partially under control and may injure a pedestrian--unwittingly, I am
sure, for the gentleness of the ox and even of the bull in harness
arrests one's attention. Many Y.M.A.s devote themselves to cultivating
improved qualities of rice or to breaking up new land. Sometimes the
land of the Shinto shrine is cultivated. I have heard of Y.M.A.s in
remote parts having handed over to them the exclusive sale of _saké_.

I find a Y.M.A. counselling its members "not to speak vulgar words in
a crowd." There is also among the members of Y.M.A.s a certain
addiction to diary keeping for moral as well as economic purposes. The
diaries are distributed by the associations and "afterwards examined
and rewarded"--a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are
Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and
music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to
the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family
which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s
"old people are respected and comforted." More than one association
has a practice of serving out red and black balls to its members at
the opening of every new year, when good resolutions are in order, and
at the end of the year recalling either the red or the black according
to the degree to which the publicly announced good resolutions have
been kept. Among the good resolutions are: to worship at the Shinto
shrine or the Buddhist temple regularly, to be tidier, to be more
efficient in cropping the land, to undertake work for the common good,
to have a secondary occupation in addition to farming, to sit with
more decorum at meals, to rise earlier, to visit the graves of
ancestors monthly, to be more considerate to parents or elder
brothers, and "not to remain idly at people's houses."

One Y.M.A. decrees that a member found in a tea-house in conversation