SHOGI (LICENSED PROSTITUTES) IT may seem strange to class prostitutes among working women, but the facts require such classification, for, not only so far as the parents and brothel keepers are concerned, but also so far as the girls themselves are concerned, it is entirely a matter of money. If the business did not pay splendidly, the keepers would not erect their handsome buildings, pay the heavy license fees, nor buy the girls from the parents at considerable cost. And on the other hand, if the parents did not receive what they regard as large sums for their daughters, the latter would not be sold to such lives of shame and disease. And so far as the poor victims are concerned, there is abundant evidence that they often go into the wretched business solely at the command of Among the working women of Japan prostitutes surely are the most pitiful of all. They give the most and get the least. They receive no training, like the geisha; have no liberty; to prevent their running away, are imprisoned in brothels, or if diseased or ill, in hospitals; and have no friends except possibly other prostitutes. Most of them soon loathe the business, but are helpless, hopeless prisoners,—for the keepers who paid their parents a few score or hundreds of yen I do not propose here to give a detailed account of this distressful and disgusting "business." Those who desire more information should procure The Social Evil in Japan, by the Rev. U. G. Murphy. Some years ago Mr. Murphy, by grit and pluck, carried certain test cases through the courts and secured legal opportunity for girls to quit the business if they wished. The Salvation Army and some of the daily papers took pains to let the brothel girls know their legal rights, and in a short period over There is however a rising public conscience and an abolition movement is gathering strength. The virtual slavery of the girls; the fact that they are openly bought and sold, and that, too, under governmental supervision and sanction; the cruelty inflicted on many girls by their keepers; the fraud practised in connection with their accounts, whereby a girl is kept hopelessly in debt, so that, however faithful she may be, release is impossible, and indeed the more faithful the more profitable she is to her keeper—all these facts are becoming widely known and are beginning to arouse public indignation. As signs of the times, I give a few facts. In the summer of 1909 the wealthiest and most centrally located prostitute quarter in Osaka was completely wiped out by a great fire. Before the flames were fully out, the anti-brothel forces realized their opportunity and under the leadership of the Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Union began to agitate for refusal to allow the rebuilding of the business in that region of the city. A petition was prepared and signed by one hundred thousand people. Large numbers of Osaka's best citizens allied themselves with the movement. The result was that the authorities in charge saw fit to yield to the pressure and arranged that the new buildings for prostitution should be erected on the outskirts of the city. In the winter of 1911, the city of Tokyo suffered from a great conflagration which Not long since an army division was located in the vicinity of Wakayama, a city of considerable importance, not far from Osaka, in which there have never been any prostitute houses. This led to the suggestion that it would be well to open there a regular prostitute quarter. The matter was keenly discussed and the proposition carried through the city council and authorized by The governor says in his message: "I was early convinced that the establishment of licensed quarters in the city was harmful to the public interest. It has been a subject of discussion in Wakayama now for many years, and I have investigated the question thoroughly from the standpoint of public morals, health, and economics, at places with and without licensed quarters, and find that the existence of such institutions is distinctly harmful. The standard of morals is lowered, the public health impaired, disease made rampant, the young are sent into wrong channels, homes are broken up, and extravagance is encouraged. The state of affairs in Shingu, in this prefecture of Wakayama, where licensed houses have been established, clearly shows that the existence of such In passing, it is worthy of record that the prefecture of Joshu has for over thirty years, by ceaseless vigilance, prevented government sanction of prostitution. Repeatedly has the battle been fought and repeatedly have the anti-brothel forces won. In this respect Joshu stands alone among the forty-eight prefectures of the Japanese empire. In regard to the statistics of prostitutes, the figures given by Mr. Murphy are probably the most accurate available, and are substantially official. Between 1887 and 1897 the number of prostitutes increased from 27,559 to 47,055, reaching their maximum in 1899, when there were 52,410. Then, following up the work of Mr. Murphy and the Salvation Army, came the "cessation movement," reducing the number to 40,195 in 1901, and the following year to 38,676. Since that date the number has grown. In two years four thousand fresh girls were bought up, and a thousand more the following year. The latest statistics are those for 1906, when the number of prostitutes was reported as 44,542. It is safe to say that at the present time the number is near, if it has not passed, the fifty thousand mark. It would be natural to suppose that recruits for the geisha and shogi occupations I found at one time in Matsuyama that all the girls of sixteen to eighteen years of age in a certain poor quarter had, in the The word used in connection with both geisha and prostitutes is perfectly frank; no effort is made to conceal by terms the nature of the transaction. The girls are "bought" and "sold." They employ the same words as those used in buying and selling animals, food, clothing—anything. Their purchase and sale is a regular business in which men and women openly engage, traveling the country over in search of girls, and conducting them in small groups to the keepers of brothels, who pay so much a head. And this takes place in civilized Japan! Moreover, in spite of the fact that girls may thus be bought, it is true that they are also occasionally stolen. I have known of a pitiful instance where the girl, a member of But Occidentals may not forget how terrible a scourge is commercialized vice in civilized and so-called "Christian" Europe, and who has not heard of the "white slavery" of America, with its stealing of girls and young women for purposes of prostitution? The institution of comparisons between nations and individuals is alike odious,—but unavoidable. A fair comparison would seem to be that, whereas in the West the moral sense of a large proportion of the people is very strongly against the social evil and seeks to abolish it, in Japan the moral sense of the mass of the population acquiesces in the situation, so that the government and a vast majority of the influential people of the land unite to make the |