the Japanese visitor than seems to be generally expected. Be he statesman or be he valet, he is apt to return to his native land more patriotic than he left it. (See also Article on Woman.)
Books recommended. Evolution of the Japanese, by Rev. S. L. Gulick.—The Soul of the Far East, by Percival Lowell—Die Japaner, by Rev. C. Munzinger. Excepting a short paper by Walter Dening, in Vol. XIX. of the Asiatic Transactions, we are acquainted with no other works treating explicitly of the mental characteristics of the Japanese: but Aston's History of Japanese Literature and Lafcadio Hearn's books are perfect mines for the enquirer to dig in. To residents in Japan the Rev. Arthur H. Smith's somewhat sombre book, entitled Chinese Characteristics, should prove fruitful reading, by way both of likeness and of contrast.
Jinrikisha. The origin of the jinrikisha is, to use a grandiloquent phrase, shrouded in obscurity. One native account attributes the spark of invention to a paralytic old gentleman of Kyōto, who, some time before 1868, finding his palanquin uncomfortable, took to a little cart instead. According to another version, one Akiha Daisuke, of Tōkyō, was the inventor, about 1870; but the first official application to be allowed to manufacture jinrikishas was made about the same time by a man called Takayama Kōsaku. The usual foreign version is that an American named Goble, half-cobbler and half-missionary, was the person to suggest the idea of a modified perambulator somewhere about 1867; and this has the support of Mr. Black, the author of Young Japan. In any case, the invention, once made, found wide-spread favour. There are now over 33,000 jinrikishas and 31,600 jinrikisha-men in Tōkyō alone;[1] and the ports of China, the Malay peninsula, and India, as well as Japan, owe to the jinrikisha a fruitful source of employment for their teeming coolie population and of comfort for the well-to-do residents.
The compound word jinrikisha (人力車) means literally "man-power-vehicle," that is, a vehicle pulled by a man, or, as the late Mr. Baber wittily suggested, a "pull-man-car." Some have imagined sha to be a corruption of the English "car."
- ↑ At the begining of the century (1901), the number was still larger, viz. 41,000 jinrikishas and 43,000 jinrikisha-men. Since then electric trams have been introduced, whose low fares (3 sen, that is 3 farthings all over the city) have entailed a partial disuse of other conveyances.
