Japanese Silk.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20207, 29 May 1937, Page 13 (Supplement)

Japanese Silk.

Great National Industry. :: Picturesque Scenes, (E. K. Venables in Behind the Smile in Real Japan.)

WHENEVER we see fields of bright green mulberry plants during the summer we know that we are in a region of the great national product, silk. The small beginnings of the “honourable worms” have a curious appearance. Dealers buy and sell little cards on which are rings of lifeless looking specks —the eggs from which the silkworms are hatched. The rearing of these important little creatures is an exacting operation. They must be protected from changes of temperature and other atmospheric conditions; mulberry-leaves for their food must be cut at certain times, not too dry and not too moist. The silkworms are kept in large square, shallow baskets of bamboo laths. These baskets are slid on to racks in special sheds round the grower’s house. To an outsider one silkworm looks pretty much the same as another, but if one or them happens to get out and is found crawling about, the grower knows, from its growth and appearance, which basket it belongs to. Entrance on the chrysalis stage heralds the end of these voracious littio lives. Late in the summer the cocoons are collected and taken to the nearest centre. Along the country roads and held paths the peasants are seen converging on the railway station, from the usual pole slung { over the shoulder is suspended a very clean V white cloth containing the silk cocoons. As '■up listen to these vendors dilating upon the Equalities and quantities among th«m«.w ea .

we enter into conversation with them. They are all experts in their own line, and are ready with dozens of details, showing grade and value. They can tell offhand how many cocoons of a certain type go to a pound of silk; how many would be needed to make a kimono like the one worn by the gentleman over there in the corner—and even discuss the quality of his kimono in particular. They take great care of their loads of cocoons, keeping them in the shade opening up the bags and fanning them from time to time. An up-country silk exchange is a centre of picturesque movement at the hour of daily sales. As each grower arrives his cocoons are carefully poured into a large open basket, and he receives a numbered wooden tally. Those who arrive earliest will naturally have their numbers called first when the sale opens. Gradually the floor space becomes filled with baskets, tlu men standing by them, gently turning over the cocoons now and then and constantly fanning to keep them cool in the sultry summer atmosphere inside the crowded building. At one end of the room there is a large semi-circular platform of smooth wooden boards, about three feet above the floor, and on this raised space each basketful ol cocoons will bo inspected before sale. At opening time the auctioneer and his assistants take their places. The auctioneer claps his hands, the buyers repeat the signal, and they all chant a litle ditty before starting business.

AN IDEAL IN LIFE. WHAT is needed in life, if we would secure a moderate degree of happiness, is an ideal. Fortunately for us, an ideal is possible in any kind of employment. When the Cockney visits the country he often commiserates the toiler on the soil for what appears the dullness and monotony of his life. No doubt it is dull enough measured by city standards. There are no music-halls, no lighted streets in which diversion may be found, no excitement and nimbleness of thought, communicated by the mere contiguity of numbers. But if you come to examine the life of the ploughman, you will find that he also has things to live for. He wants to plough a straight furrow, so that at next year’s agricultural contest he may take a prize, lie is proud of his horses, of his crops and of what he can do with his small bit of garden or his allotment. His home is dear to him and he is as proud of his few sticks of furniture as a prince is of his marble palaces. So with the humblest craftsman. There are difficulties in making a good table quite as real as the difficulties in making a great picture, and there is the same kind of joy in overcoming them. It has often been pointed out that the craftsman of the Middle Ages produced superior work because he had a real faculty for art. Let us rather say because he had a deep interest in his work.

REASONABLE EXPECTATION. IN a recent book of memoirs, a British worker, having reached his seventieth year, says, quoting Dr. Johnson: “The more I see of men the less I expect of them,” ami he adds : “I am ready now to call a man good on easier terms than I was formerly.” This is a common experience with most thoughtful men. We are apt, when young, to insist that a man must measure up to the standard in every respect, but later we discover to our surprise that even our idols have feet of clay, and we discover also to our intense chagrin that we ourselves are made of quite common clay, and that not unmixed. Even the Apostles were human, very, very human, and the martyrs were no different. The saints are all mortal, and the sinners may have much good in them. It does not follow that because a man has fallen once that he is going to keep on falling, and the man wno has lost one battle may yet win his next. It is exceedingly foolish when we agree with a man on twenty c.iicial points to refuse to co-operate with him because wo cannot agree with him on one which is, after all, not quite essential. The depraved may not. be hopelessly depraved, and the saints mav be rather hard to live with at time.. Humanity is still humanity, and rna> be pxpected to stay such even when we enter the Promisted Land.