Sketches of Tokyo Life/Chapter 7
A “JINRIKISHA”-STAND.
CHAPTER VII.
The Jinrikisha-man and his Vehicle.
he streets of Tokyo present a most marked contrast to those of old Yedo in the modes of locomotion used thereon. In Yedo, some samurai took to horses, and daimyo and a few others rode in palanquins; but most people went about on foot. For transporting goods, carts drawn by men, horses, or oxen were almost as common as they are now. But to-day the palanquin is seldom used except for carrying the sick to hospital or the dead to their last resting-place. Whether it is that people are nowadays too busy or too lazy to walk, the main streets are lined with vehicles of all sorts. Private carriages of the most approved make brush by dog-carts and antiquated shandrydans, or are overtaken by public stages which, though called by courtesy omnibuses, are more expressively dubbed in Tokyo “jolting cars.” These last race with overcrowded tramcars. But by far the most conspicuous and numerous of all are the jinrikisha, or two-wheeled vehicles drawn by men, which, from their great convenience, have obtained a phenomenal popularity, and though three decades have not passed since their first introduction, become more familiar sights than many another institution of much older standing. They are a unique production of the East, for though their birth-place is Tokyo, they are to be seen at all the eastern ports of the Asiatic continent. In Tokyo they are at present absolutely indispensable and their abolition would not only throw thousands of men out of employment in the city, but would even paralyze its activity. In such vogue are they that the people of Tokyo have ceased to be the good pedestrians that their fathers were and their country cousins still are, and its young men cannot keep pace with the sexagenarians who in their prime thought nothing of covering forty miles in a single day. The jinrikisha has, in fact, become a necessity and a luxury.
It was early in 1869 that this vehicle was introduced into Tokyo by Takayama Kosuke and two others, who are believed to be its inventors, though the honour has also been claimed for an American missionary, Whoever the inventor may have been, these were certainly the first to obtain Government permission for running it. It was, then, nothing more than a box supported by four props which rested without springs on the axle connecting the two wheels. A few cars of this description were kept on the southern approach to Nihonbashi, with a large flag set up to attract fares. As these jinrikisha were most uncomfortable to ride in, they failed to command public patronage. To Akiba Daisuke are due the improvements which have made the jinrikisha the most popular vehicle in the Far East. Akiba was a native of Yedo and supplied arms and saddlery to samurai, until the Restoration when the gradual decay of his trade obliged him to look for a more lucrative employment, and he first commenced the manufacture of carriages, which he built both to order and for hire. He prospered in the trade. When he saw the newly-invented jinrikisha in its crude state, he at once perceived the possibilities in store and, after months spent in improving it, he opened a work-shop in Ginza, the main street of Tokyo, for the manufacture of his jinrikisha; and as it was both comfortable and handy, his shop was soon flooded with orders. Akiba, after making a fortune by the vehicle, died in 1894. An ex-official of the Tokugawa Government was the first to apply the calash-top to the jinrikisha. The body of the vehicle was at first lacquered black, yellow, crimson, or green and adorned in addition with highly coloured representations of famous sceneries, warriors, actors, women, birds, beasts, fish, trees, or arabesques. In a corner of the back was given the owner’s name with his address in full. But of late these glaring pictures have gone out of fashion; and generally only the owner’s crest is painted in gold on sober background.
The rapidity with which the jinrikisha has come into wide use is attributable to its superiority in speed and comfort to the old palanquin, which it has entirely superseded except in mountainous districts. It is far more extensively patronised on account of its lower fares. This supersession of the palanquin by the jinrikisha was greatly facilitated by the similarity in the modes of life of the palanquin-bearer and the jinrikisha-man, which enabled the former to turn into the latter without the least difficulty; and a majority of palanquin-bearers, on finding that their occupation was doomed to decay, readily took to the two-wheeler. It is highly probable that, but for the palanquin-bearer, the new vehicle would not have enjoyed such sudden and extensive popularity. Like his prototype, the jinrikisha-man waits at the street-corner and solicits passers-by very importunately, though in contravention of the police regulations. He has no compunction in overcharging, the scale of fares fixed by the police being utterly disregarded by both the man and his customer, and only
A PALANQUIN AND ITS BEARERS.
referred to when they elect to bring their dispute over fares before the police. The fare is always higgled over before riding, and as they walk the while, often long distances are covered before they come to terms. The jinrikisha-man, like the palanquin-bearer, also asks for drink-money over and above the stipulated fare, especially if he is kept waiting at a tea-house or is engaged for a pleasure-trip.
