never kiss their wives: kissing is an art unknown in Japan. It is even
doubtful whether the language has a word signifying a kiss. No wonder
Young Japan wishes to change his language for the English! Henceforth in
public or private, alone or in company, Kiku's personal and social
safety was as secure as if clothed in armor of proof and attended by an
army. The black teeth, _maru-mage_ and shaven eyebrows constitute a
talisman of safety in a land which foreigners so like to believe
licentious and corrupt beyond the bounds of conception.

Now that we have Kiku married, we must leave her to glide into the cool,
sequestered paths of a Japanese married lady's life. Only one thing we
regret, and that is that her marriage could not have happened in the
year of our Lord 1874 and of "Enlightened Peace the seventh, and of the
era of Jimmu, the first Mikado, the two thousand five hundred and
thirty-fourth." Had she been married during the present year, her
coiffure would need no alteration, her eyebrows would still knit with
care or arch with mirth, and her teeth would still keep their virgin
whiteness, unsoiled by astringent galls or abhorred vitriol.

The leader of feminine fashion in Japan, the young empress Haruko, has
set her subjects the example by for ever banishing the galls and iron,
appearing even in public with her teeth as Nature made them. Kiku and
Taro, though once proud to own allegiance to the Shô-gun, are now among
the staunch supporters of the lord of the Shô-gun, the Mikado, the only
true sovereign of the Sunrise Kingdom.

W.E. GRIFFIS.