The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-23
CLEAN JAPANESE GIRLS.

In Blue Gowns and White Kerchiefs
 Put 2,OOO Tons of Coal on Board in
 Eight Hours.
 The most interesting thing that we saw at Nagasak, and one of the most striking exhibitions of quiet efficiency that l have ever seen anywhere was the coaling of our steamer. The trans- ference Of 1,500 or 2,00O tons of coal from the shore to the bunkers of a vessel 1y- ing out in the middle of harbor is a task of considerable magnitude, and one that might be expected, even under the most favorable conditions, to occupy two or three days. When, therefore, I was informed, before we reached Nagasaki, that the Japanese would coal a steamer like the Empress of India in ' from five to eight hours, without don lkey-engines, cranes, or hoisting-m chinery of any kind, I felt an eager curiosity to see it done. This curiosity, moreover, was greatly stimulated by the additional information that the task would be accomplished by gang of young Japanese girls equipped only
 with flexible, bowl-shaped straw bas- kets holding about third of a bushel each and these girls could put 1000 tons of coal on board of a steamer lying out lin the mid-stream in less than eight hours.
 Before the Empress of India had fair 1 ly swung into position at the mooring-
 buoy, four or five big coal-barges, in tow or under sail, came off to her and made fast alongside. Nimble and dex- Iterous Japanese coolies instantly threw up against the steamers side or 10 stout frames, which supported num- Der of square platforms, about four feet apart, one rising above another in slanting gradation, like the steps of a
 Brobingnagian step-ladder. At the same time, a fleet of large Japanese sampans, crowded with girls in dark
 blue gowns and white head-kerchiefs, Jeanne off to us from the shore, and | the girls, swarning over the coal
 barges, climbed up the step-ladders and 1 took positions on the square platforms, | in couples so as to make two continu-
 ous lines up each frame from the pile os coal on the barge to one of the big
 portholes of the steamer. The men on 1 the barges filling the small straw baskets with coal, putting about two shovelsuls into each; and as fast as they were filled, the girls seized them ], and tossed them up from hand to hand and from platform to platform of the
 big step-ladder so that they came over the ships side in continuous stream, , like the buckets of a grain elevator.
 1 As fast as the baskets were emptied
 into the steamers coal-chutes another
 set of girls threw them back upon the
 barge where they were seized, refilled,
 and again passed up. By counting
 several times the baskets that came up
 between the girls of one double line, I
 ascertained that the average rate of I delivery at the top of each frame was
 43 basketfuls per minute. Inasmuch as
 every basket held about 14 pounds,
 each double line of girls put on board I 602 pounds of coal per minute or a lit-
 tie more than IS tons per hour; and as
 there were nine double lines of girls on the two sides of the ship the steamer was getting coal at an average rate of i two and three-quarters tons per minute
 Tor 162 tons per hour. Even this was
 not the possible maximum, because by
 increasing the number of frames and
 passers it would have been quite prac- tical to handle 250 tons an hour and this lspeed has often been attained. Indeed lon one occasion, the coollie girls of
 Nagasaki put 1860 tons of coal on one
 of the Empress steamers in four hours
 or at the rate of nearly six per minute l It is doubtful whether any hoisting
 and conveying machinery that man has
 ever devised could put coal on board z steamer in mid-strean at an average
 rate oe $40 tons per hour and do is as economically as it is done by gang oi Japanese girls. The compensation re- 1ceived by the latter is dependent upon | the number of coal baskets that they
 handle. but it seldom exceeds three or l four cents an hour The work of course 1 is hard. but as every basket is passed | up by two girls standing opposite each
 other, the weight actually lifted by
 each is only seven pounds. That
 seven-pound weight, it is true, has to
 be lifted or tossed 43 times a minute;
 but the muscles of the girls's arms and
 shoulders become so hardened and de-
 veleoped by constant practice that, like