The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-13

which is owned by the mill company.
These are in families and live in much
the same fashion as the mill hands in
an American mill village, except that
the scale is much lower, as everything
in Japan must be. The other 1000 oper-
atives are from distant points in the
country and most of them are young
and without any members of their fam
lilies with them. These 1000 boys and
girls, for none of them is more than
twenty-one, live in a great boarding
house which is conducted by the mill.
Mr.. Fugi, the general manager of the
company, is called papa san" by all
the boarders and if cheerfulness of de-
meanor counts for anything, they are
all happy.
This immense boarding house is
great wooden building. The hands are
divided into families of thirty, and
each family is presided over by a ma
iron who exercises discipline, cares for
those who are slightly i'll and mends
clothes. The seriously i'll all go to the
hospital. Forty cooks prepare the rice
and fish which make up the bill-of-fare
at the big boarding house. The water
is all distilled, the plumbing is modern.
and on the whole these 1000 young Jap
anese may be said to live under con-
ditIons a thousand times better than
they ever knew before they came to
the factory.
The younger operatives, those who
are exempted from the full twelve hour
day at work, are compelled to go to
school. The mill maintains two large
schools within the factory enclosure,
one for boys and one for girls. From
two to four hours in school each day
is compulsory for all the younger
hands. These schools teach the COM
mon elementary branches and, in adj
dition, certain technical textile instruc-
ton is given. If the school teacher
who daily lectures these children on
mechanics would walk across the yard
ami superintend his class while they
cleaned some machines, it would be
better for the mill. But everywhere in
Japan one sees evidences of a certain
inability to coordinate theories and
practise.
The browning glory of this particular
mill is it's theater. A great structure
built after the American order with
high stage for drop curtains, two curv-
ed galleries and an inclined floor, is
fitted with 1000 American opera chairs.
Contrasted to the japanese theater
with level floors and no chairs at all
this theater is an Aladdin's Palace. The
electric lighting features provide for
all the stage effects of the ordinary
Occidental playhouse, and there is
regular orchestra of ten pieces which
plays Occidental music. In this theater
three performances a week are given,
free of charge, to the mill hands.
~. I'D
into a Presbyterian church. There is
an early morning Sunday school. a
morning preaching service, and an
evening service. AS the large majority
of the operatives are not Christians,
attendance at Sunday services is vol
untary. Usually there are over a thou
sand at the morning service. Sunday
afternoon some missionary gives pop
ular lecture in the theater, often illus
trated with magic-lantern pictures. and
generally aimed at giving the japanese
mill hands q peep into the outside
world
The entire manufacturing output Of
japan is now worth about 5000. 900
a year. and of this more than half
comes from the households where the
handicraft industries are carried OF as
they have been for centuries. But the
machine is slowly and surely forging
its way upward and the hand workers
are drifting into the mills. That the
factories are already taking steps to
ameliorate the condition OF these peo-
pie when transpIanted from rural free
dom to system discipline, Is a fact
which win cause rejoicing among hui
of other lands.
Ten years ago there were $4,000
weaving houses in Japan in which over
IA million persons wrought on hand
looms. Now there are only 100000
weaving houses and $50. 900 hand weav-
ers. During the same period the weav-
ing mills have increased from 80 TO $50
and they now employ 10000 people
However. the principal mills in Japan
limit themselves to spinning cotton or
to winding silk, and the greater por-
ton Of Japan's exports is made up Of