THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 2, 1907. JAPAN AND THE DOMESTIC WORKER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8476, 2 July 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 2, 1907. JAPAN AND THE DOMESTIC WORKER.

With the growing advance of civilization and industrial development, the domestic worker question in Japan, so the Japan Chronicle tells us, bids fair to become one of the vexed social problems. The journal referred to remarks:-—"The popular Japanese papers of the present time contain a surprisingly large number of advertisements -offering situations to domestic servants, while outside many of the houses in any large city signs may be seen displayed notifying the fact that a maidservant is required and inviting applicants to 'apply within.' One pf the principal causes of this .dearth of maids-of-all-work must be attributed to the opening in recent years of a wide field for female labour, such as the various factories and weaving and spinning mills, where women can earn with comparative freedom and independence more wages than they could by subjecting themselves to the drudgery of domestic service and the restraints which such service entails, especially in the average Japanese household. It has long been the custom in Japan for the daughters of families of high standing to take at least a year's course of domestic training with a family of similar social position in order to prepare themselves for their duties in life. According to all accounts this custom is dying out, and the modern young lady plays lawn tennis and devotes herself to the study of Western customs and to the improvement of the education which she has acquired at school. Reference to this form of

domestic service is, of course, by the way, for the young ladies of Japan who undergo a term of domestic training as described have, needless to say, gejo or maids-of-all-work under them, and it is the latter class—the country girl," who prefer the factory or the loom to the less congenial life of service—that is gradually diminishing, and in the not fardistant futiire this circumstance may cause as much annoyance and worry to the Japanese housewife us similar troubles are bringing to her Western sisters."

A HUGE UNDERTAKING

A cablegram appeared in our columns a few days ago with reference to the gigantic scheme to supply New York with water. It is claimed that the undertaking will be an engineeringfeat unparalleled in history. The damming of the Euphrates by an Assyrian King, the Roman aqueducts, the Assouan dam, the reclamation work in the Zuyder Zee, the giant Roosevelt dam in the arid west, and ever, the great Panama Canal itself must yield to the scheme for bringing water by a track 150 miles long from the Catskills to New York to supply its millions of people. It is estimated that New York will have 10,000,000 inhabitants in 1930, and a water supply for such a population must indeed be gigantic. Under this scheme the supply of wholesome filtered water will be about 1,000,000,000 gallons per day. The principal source of the supply will be the Asbokan reservoir, which will occupy the whole valley of the Esopus River, and will cause 3.000 residents there to seek new homes. Twentythree square miles of country—the home of ten villages—will be submerged. The water will be carried to New York by an aqueduct as large as a New York subway. It will be carried under the Hudson River by the greatest syphon ever built, reaching nearly 650 feet below the surface of the water. The filter beds will cost between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000. The water will flow through a layer of sand two feet thick, then through pebbles, large stones and perforated drain pipes. The scheme will cost £30,000,000, almost as much as the United States is paying for the Panama Canal, and eight times as much as was spent on the Assouan dam.