UNKNOWN AUTHOR. Possibly by &
[DE BECKER (Joseph Ernest)].
How the 'Social Evil' is Regulated in Japan.
From the Western gaze
A very frank and knowledgeable assessment of prostitution in Japan at the end of the 19th century.
The author describes the different classes of women from ‘Jigoku’ to ‘Shogi’ and ‘Geisha’, as well as the rules, regulations and proscriptions and the changes in legislation from the 18th to the 19th century. This is followed by a translation of a contract against the ‘loan’ of ¥400 for the sale of a girl into a brothel as well a the 40 articles and other laws governing the running of a brothel. “The one redeeming trait of the Japanese courtesan is that she never appears to fall to the low and vicious level of the Western prostitute, and her position is such that she is likened by an Eastern allegorical expression to ‘The Lotus in the mud’ - in the mire truly, but not besmirched by it and she is cheered by the old hypocrites around her…” (p. 18).
The second part of the booklet quotes extensively other Western observers on the subject incl. Mitford, Rein, Norman, and even Engelbert Kaempfer. This title was published between 1885 and 1904 in various configurations. Our copy is stamped on the front cover “Z. P. Maruya, Yokohama”, the same company who published The Nightless City by Joseph de Becker in 1899. It also includes the text of an ‘Agreement’ which is largely identical with the one mentioned above and may support the assumption that it was written by him. Uncommon in the trade.
