Jinrikisha Days in Japan

In the Settlement, back of the main street, the Chinese have an ill-smelling corner to themselves. Their greasy walls and dirty floors affront the dainty doll dwellings across the creek, and the airy little box of a tea-house, whose lanterns swing at the top of the perpendicular bluff behind them. Vermilion paper, baggy clothes, pigtails, harsh voices, and vile odors reign in this Chinatown. The names on the signs are curiosities in themselves, and Cock Eye, tailor, Ah Nie and Wong Fai, ladies' tailors, are the Poole, Worth, and Felix of the foreign community. Only one Japanese has a great reputation as dress-maker, but the whole guild is moderately successful, and prices are so low that the British and French houses of Yokohama cannot compete with them.

There is a large joss-house near the Chinese consulate, and at their midsummer, autumn, and New-year's festivals the Celestials hold a carnival of lanterns, fire-crackers, incense, paper-flowers, varnished pigs, and cakes. The Japanese do not love these canny neighbors, and half the strictures of the passport laws are designed to limit their hold on the business of the country. The Chinese are the stronger and more aggressive people, the hard-headed financiers of the East, handling all the money that circulates this side of India. In every bank Chinese shroffs, or experts, test the coins and make the actual payments over the counters. The money-changers are Chinese, and every business house has its Chinese _compradore_ or superintendent, through whom all contracts and payments are made. The Chinaman has the methodical, systematic brain, and no convulsion of nature or commerce makes him lose his head, as the charmingly erratic, artistic, and polite Japanese does. In many foreign households in Japan a Chinese butler, or head boy, rules the establishment; but while his silent, unvarying, clock-like service leaves nothing undone, the attendance of the bright-faced, amiable, and exuberant little natives with their smiles, their matchless courtesy, and their graceful and everlasting bowing is far more agreeable.