Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-09-11
NO UNIONS IN JAPAN.
A System introduced by the
Dutch Years Ago.
THERE ARE GUILDS INNUMERABLE.
Workingmen's Organizations are Not FOR
the Purpose of Raising Wages-other
Interesting Notes.


japan there are very many guilds. com
posed of merchants and manufacturers
and others engaged in the same line OF
business who have organized for their
mutual advantage and to control SO far
as THEY can the trade to which they
belong. They have existed ever since
the seventeenth century and were
copied from the Dutch. VINO came to
the empire during that period and ex-
ercised very powerful influence upon
industry and commerce. In fact, the
Dutch were never entirely expelled
from japan. When the shotgun issued
his edict of exclusion because of the
rapid growth of the Catholic religion
here the Dutch Professionals were still
allowed to occupy the island of Desh-
ina in the harbor of Nagasaki, and for
more than 200 years that was the only
place in Japan where foreigner could
live.
The first Dutch settlement was estab-
lished there in 1924, and the island
has remained practically without
change ever since. The Japanese were
prohibited from going abroad, and even
those sailors who were shipwrecked on
foreign shores were forbidden to come
home lest they might bring back with
them the seeds of sedition against the
despotic power of the shotgun and the
divinity Of the emperor. There was
still some commerce with China and
Korea, but all the intercourse between
Japan and other nations was conducted
through the little colony of Protestant
Dutchmen on the island of Deshima
until peaceful armada under the COM
mand of Matthew Gilbraith Perry en-
tered the Bay of Tokyo in 1858.
The Dutchmen at Deshima exercised
wholesome influence upon the Japan
ese and educated large Der of
their young men. They furnished the
only social and intellectual stimulant
Japan had and few modern ideas
filtered through them into the empire.
Among other things they taught the
japanese the uselessness of dragons
teeth and snake skins as pharma-
coppia and gave them knowledge of
anatomy and the rudiments of medi-
cine. European improvements upon
the spindle and the loom came in that
way. One finds great many traces of
the heavy Dutch civilization through
out Japan. The guild is one of them,
and it now extends from the bankers
and the manufacturers as far as the
massage operators, the story tellers and
the thieves.
In Japanese cities and villages about
sunset you begin to hear doleful whis-
ties in the streets. One will come
from somewhere near you, and pretty
soon another from far away, and if
you choose you can trace them TO blind
men. who walk in the middle of the
road. each with bamboo staff in his
hand blowing his monotonous and
melancholy signals to notify the public
Of his whereabouts. These are the
ANNA san, blind shamponers and
massage operators. who occupy con-
spicuous place in Japanese social life.
They rub the skin, knead the muscles
and shampoo the hair, which are fav-
orite treatments among the natives,
and are credited with great virtues in
the Japanese hygiene.
Custom immemorial has limited this
occupation to the blind, and with the
exception of music it is almost the only
one in which person so afflicted can
engage, although, curiously enough,
when blind man is fortunate enough
to be rich he is money lender. The
ANNA san are organized into one great
guild, with their headquarters at
Tokyo and Kyoto. and are divided into
different grades like wrestlers, being
promoted from one to another after
the passage Of an examination and the
payment of a fee, which goes into a
common treasury. and is used for
charity among the guild.
I do not suppose there is any law
limiting this business to blind men.
but no others are engaged in it, The
extreme care which the women of
Japan take of their hair makes sham
pooling popular. much more so thsn in
any other country, and massage treat
ment has for centuries been popular
remedy for rheumatism, lumbago and
other pains and aches. Their system
differs. however, from the Swedish in
that they work down instead of up the
body, their theory being similar to that
of the Indian medicine men, who press
the pain out of the body by working it
toward the fingers and toes.
Another curious guild is that of the
story-tellers, called yose, who appear
to be relic of the days when books
were scarce. They are similar in their
methods and occupation TO the trouba-
dours of the middle ages and the Tin
gari, who are even now found in the
mountains of Austria, Italy and Spain.
They have houses of entertainment
where people may go and listen to re-
citations of stories. tragedies and poems
while they sit around cross-legged.
drinking tea and smoking their long
stemmed metal pipes.
Sometimes the yose has a book be-
fore him reading chapter of history
or an act from one of the great plays.