ABSTRACT
FIRST dress; then manners and customs; thirdly ideas. Tokyo suggests the question whether this be the order of the Revolution in progress in Japan: whether these be the degrees of the process of a National Regeneration. There is architectural magnificence-a little of it-in Tokyo, adopted, imported from Europe ; and one notes in the streets of the city, in the tram-cars, in the railway carriages, that perhaps one in ten of the people wears European dress. At a pretentious garden-party in Tokyo the Japanese in frock-coat and silk ' topper * may number nine in ten. In the Government offices, in the big banks, the schools, the important counting-houses, in most public employments, European dress is anything from de rigueur to the principal's preference. It is still sometimes the principal's indifference, never his repugnance. All this is early open to one's eyes in Tokyo. The dress reform is distinctly a c first impression.' So, upon reflection, one concludes that social revolutions begin with externals : trousers first, Christianity afterwards ; between them the Revolution will sandwich a ball to take the place of the Cha ceremonies.1
