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Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42747, 13 July 1905, Page 2

The mass of the Japanese peasantry appear to be miserably poor. Their farms average 1£ acre,and four-tenths of the products are paid as rent. Une of these farmer’s accounts shows a gross income for one yoar of 31. 13s. lie rarely eats rice, and lives on rye ana millet. It is these men, not the 8a- : murai, who are bearing the brunt of the wav in Manchuria. Their mam pleasure is the pilgrimage which some . few manage to make out of a common ' , fund to which the subscription is year. A j inrikisba min may earn 34s a month, on which he will probably - bu jport a family, ©r Knox, in hia recently published, book, tells a characteristic story of one of those men, which had better be given in his own W nrds ; —«• On the west coast, a man , pulled me in one day fifty-five miles, up hill and down. I remoos rated, but he told me bis home was the end „ of the route, and he was anxious to get , home. It took him eleven hours. . ... Taking me to the hot d, be threw water . over himself and put on a cleau robe* Then he followed me to ray bowed to the ground, and said, " You must be tired after so long a vide, and I want to know if there is not something I can do to help you.”