Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/179

 gence, and others were ruined by the extravagance of their members, so that numbers of persons had to support themselves by pursuits differing little from mendicancy. They wandered about the streets earning a meal by such trivial work as removing the fleas from a pet cat or dog, polishing rice-boilers, scrubbing cooking-boards, cleaning people's ears, telling fortunes, or displaying their proficiency in some slight accomplishment. There also came into existence a class of persons who earned a livelihood by ministering to the superstitions of the citizens,—worshipping for them by proxy, repeating incantations, or undertaking to make pilgrimages.

The great merchants were not wanting in charity towards these indigent folk, but there is no evidence that they ever thought of making voluntary contributions to public purposes. The spirit that suggests such acts was checked by the danger of being required at any moment to find large sums to meet deficiencies in the State revenue or to cover exceptional official outlays.

Thus it appears that the ambition of a wealthy merchant in the capital of the Shōguns a hundred and fifty years ago was not merely to lavish gold on the appointments of his house, on his garden, on his clothes, and on his cuisine, but also to make dazzling displays at the theatre, on festival occasions or even in the prostitute quarter. It is recorded of one commercial magnate (Kinoku-