Jinrikisha Days in Japan

Kioto remains the home of the arts, although no longer the seat of government. For centuries it ministered to the luxury of the two courts, which gathered together and encouraged hosts of artists and artisans, whose descendants live and work in the old home. Kioto silks and crapes, Kioto fans, porcelains, bronzes, lacquer, carvings, and embroideries preserve their quality and fame, and are dearer and better than any other.

Silk is the most valuable article of export which Japan produces, and raw silk to the value of thirty millions of yens goes annually to foreign consumers, while the home market buys nearly seven millions of yens' worth of manufactured fabrics. The Nishijin quarter of Kioto and the Josho district, north-west of Tokio, are the great silk centres of Japan, and any silk merchant, fingering a crape gown, will tell instantly which of the rival districts produced it. Recently Kofu, west of Tokio, and Hachioji, twenty miles south, have become important centres of manufacture as well. The silk market has its fluctuations, its panics, and its daily quotations by cable; but raw silk has so inherent a value that it is a good collateral security at any bank, and the silk-broker is as well established and important a personage in the mercantile world of the Orient as the stock-broker in the Occident. Next to specie or gems, silk is the most valuable of commodities in proportion to its bulk, the cargo of a single steamer often representing a value of two million dollars in gold. The United States is the greatest consumer of Japan's raw silk. In 1875 fifty-three bales only of raw silk and cocoons were shipped to America. In 1878 there were two thousand three hundred and thirty-six bales, in 1887 some sixteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-four bales, and in 1901 the export of raw silk to America amounted to forty seven thousand six hundred and sixty-two bales. Our share of the raw silk is nearly all consigned to Paterson, N. J. With the opening of this great foreign trade, silk is dearer to the Japanese consumer than twenty years ago; and while it still furnishes the ceremonial dress, and is the choice of the rich, cotton and, of late, wool have taken its place to a great extent.