and take their places, side by side, in a kind of long narrow cage,
the wooden bars of which open on to the public thoroughfare. Here they
sit for hours, gorgeous in dresses of silk and gold and silver
embroidery, speechless and motionless as wax figures, until they shall
have attracted the attention of some of the passers-by, who begin to
throng the place. At Yokohama indeed, and at the other open ports, the
women of the Yoshiwara are loud in their invitations to visitors,
frequently relieving the monotony of their own language by some
blasphemous term of endearment picked up from British and American
seamen; but in the Flower District at Yedo, and wherever Japanese
customs are untainted, the utmost decorum prevails. Although the shape
which vice takes is ugly enough, still it has this merit, that it is
unobtrusive. Never need the pure be contaminated by contact with the
impure; he who goes to the Yoshiwara, goes there knowing full well
what he will find, but the virtuous man may live through his life
without having this kind of vice forced upon his sight. Here again do
the open ports contrast unfavourably with other places: Yokohama at
night is as leprous a place as the London Haymarket.[14]

[Footnote 14: Those who are interested in this branch of social
science, will find much curious information upon the subject of
prostitution in Japan in a pamphlet published at Yokohama, by Dr.
Newton, R.N., a philanthropist who has been engaged for the last two
years in establishing a Lock Hospital at that place. In spite of much
opposition, from prejudice and ignorance, his labours have been
crowned by great success.]

A public woman or singer on entering her profession assumes a _nom de
guerre_, by which she is known until her engagement is at an end. Some
of these names are so pretty and quaint that I will take a few