Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/123

Rh to them than a task. The leisurely way in which they harden the foundation is in a striking contrast to their energy and agility at fires. If firemen were successful in preventing fires or minimising their ravages, their occupation as workmen might be expected to suffer; but fires appear to be frequent and destructive enough to give them plenty of work. Fires were indeed welcomed as a means of redistribution of wealth.

The fireman was always human, and has been, rightly or wrongly, accused of sometimes facilitating the spread of fires. For this reason, many wards took care by frequent presents to retain his goodwill; and wealthy merchants too gave freely to the heads of companies of firemen whenever a fire broke out in the neighbourhood, in consequence of which these companies did everything in their power to prevent its spreading to the donors’ houses. But these douceurs were, after all, inadequate recompenses for the great risks these men ran at fires, for there were almost always some of them injured, and occasionally a death or two also took place in a fire of fair magnitude.