of a village loaned out in this way may be I do not know, but there is obviously some risk and I gathered that some anxiety existed.