Where Clothing is a Matter of Form.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 346, 27 February 1889, Page 3

Where Clothing is a Matter of Form.

At Yokohama Mr Came, M. P., had an embarrassing little adventure At the back of t\ei y Japanese house, he says,is a pietty little gai den with a larco bath-house containing tubs of hot and cold water. The Japanese arc as scrupulously clean in their peison&a& in their houses, and often wash all over two or three times a day. The room in which wo had our dinner looked out upon (ho large open window of the bathhouse, in which three men and two women were tubbing with that absolute disregard of decency which characterised our common parents before the fall, when they were naked and not ashamed. Later on in the evening, as 1 was passing to my room, one of the waitresses, in the costume of Eve, made me a most profound and grave bow, wishing me good night. No Japanese has as yet become civilised enough, with all their wonderful civilisation, to believe it possible under any circumstances that he or she is naked. In summer time this condition of things is universal. It is a little embairassing at first to the modest European, but one .soon gets used to it and accepts it as the primitive innocence of a simple and guileless poople.

Ib is dangerous to swallow the seeds of grapes. Si, Petersburg is the only capital of Europe in which the population is steadily diminishing. During the last seven years the inhabitants of that city have dccrcised by 85,000.