A TYPE OF WAYSIDE MONUMENTS

GIANT RADISH OR "DAIKON"

CUTTING GRASS




CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
AND OFFICIAL TERMS


The prices given in the text (but not in the footnotes and Appendix) were
recorded before the War inflation began. The War was followed by a
severe financial crisis. Professor Nasu wrote to me during the summer of
1921:

"You are very wise to leave the figures as they stood. It is useless
to try to correct them, because they are still changing. The price of
rice, which did not exceed 15 yen per koku when you were making your
research work, exceeded 50 yen in 1919, and is now struggling to
maintain the price of 25 yen. Taking at 100 the figures for the years
1915 or 1916--fortunately there is not much difference between these
two years--the prices of six leading commodities reached in 1919 an
average of about 250. After 1919 the prices of some commodities went
still higher, but mostly they did not change very much; on the other
hand, recently the prices of many commodities--among them rice and raw
silk especially--have been coming down and this downward movement is