Jinrikisha Days in Japan
Kioto looms, and stuffs that only after much searching are seen elsewhere. The straw goods trade is an important one, and its paper industries are on an even greater scale. Fans are exported from Osaka by millions, the United States taking one fan for each inhabitant of the great republic.
Stamped leather is another product of Osaka, but is chiefly exported to Trieste, to be made up there and at Vienna into the pocket-books, portfolios, card and cigar cases that cost so much in American jewelry and stationery stores. At Toyono’s, the largest leather factory, squares of stamped leather were shown us in more than a hundred designs of bugs, birds, and fish, covering the ground, each piece of leather being about twenty-four inches square, and selling at one or two dollars for the single piece. Larger pieces, stamped with large and elaborate designs in gold or colors, and used for the foreign trade as panels for wall decorations, mounted to ten and fifteen dollars each, the size and quality of the leather and work of the artist enhancing the price. The cost of one of the large square brass dies from which the impressions are made averages one hundred and fifty dollars. In the old days the two-feet-square surface of brass could be engraved in the finest all-over designs for half that sum. The leather is stamped from these dies by a hand-press, and after the stamping workmen sit on their heels and color the designs.
An industry peculiar to Osaka is the manufacture of floor rugs of cotton or hemp. These Osaka rugs were much esteemed in feudal days, when the daimio had the monopoly and sent them as gifts; but in these prosaic days a stock company and a large factory supply the home market and the great foreign demand for these inexpensive and pleasing articles.
Half the kairos sold in Japan are marked with an Osaka manufacturer’s name, and in cold weather or in
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