industry--remains happily independent of both shoemakers and
tailors. His feet are good to look at, his body is healthy, and
his heart is free. If he desire to travel a thousand miles, he
can get ready for his journey in five minutes. His whole outfit
need not cost seventy-five cents; and all his baggage can be put
into a handkerchief. On ten dollars he can travel for a year
without work, or he can travel simply on his ability to work, or
he can travel as a pilgrim. You may reply that any savage can do
the same thing. Yes, but any civilized man cannot; and the
Japanese has been a highly civilized man for at least a thousand
years. Hence his present capacity to threaten Western
manufacturers.

We have been too much accustomed to associate this kind of
independent mobility with the life of our own beggars and tramps,
to have any just conception of its intrinsic meaning. We have
thought of it also in connection with unpleasant
things,--uncleanliness and bad smells. But, as Professor
Chamberlain has well said, "a Japanese crowd is the sweetest in
the world" Your Japanese tramp takes his hot bath daily, if he
has a fraction of a cent to pay for it, or his cold bath, if he
has not. In his little bundle there are combs, toothpicks,
razors, toothbrushes. He never allows himself to become
unpleasant Reaching his destination, he can transform himself
into a visitor of very nice manners, and faultless though simple
attire(1).

Ability to live without furniture, without impedimenta, with the
least possible amount of neat clothing, shows more than the
advantage held by this Japanese race in the struggle of life; it