Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/205

RV 179 no fee for storage being charged during that time.

Corresponding with the kake-ya of Ōsaka, was the fuda-sasbi of Yedo, a curious term, literally signifying "ticket-holder," and derived from the fact that rice-vouchers were usually thrust into split bamboos, which could be conveniently planted in a pile of rice-bags to indicate their buyer. The fuda-sashi received the grain constituting the revenues of the Shōgun's immediate feudatories—the Hatamoto, or bannerets—as well as of administrative officials, and accounted for it in cash. In Ōsaka no limit was at any time set to the number of the kake-ya, nor were they obliged to have licences. But in Yedo, from the beginning of the eighteenth century, the fuda-sasbi were duly licensed, the number of licences being fixed at one hundred and eight. Their fees amounted to a little more than two per cent of the transactions managed by them (three bu per thirty-five koku of grain), but they also derived large profits by lending money to the feudal chiefs, though they were forbidden to charge a higher rate of interest than fifteen per cent. Divided into three confederations, each subdivided into six classes with six houses in a class, they appointed a general manager for each confederation every month by vote, organised their business so ably that it brought them great gains, and lived in luxury which became proverbial. A licence might be transmitted in the