Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/28

12 appearing in order from the lowest to the highest in the company.

The rakugoka are very numerous. They are subdivided into many families, of which the largest are the Sanyutei and Yanagiya; and as in most other professions in Japan they form a guild. Every family of rakugoka has a chief whom the rest acknowledge as their master when they assume the family name; and they remain his disciples throughout their professional career unless they renounce the name and the connection, or are expelled from the family through misconduct or insubordination. The rakugoka, who has no disciple of his own or at least none of any repute, generally calls to his assistance rakugoka of other families, gidayu singers, conjurers, singers of popular songs, or musicians. As first-rate story-tellers are comparatively few, these variety entertainments are the rule in the rakugoka’s halls in Tokyo. Story tellers, however, prefer where possible to employ their own disciples from pecuniary considerations as well as for the sake of the obvious advantages of their close relations in the management of the company. A story-teller opens a hall usually on the understanding that the entrance-charges be divided equally between himself and the proprietor of the hall, though if he is a public favourite, he can command a larger share. Out of his share, however, he pays his company by giving them a fixed sum or a percentage of his profits. The latter course is taken in the case of the more important members of the company, though the actual percentage is, other things equal, larger for outsiders than for his own disciples, who thus give him a wider margin of profit. The supernumeraries who only help to kill time till the hall fills are paid a trifle for the whole run. As the entrance-money is very small, being usually four or five sen, except in special cases, the receipts are not large though the audience may number two or three hundred or more; and to increase their incomes, story-tellers generally appear at two or more