The police authorities have made frequent attempts to bring the jinrikisha-man effectually under control and prevent his evil practices, such as claiming more fare than had been at first agreed upon, threatening to put down his female customers on the road unless he is given drink-money, or taking country people on a circuitous route in order to overcharge them. The police regulations for the guidance of the jinrikisha-man dwell upon the necessity of licenses and annual jinrikisha inspection, give directions for the build and colour of the jinrikisha and its appurtenances, instruct the jinrikisha-man that he may take off the top of his vehicle in fine weather, order what clothes he shall generally wear on a fair day, and lay down the cut and colour of his water-proof coat when wet. They are equally minute in their rules of the road. Where there is a carriage-way apart from the foot-way, the jinrikisha should always take the left side of the road, and the middle where there is no distinction between the foot and carriage ways. On meeting with vehicles, horses, and foot-passengers, the left side should be taken; but the jinrikisha must move to the other side on coming across troops, artillery, or commissariat waggons. The empty jinrikisha should always yield the way to the occupied, and on a hill-side the descending wheeler has the right of the road. A jinrikisha must first call out to another in front of it before it can overtake it, when the latter, on being so apprised, should move to the right to let the other pass. Postal carts, horses and engines of the fire-brigade, water-drays, and funerals can send the jinrikisha to the wall. At a street-corner, a jinrikisha should turn sharply to the left, but wheel in a large curve to the right. With these full instructions which are often more honoured in the breach, an attempt is made to prevent collisions, the comparative rarity of which is due more to the jinrikisha-man’s skill in steering his vehicle than to a strict observance of these regulations.
In each of the fifteen districts of Tokyo, there is a jinrikisha guild, to which every jinrikisha-man who draws for hire must belong; and each guild has a manager who is annually elected by the members. Every police notice relating to the jinrikisha is sent to this manager for publication in his district; and he receives in recompense a trifle for every application for a jinrikisha-man’s license and the registry of a jinrikisha, which must bear his countersignature. The manager has no sinecure office, for the men under him are among the rowdiest, as they are among the dregs, of the population of Tokyo. At the end of 1893, there were in Tokyo 38,481 jinrikisha, of which 29,707 held single passengers and the rest were double. There were also 40,820 jinrikisha-men, excluding those in private employ, of whom 8,692 drew their own jinrikisha, 29,807 hired them from 5,471 owners of such vehicles, and 2,321 were employed to draw them by 638 jinrikisha-house keepers.
The jinrikisha-men may be divided into three classes; those who serve in private houses, ply their trade under a jinrikisha-keeper, or work on their own account in the street. The first-named is a servant and treated in all respects as such. The police instructions touching the jinrikisha-man’s clothes do not apply to him. There is nothing noticeable about him except that he lords it over jinrikisha-men of the latter two classes wherever they happen to congregate.
A “JINRIKISHA”-HOUSE.
The jinrikisha-man of the second class has more complicated relations. He generally lives in a jinrikisha-house, and to the public he is nothing more than an employé of its keeper, for it is the latter that makes up and receives the jinrikisha-accounts once a fortnight or a month, and is at the same time responsible for the good behaviour of his men. There is no fixed system in force in the management of the jinrikisha-house, but generally speaking, the keeper gives board and lodging in his house to several hikiko or drawers of his wheelers. He charges twenty sen a day for board, lodging, and the use of his jinrikisha so that he gets six yen a month from each hikiko. He also charges ten per cent. on the hikiko’s earnings for letting him work in his name and standing as surety for his good conduct. As the hikiko has to provide his own light, fuel, and tea, for which he pays, say, thirty sen a month, he must earn at least seven yen per mensem to keep out of debt, for of this sum, six yen is paid for board, lodging, and the jinrikisha, seventy sen goes as commission to the keeper, and thirty sen is expended on light, fuel, and tea. The hikiko’s average monthly earnings may be taken at ten yen, which would leave him two yen seventy sen for his own use. The drink-money he frequently gets from his regular customers is, however, entirely his own. The fares of these houses, being on credit, are usually from twenty to forty per cent. higher than the street jinrikisha-man’s. The keeper does not always make so much money as he is supposed to by outsiders. Though the accounts are settled with his men at the end of every month, he has often to make advances to them in the interim; and sometimes such advances are far in excess of the payment due to the hikiko. It used formerly to be the ambition of the hikiko to borrow to the utmost from the keeper and then run away to find employment under another; but since the formation of the jinrikisha guilds, the keeper can, by giving notice of thehikiko’s absconsion to all the guilds, prevent his employment by any other keeper in Tokyo. The man cannot readily change his name unles he manages to obtain a license from the police under a false name; and detection is almost certain as every application must be countersigned by the manager of the guild of the district, who can with very little trouble find out his antecedents.
The last class of jinrikisha-men are the freest and the poorest of the three. A majority of them hire jinrikisha by the day, for which the charge ranges from four to eight sen. The street jinrikisha-man’s daily earnings average twenty-five or thirty sen. He has a street stand where he must wait for fares. Though most of these stands, fixed by the police, should be free to every jinrikisha-man, a new comer practically finds he must ingratiate himself with those already in occupation of the stand, by making them a small present of money or treating them at an eating-house to celebrate his entrance into their company. Stands in busy streets are always fully occupied, and new men cannot take up their position there except in case of a vacancy, when the vacating man sells his place at the stand to the highest bidder. At Uyeno and Shimbashi, the two great terminal stations of Tokyo, where the jinrikisha-stands are in the railway enclosures, the men are even more exclusive. There are at Shimbashi 250 men, whose trade is so profitable that a place at the stands finds ready bidders at twelve yen and a half, while at Uyeno, the twenty sen share every man paid when the stands were fixed is now worth three yen. Outside the railway enclosure at Shimbashi are to be seen men who solicit passengers, and when they find fares, undersell them to jinrikisha-men, the difference between the customer’s price and the jinrikisha-man’s being their clear profit. Such men are called “extras,” and having no jinrikisha of their own, are nothing but middlemen. They often make more money than the bona-fide jinrikisha-men, and that too without the least physical exertion.
There are said to be no fewer than four thousand jinrikisha-men who regularly ply their trade at night, resting all day. They take their station at the most frequented places and lie in wait for belated passengers or strayed revellers. As Japanese generally keep early hours, these night workers are all on the look-out by ten o’clock. Some are out immediately upon night-fall and turn home at one o’clock, while others make their working hours last from nine in the evening until day-break. Experienced men disdain to take fares for short distances, and let others carry wayfarers when shops close and streets begin to be deserted, for they only look for passengers at or after midnight when they are naturally well-paid; but while they make a fair profit when they catch a night-bird, they may also pass the whole night in vain expectation. Street stalls for dispensing wine and food to these night jinrikisha-men and others are to be seen in all the principal streets.
The street jinrikisha-men are among the most improvident and impecunious of men. They live in very poor tenements, consisting of long one-storied blocks partitioned into little hovels twelve feet by nine, the rent of which varies from a yen to a yen and twenty sen per month. There are in Tokyo special quarters of these slums, which form communities isolated from the rest of the city. They have an economical system of their own. They obtain their food from traders of the locality who collect with great assiduity such provisions as are out of season or have been rejected in better quarters. As the inhabitants of these slums mostly live by their daily labour, wet weather, trade depression, or sickness or idleness of the bread-winners causes them great suffering; and in such cases they resort for the supply of their immediate wants to the local pawnbrokers, usurers, or lottery-promoters, who, especially the first two, drive a fine trade as is evident from the appearance of their houses, with stoutly-built gates, black-plastered godowns, and strong brick-walls surmounted with chevaux-de-frise, standing in conspicuous contrast to the squalor in which their patrons are content to live.
The pawnbroker’s customers are navvies, day-labourers, jinrikisha-men, paper-pickers, mountebanks, dealers in disused articles, carriers, artizans, etc. They repair to his shop morning and evening. Their usual pledges are clothes, beddings, and mosquito-nets, but they will at a pinch bring rice-boxes, pots, pans, kettles, hats, and braziers, nor will they stick at rags, old cotton, pails, dressers, cart-wheels, or clogs. They hesitate to dispose of nothing that the pawnbroker will accept, the least that he will lend being ten sen. To the pawnbroker the most welcome pledges are clothes; but he will not refuse beddings, umbrellas, old utensils, and other inconvenient articles, on which he charges twice or three times as much interest as on clothes. The regulation-interest is 2.5 sen per month on one yen; but the usual loans in these poor quarters vary from twenty to fifty sen, and the rate of interest is 1.8 sen or 3.6 per cent. on fifty sen, one sen or five per cent. on twenty sen, and 0.8 sen or 8 per cent. on 10 sen. Thus by lending out one yen in ten separate tickets of ten sen each, the pawnbroker gets 8 sen per month, or 96 per cent. per annum. The poor, however, do not leave their articles of daily use in pawn so long; they generally redeem them in a few days, and at most within a week. In some cases they redeem in the evening what they pawned in the morning, and pledge in the evening to take out early next
THE FRONT OF A PAWN-SHOP.
day. Thus they will in the evening redeem their rice-boxes with articles of trade, which they bring out next morning with a utensil as hostage. Their upper and nether garments also play hide-and-seek up the spout. For a day’s pawn they are compelled to pay a month’s interest as the pawnbroker does not recognise a shorter period; and for the use of ten or twenty sen for a day or even half a day, they pay from five to eight per cent. interest. Most pawnbrokers in these quarters are kept hourly busy by the constant pledging and redeeming of these customers, and sometimes they will, when they have confidence in their honesty, take for their loans nominal pledges, such as an old pipe or towel. These regular customers pay the pawnbroker ten or twenty per cent. of their daily earnings.
Next to the pawnbroker, the busiest is the usurer, whose loans are returned in daily instalments. The usual method is to lend one yen to be returned in forty daily instalments of three sen each, or eighty sen to be refunded in fifty instalments of two sen. In either case the rate of interest is fifteen per cent. per month, without taking into account the fact of daily payment; but as the usurer deducts five sen as commission before handing the money, the actual rate is much higher. If the debtor fails in his daily instalment, the usurer returns him part of the money already repaid and renews the term of the loan; and in this manner, a debtor can seldom extricate himself from the usurer’s toils. The usurer’s profits are very large since he can lend out the instalments again as soon as they come in. He will also lend on future contingencies. Just as theatrical managers often make a loan by agreeing to give the creditor a benefit on a certain day, the poor will give as security their gains on a fixed day. Thus the jinrikisha-man, when hard-pressed at the end of the year, will raise the wind on his probable receipts during the first three days of the new year. He may thus borrow fifty or sixty sen, and yet his earnings on those days may amount to a yen or more, the whole of which he must give the usurer, though if the three days are continually wet, he may be unable to make good even the principal.
The next most important person to the poor is the sonryoya, who lets out clothes, beddings, and vehicles. Bed-clothes are hired out at from eight-tenths of a sen to two sen. Dresses worn by low-class performers of all kinds are lent at rates ranging from three to six sen. Ordinary clothes, and jinrikisha and other vehicles are also to let; but among the poor, bed-clothes find most customers, especially in winter and spring. Though the total sum they pay for their borrowed clothes during a season may exceed their original cost, the sonryoya’s customers are too improvident to lay by in the summer to meet their winter’s needs. The sonryoya drives a profitable trade. In one poor quarter containing 350 families, seven sonryoya, possessing from forty to a hundred sets of beddings, run short of them in winter. Sometimes the poor are even with these traders who grow fat on them. They will pawn the hired clothes or borrow largely from the usurer; and when they are dunned by the latter or brought to account by the sonryoya, they instantly make themselves scarce, which is by no means a difficult trick, as their household effects can be carried in a small bundle. The public bath-houses are a great boon to the poor; and in winter, a hot bath warms them sufficiently to enable them to dispense with winter clothes, until they turn into the hired beds, especially if they are equally fortified within by a full draught of saké.
