20
THE STREETS AND STREET-NAMES
OF YEDO.
BY
PROFESSOR W. E. GRIFFIS.
Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan,
on the 14th December, 1872.
———o———
The history of the streets of a city is often a history of the city itself. The names of the thoroughfares of a nation’s metropolis frequently mirror the national history. Such names become, in after ages, an index to the past, and, like rare fossils, exhibit to the mind of an antiquarian whole strata of forgotten history. Were one to be blindfolded and set down in Paris, the street names alone would tell him that he was in France, and from these names, he might read aright the story of the many victories of glory-loving France. The sight of the sign-board in the single street, Rue de l’Ecosse, would call up the history of the intrigues and long friendships of France and Scotland; and the eye of imagination might see the Highland sentinel pacing his rounds in the French capital, humming the airs of his bonny heath. The street-names of a nation’s metropolis are often a true exponent of the national character, as well as of its history. Thus, while those of London, like those of Paris, tell of the national passion for war and glory, and all that is spectacular and heroic, they tell also of what is dear to humanity in all its phases, from the sublime to the most ridiculous. Of Philadelphia, Longfellow, in his “Evangeline,” sings—
