The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-03-28
JAPAN IN A NUTSHELL;
 ITS PEOPLE AND WEALTH

income by devoting their spare time to the production of silk, indigo and cotton. If he should, in the busy season, need
 the assistance of some outside helpers
 in gathering his harvest he can hire all the male peasant laborers he wants at
 wages of 15 cents a day while female
 helpers will be satisfied with 91z cents 6. day
 Small these Japanese farms are,
 it is fact that the taxes paid by their
 owners furnish about half the total iii-
 come of the Mikado's government. At present the tax rate is 31-3 per cent of the assessed valuation of the cultivated
 land. Large as this may seem to Ameri- can farmers. it is as nothing to taxes
 paid by Japanese farmers in the old days
 of the feudal system, which went to pieces
 in 1867. For time the government took
 two-fifths of the total crop as It's share
 of the taxes. Later the government share
 was raised to one-half and at the same time those farmers who rented the land they titled were forced to turn over one
 half of the remaining half of the crop to their grasping landlords.
 Thousands of Japanese are employed in | the fisheries, as is natural in an island population. The product of the fisheries furnishes large proportion of the food
 of the people. and within recent years | canneries have been established and mod 1 ern methods of taking the fish largely l adopted. The ancient and extremely pie l turesque native method of catching smelts and other comparatively small fish is still, | however, followed some of the more
 remote islands. The men engaged in this l industry go to work after nightfall and | depend on the glare of torches to attract the fish to the top of the water. In each boat are carried several tame coromo- rants. These great birds, by nature fish | ermen. plunge over into the sea and come l up with the struggling fish in their beaks | They have been taught, once the fish is ] captured. to swim at once to their mas | ter's boat and yield the fish into his hands but to make sure that the coro-
 morant will not forget his lesson. firm, | iron ring Is fastened about the throat of | the bird so that it is impossible for 1t to l swallow If 1t would.
 ! Women and girls are largely employed | in the fisher.ee On some of the remote
 islands the fisher girls armed with l knife and carrying a large bamboo basket attached to their shoulders, swim out l Into the sea for considerable distance
 and load their baskets with shellhsh and
 edible seaweed. which they procure by
 diving and detachng them from the
 rocks to which they cling. The wages l of q fisherman are about l9 cents . day. l There are no rich men fin Japan. as ] judged by the standards Of tho United | States There are only two men in the | empire who pay an income tax on over
 sia5t0r year. More astonishing still to ], American eyes are tho statements that i there arc orly thirteen n.cn in the em- 1 pirs who pey cn SD,01 8 year, sixty seven m Cs0oo: ninety-three on $tO1 and 1 i# on se.1o Out cs every 1000 In the en-
 pfre ,here arc only seven who have in- comes which ~auai si3J1 year.
 1 Tot the A.0N,00 people of this com
 paras.vsiy poor little country buy from | tks outside world goods to the yearly average O: s7 each.
 1 Tho total wealth of the empire of Jap ] an has been estimated as folIows: