Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/62

32 which is often insufficient for the support of life, after the tax has been paid. The fee for a jinrikisha ride averages about 12 or 15 sen per ri (2-1/2 miles), or varies from 20 to 30 sen per hour. If a coolie makes 50 sen in one day, he is fortunate, and is lucky to average 25 or 30 sen per day; for some days he may be wearily waiting and watching from dawn to the dead of night without receiving scarcely a copper. Hard, indeed, is their lot; and their death rate is rather high.

But even the jinrikisha will eventually be supplanted for long journeys wherever a railroad goes. There are now in Japan over 6,000 miles of railway, and in Korea and South Manchuria there are 641 and 706 miles more. There is one continuous line of railroad from Aomori in the extreme north to Shimonoseki in the extreme south of the main island, and then, after crossing the Straits of Shimonoseki, there is another unbroken line from Moji to Nagasaki and Kagoshima or Kumamoto. In the island of Yezo (Hokkaidō) is a short line built by American engineers after American models; but all other railroads in