unnatural development in dress, from the native Japanese to the
imitated European. The costume usually began with a pot-hat and
ended in extreme cases with congress boots. But each man exhibited a
various phase of it according to his self-emancipation from former
etiquette. Sometimes a most disreputable Derby, painfully
reminiscent of better bygone days, found itself in company with a
refined kimono and a spotless cloven sock. Sometimes the metamorphosis
embraced the body, and even extended down the legs, but had not yet
attacked the feet, in its creeping paralysis of imitation. In another
corner, a collarless, cravatless semiflannel shirt had taken the
place of the under tunic, to the worse than loss of looks of its
wearer. Opposite this type sat the supreme variety which evidently
prided itself upon its height of fashion. In him the change had gone
so far as to recall the East End rough all over, an illusion
dispelled only by the innocence of his face.

While still busy pigeonholing my specimens, I chanced to look through
the open window, and suddenly saw pass by, as in the shifting background
of some scenic play, the lichenveiled stone walls and lotus-mantled
moats of the old feudal castle of Uyeda. Poor, neglected, despised
bit of days gone by!--days that are but yesterdays, aeons since as
measured here. Already it was disappearing down the long perspective
of the past; and yet only twenty years before it had stood in all the
pride and glory of the Middle Ages. Then it had been

A daimyo's castle, wont of old to wield
Across the checkerboard of paddyfield
A rook-like power from its vantage square
On pawns of hamlets; now a ruin, there,
Its triple battlements gaze grimly down