Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/209

RV 183 these licences increased in value, so that pawn-brokers willingly accepted them in pledge for loans. Subsequently, almanack-sellers were also required to take out licences, their numbers being limited to eighty-one; and the system was afterwards extended to money-changers, of whom six hundred were placed on the official roll.

It was to the fishmongers, however, that the advantages of commercial organisation first presented themselves vividly. The greatest fish-market in Japan is at Nihon-bashi in Tōkyō. It had its origin in the needs of the Tokugawa Court. When Iyeyasu entered Yedo in 1590, his train was followed by some fishermen of Settsu. To them he granted the privilege of plying their trade in the adjacent seas, on condition that they furnished a supply of their best fish for the use of the garrison. The remainder they offered for sale at Nihon-bashi. Early in the seventeenth century, one Sukegoro of Yamato province went to Yedo, and organised the fish-mongers into a great guild. Nothing is recorded about this man's antecedents, though his mercantile genius entitles him to historical notice. He contracted for the sale of all the fish obtained in the neighbouring seas, advanced money to the fishermen on the security of their catch, constructed preserves for keeping the fish alive until they were exposed in the market, and enrolled all the dealers in a confederation which ultimately