Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-04-06
JAPANESE ARTISANS.
Carpenters Who Work in Crude Way
but Achieve Superior Results,

carpenters Who Work In Crude WAYS,
but Achieve Superior Results.
The japanese artisan has four hands
and twelve fingers. He uses his feet as an
extra pair of hands, and his two great toes
can wrap themselves around the articles
with which he works like an Americans
thumb. l saw cooper at work mending
bucket. He held the bucket between
his feet while he sat down to his work and
put on the hoops with a hammer and
wedge. His legs were bare and his cue
was tied in the old japanese fashion,
while his almond eyes closely watched the
work he had before him. After ten r.in-
utes of pounding he laid down his tools
and took smoke, and during the hour
that sat near him he smoked four times.
The japanese pipe only holds a pinch of
tobacco, and he could do this cheaply, but
the time consumed was at least twenty
minutes. This perpetual siesta is one of
the features of Japanse labor am told
by old American residents that japanese
workman will not do one-third as much in
a day as an American workman, and in
every case they seem to do their work in
the hardest of ways.
The methods of labor in Japan are the
direct opposite of those in America. The
carpenters, for instance, pull their planes
the other way, and when they use the
drawing knife they push it from them in
stead of pulling ittowards them. They do
most of their work sitting, and they do all
the work on the pull stroke instead of the
push stroke, and they stand the board as a
rule at an angle of 45o against something
rather than lay it on a bench or sawhorse
as we do. They do their marking, not
with chalk, but with a reel and an linked
string when they wish to saw in straight
line, and the whole of the work of turning
the rough logs into the finest of cabinet
work is done by hand.
There are no planning mills in Japan,
and the sawmills can be counted on the
fingers of one hand. The usual method of
saving logs iuto boards is to stand the log
at an angle against the support and saw it
by hand. The saw used is not the power
full cross-cut saw of America, but a wide
short japanese instrument, which has a
handle about two feet long, aad which
looks like butchers cleaver filed into
saw.
The human sawmill stands on top of the
log or under it, and pulls away for ten
hours day for about so cents. Skilled
carpenters in cities get about forty Ameri-
can cents day, and the best men in the
business do not get over forty-6ve. Still,
you will find no better workmen in the
world than here. Their work is done
with the use of very few nails, and they
have to be cabinet-makers as we'll as car
penters. Every japanese house has walls
which must move IN grooves in and out
every day, and the ordinary home is as
finely put together as bureau. The join
ing of everything is done by dovetailing,
and the japanese could teach our Ameri-
can workmen much in the polishing and
joining of fine woods.
Speaking of house-building, the Japan
csc begin their work at the top. The roof
goes on first, and then they begin to build
the walls and to construct the interior
Frank G.. Carpenter.