3-065-802 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Japanese dancing-girl practising, 1874. 'Though female actors do not usually take part in Japanese theatrical performances of the dramatic kind, the exhibition of female dancers is common. Little girls of five or six years were formerly purchased for this trade by the managers of such entertainments, to whom they were sold by their mercenary or needy parents. The manager was bound to teach and train the girls, and to maintain them in his service till they were twenty-five or thirty years of age, when they became free. In the Illustration we have engraved, one of these young people is seen practising her steps and gestures with the fan, to the accompaniment of a guitar played by the other girl. This occupation, being fairly profitable and agreeable to the popular taste, is not likely to be discontinued. But, among the legal and social reforms that have taken place in Japan during the last two or three years, we hear of the abolition of the law which used to permit the sale of girls. The yoshiwarras, or licensed establishments where they were kept, had become places of scandalous license, which had a baneful influence on domestic life...They are now broken up, and every girl or woman is free to work for her own livelihood as she chooses'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.