8. Street Parades
In the days of the Tokugawas, [4] the most imposing ceremonies were held, the
streets being constantly filled with the parades of the various lords and nobles, but with the dawn of Western
ideas, Japan retaining all her orientalness, gave up a great deal of what the reformists termed "useless expense
and display." Yet the beautiful parades of Old Japan were said to be as innocent as they were conducive of
merriment and good feeling, absurd though some of them might have seemed to foreigners, just as all masquerades
and carnivals might be said to be.
[[4]]
Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868): longstanding feudal government established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and
characterized by the dominance of the samurai class and isolation from the West. Ended
with the Meiji Restoration, which re-opened Japan to the West and Western culture.
