No other city in Japan has so many bridges as Osaka: wards are named after them, and distances marked by them,--reckoning always from Koraibashi, the Bridge of the Koreans, as a centre. Osaka people find their way to any place most readily by remembering the name of the bridge nearest to it. But as there are one hundred and eighty-nine principal bridges, this method of reckoning can be of little service to a stranger. If a business man, he can find whatever he wants without learning the names of the bridges. Osaka is the best-ordered city, commercially, in the empire, and one of the best-ordered in the world. It has always been a city of guilds; and the various trades and industries are congregated still, according to ancient custom, in special districts or particular streets. Thus all the money-changers are

in Kitahama,--the Lombard Street of Japan the dry-goods trade monopolizes Honmachi; the timber merchants are all in Nagabori and Nishi-Yokobori; the toy-makers are in Minami Kiuhojimachi and Kita Midomae; the dealers in metal wares have Andojibashidori to themselves; the druggists are in Doshiomachi, and the cabinet-makers in Hachimansuji. So with many other trades; and so with the places of amusement. The theatres are in the Dotombori; the jugglers, singers, dancers, acrobats, and fortune-tellers in the Sennichimae, close by.

The central part of Osaka contains many very large buildings,--including theatres, refreshment-houses, and hotels having a reputation throughout the country. The number of edifices in Western style is nevertheless remarkably small. There are indeed between eight and nine hundred factory chimneys; but the factories, with few exceptions, are not constructed on Western plans. The really "foreign" buildings include a hotel, a prefectual hall with a mansard roof, a city hall with a classical porch of granite pillars, a good modern post-office, a mint, an arsenal, and sundry

mills and breweries. But these are so scattered and situated that they really make no particular impression at variance with the Far-Eastern character of the city. However, there is one purely foreign corner,--the old Concession, dating back to a time before Kobe existed. Its streets were well laid out, and its buildings solidly constructed; but for various reasons it has been abandoned to the missionaries,--only one of the old firms, with perhaps an agency or two, remaining open. This deserted settlement is an oasis of silence in the great commercial wilderness.[1] No attempts have been made by the native merchants to imitate its styles of building: indeed, no Japanese city shows less favor than Osaka to Occidental architecture. This is not through want of appreciation, but because of economical experience. Osaka will build in Western style--with stone, brick, and iron only when and where the advantage of so