Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/130

98 cent. on the hikiko’s earnings for letting him work in his name and standing as surety for his good conduct. As the hikiko has to provide his own light, fuel, and tea, for which he pays, say, thirty sen a month, he must earn at least seven yen per mensem to keep out of debt, for of this sum, six yen is paid for board, lodging, and the jinrikisha, seventy sen goes as commission to the keeper, and thirty sen is expended on light, fuel, and tea. The hikiko’s average monthly earnings may be taken at ten yen, which would leave him two yen seventy sen for his own use. The drink-money he frequently gets from his regular customers is, however, entirely his own. The fares of these houses, being on credit, are usually from twenty to forty per cent. higher than the street jinrikisha-man’s. The keeper does not always make so much money as he is supposed to by outsiders. Though the accounts are settled with his men at the end of every month, he has often to make advances to them in the interim; and sometimes such advances are far in excess of the payment due to the hikiko. It used formerly to be the ambition of the hikiko to borrow to the utmost from the keeper and then run away to find employment under another; but since the formation of the jinrikisha guilds, the keeper can, by giving notice of thehikiko’s absconsion to all the guilds, prevent his employment by any other keeper in Tokyo. The man cannot readily change his name unlesunless [sic] he manages to obtain a license from the police under a false name; and detection is almost certain as every application must be countersigned by the manager of the guild of the district, who can with very little trouble find out his antecedents.

The last class of jinrikisha-men are the freest and the poorest of the three. A majority of them hire jinrikisha by the day, for which the charge ranges from four to eight sen. The street jinrikisha-man’s daily earnings average twenty-five or thirty sen. He has a street stand where he must wait for fares. Though most of these stands, fixed by the