PAPERS MADE BY THE JAPS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 98, 20 December 1904, Page 3

PAPERS MADE BY THE JAPS.

They Can B* TTMd for WallCoTcringa, . t Meal Sacka and Tobacco Pouch**. I FroTB bark of trees and shrttba the Japaitette mat£ icore^ of patera, whidh are far ahsa#of ours, says the National Geographic Magazine. ; The wall*' of the (Japanese houses are wooden frames covered with thin paper, which keeps out the wind bnt lets in the light, and when one compares these paperwaited "doll house*" with the gloomy bamboo cabins of the inhabitants of the island of Java or the small windowed huts of our forefathers, one realizes that, without glass j, and in a rainy climate^ these ingenious people have solved in a remarkable way the problem of lighting their dwellings and, at least in a measure, of keeping out the cold. Their oil papers are astonishingly cheap and durable. As a coyer for his load of tea when a rainstorm overtakes him, the Japanese farmer spreads over it a tough, pliable cover of oiled paper whic".» is almosit as impecvious as tarpaulin and as light as a gossamer. He has doubtless carried this cover for years, neatly packed away ?orne where about his cart. The '•rickshaw" coolies in the large 1 cities wear rain mantles of this oiled papier, whicn cost less than 1 $ cents and last for a year or more i with constant use. An oiled tissue paper which is as tough as writing paper can be had, at t'ae stationers* for wra^i^g'tip delicate articles. Grain and meal sacks are ai [ most always made of bark papc. | in Japan, for it is not easily per. etrated by weevils and other insects. But perhaps the most remarkable of all the papers which fin^n common use in the ' Ja^aneie household are the leather paper* of which the tobacco pouches and t pipe cases are made. They are almost as tough as French kid. s.o translucent that one can nearly see through them, and as pliable and soft as calfskin. The material of whic*h they are made is as thick ; as cardboard, but as flexible as kid.