XVII.] CHANGE IN THE STYLE OF'HAIRDRESSING. 
.329 
had been so great as in Old Japan. We several times saw in 
the inns by the roadside, people of condition who were travelling 
m jinrikishas eat their rice and drink their saki together with 
the coolies who were drawing their vehicles. 
To judge by the crowds of children who swarmed everywhere 
along the roads the people must be very prolific. A girl of 
eight or ten years of age was seldom to be seen without 
another young one bound on her back. This burden did not 
appear to trouble the sister or attendant very much. Without 
giving herself any concern about the child or thinking of its 
existence, she took part actively in games, ran errands, &c. 
Even in the interior of the country foreigners are received 
with great friendliness. The lower classes in Japan have also 
reason for this, for whatever influence the latest political 
changes may have had on the old kugc, daimio, and samurai 
families of Japan, the position of the cultivator of the soil is now 
much more secure than before, when he was harried by hundreds 
of small tyrants. His dress is the same as before, with the ex¬ 
ception, however, that a great proportion of the male population, 
even far into the interior, have laid aside the old troublesome way 
of collecting the hair in a knot over a close shaven spot on the 
crown of the head. Instead, they wear their thick raven-black 
hair cut short in the European style. How distinctive of the 
new period this change is may be seen from the eagerness with 
which the Japanese authorities questioned Golovin about the 
religious and political revolutions which they assumed to have 
been connected with the change in the European mode of 
wearing the hair during the commencement of the nineteenth 
century; for the Kussian ambassador Laxman, who was highly 
esteemed by the Japanese, had worn a pig-tail and powdered 
hair, while Golovin and his companions had their hair un¬ 
powdered and cut short.^ When it is warm the workmen 
1 Voyage de M. Golovin, Paris, 1818, i. p. 176. Golovin, who was cap¬ 
tain in the_ Russian navy, passed the years 1811-13 in imprisonment in 
