Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-03-26
! JAPANESE FACTORY
The Way Matches Are Made and Put
Up.
Endless Toll OF Handling and Count
ing All Done by Hand for Twenty
Five Cents q Day.

In his report to the foreign Office on the
subject of commerce in Japan Byron Bren-
an says: 1t is perhaps in a match factory
that the advantages of cheap labor can best
be seen. Osaka and Kobe are the centers
Of this industry, which employs some H.
600 persons. Nearly the whole process is
done by hand, and the cost of making ma
chimes chiefly resolves itself into q ques-
ton of wages. A large factory at Osaka
employs 1850 hands. principally young
girls. 1t is only in such parts of the pro-
cess as require physical strength that men
are employed or where the duties to be
performed are essentially mems work,
such as soldering tin cases, wheeling
trucks, stocking furnaces, etc. In this fac
tory the spiints are imported ready cut
from the northern island Of the empire
Before being dipped in the chemical
preparation they are placed in the frames
by women. who become marvelously expert
at their work.
The woman takes a number of splints
between her fingers and practice soon
teaches her how many are required With
rapid pass of the fingers she spreads
the splints along thin piece of wood
an inch wide and a foot long. into which
have been scored fifty shallow grooves
at regular intervals. BY deft manipulation
one pass of the fingers leaves about forty
five grooves duly filled ard with lightning
rapidlty the five empty grooves receive
their little stick; then another strip of wood
is superposed and keeps the lower one in
position. The process is repeated fifty-five
times and then the frame Is full. Thus
Z,Ioo splints so to each frame. A very
practiced hand will fill fifty frames in a
day OF ten hours, and thus earn 1T1a cents,
but in this establishment there We're but
few who could fill more than forty frames
a day. AS in every other department
where the nature of the occupation allows
n q hy fhn
rate OF 312 cents for ten frames The wo-
men work on the floor, each in her little
penl1ke compartment, rallied off by bamboo
poles. The Japanese woman's attitude at
work. in which she will remain for hours
Is to kneel and sit back on her feet which
are turned tees inward under her Each
worker has her box with a supply of
splints, and a number of frames at hand
and an overseer comes round periodically
to count and remove the full frames In
one room were working some hundred Young
girls and women, some of them mothers
with their bales strapped on their backs
or crawling round clinging to the mother
and innocently impeding her in her work
After the splints in the frames have re-
celved the chemical treatment and passed
through the drying rooms-all this being
into the hands Of women, and in the box
ming and box-labeling rooms the visitor
Is again amazed at the CELEBRITY of human
myers. In the hox-filling room young
floor in rows, and the small babies re-
appear either the mothers back or
at her side. A rapid worker will fill 400
dozen boxes per day; with unerring judg-
ment the delicate fingers pick up the exact
quantity Of matches and with shake or
two lay them evenly in the box; then, in
stead of replacing the original cover on to
the full case, the woman pushes the latter
INTO new cover, and in doing SO pushes
out an empty case. which in its turn as
soon as filled displaces another tenant
This work Is rewarded at the rate of 81
cents per 100 dozen. and a very quick work
er may earn % cents
In the box-labeling room it is again
women's work. Each woman has in front
of her a board on which are laid pot of
paste and a small pile Of labels face down.
ward. At her side are the unadorned
match boxes small quantity of paste
is spread on the board, and then almost
more rapidly than the eye can follow the
fiat brush is dabbed on to the paste, swept
across the topmost label to which it ad-
heres, the label is slapped on to the box
and rub of the finger secures it in it's
place. The best woman can label $4,000
boxes a day. and while I was noticing one
girl my watch told me that she was doing
more than one second, but she was the
show worker of the room and on her met
tie. and such rapidity could not be kept
up for long. This work is paid 1 cent per
0OO boyea