OF ALL COUNTRIES. 75 



over \os. a week, that is to say, the wages of an English 

 agricultural labourer, out of which the head of the family- 

 has to make provision for medicine, and to procure what 

 we should consider luxuries, such as tobacco, and a kind 

 of oil (mien-tse-yeou) for the preparation of food, yet he can 

 repair his net, set apart something for religious purposes, 

 and spend an appreciable portion of his income upon three 

 annual festivals. 



Opposite the Chinese coast stands another mighty 

 empire, in which the fisheries form an element of almost 

 incalculable importance. Somewhere about thirty-five 

 millions is considered to be the number of fish consumers 

 in Japan, and the persons employed in that trade amount 

 to 70,000 in Nagasaki alone. Salmon in particular gives a 

 constant dish to their dinner-tables. Triangular nets are 

 used for its capture, and the take is said to be sometimes 

 10,000 at a time. With their quaint love of symbolism, the 

 Japanese use this fish to inculcate morality upon their 

 children. When a boy is born, the parents place over the 

 house a paper salmon, made with round head and open 

 mouth, so that the wind blowing in at the aperture expands 

 the entire body. When the feast celebrating the birth of 

 the child is over, the fish is taken and preserved among the 

 household gods. The boy is bidden to imitate the perse- 

 verance of the salmon, which never ceases to make its way 

 upwards until it has attained the position it desires. 



