In the oaza in which I was staying there were eighty families.  Seventy were tenants.  Under a savings arrangement initiated by my host, the hamlet, including its five peasant proprietors, was saving 120 yen a month.  On the other hand, more than half the tenants were in debt “in connection with family excesses,” such as weddings, births and burials.  But there might be unknown savings.  I should state that the villagers seemed contented enough.

For some reason or other I was particularly struck by the sturdiness of the small girls.  This was interesting because Chiba had for long an evil reputation for infanticide, and under a system of infanticide in the Far East it would be supposed—­I have heard this view stoutly questioned—­that more girls die than boys.  The landowner-oculist was of opinion that in stating the causes of the low economic condition of his tenants the abating of infanticide must be put first.  People no longer restricted themselves to three of a family.  The average area available locally was only 6 tan of paddy and 1.2 tan of dry land.  In a one-crop district in which there was work for only a part of the year this area was obviously insufficient and there was not enough dry land for mulberries.  Then taxation was now 2-1/2 yen per bale of rice (hyo).  A third of the rice went in rent.

I tried to find out what the oaza might be spending on religion.  The Shinto priest seemed to get 5 sen a month per family, which as there are eighty families would be 48 yen yearly.  The Buddhist priest had land attached to his temple and money was given him at burials and at the Bon season.  The oaza might spend 100 yen a year to send five pilgrims as far away as Yamagata, on the other side of Japan.  The priests did not seem to count for much.  “Their only concern with the public,” I was informed, “is to be succoured by it.  They are living very painfully.  The Buddhist priests have to send money to their sect at Kyoto.”  In one of my strolls I passed the Shinto priest carrying a rice basket and looking, as my companion said, “just like any other man.”  At a shrine I saw a number of bowls hung up.  A hole cut in the bottom of each seemed a pathetic symbol of need, material or spiritual.

The keeper of the teahouse in the oaza had been given a small sum by our host to take himself off, but in the village of which the oaza formed a part there were two teahouses, where ten times as much was spent as was laid out on religion.  No one had ever heard of a case of illegitimacy in the oaza but there had been in the twelve months three cases which pointed to abortion.  It was five years since there had been an arrest.  The young men’s association helped twice a year families whose boys had been conscripted.