What a happy life!
What a happy life!

Tenants were rather well off because their standard of living was
lower than that of owners. Economic conditions were improving in
Yamagata, but in the adjoining prefecture of Miyagi on the eastern
coast of Japan "whole villages" had gone to Hokkaido. Some poor
farmers were spending only 5 sen a day on food, the rest of what they
ate coming entirely from their own holdings. Some farmers said, "If
you calculate our income, we are certainly unable to make a living,
but in some way or other we are able," which is what some small
holders in many countries would say.

I was told that a labourer's 5 _tan_ could be cultivated by working
half days. Generally more was earned by labouring than could be gained
from a small patch of land. But for half the year labourer's work was
not obtainable. My informant found small tenant labourers "well off"
if both husband and wife had wages: "they are able to buy a bottle of
_sake_ in the evening." Their position was better than that of a small
peasant proprietor.

One in a thousand of the families in a specified county slept in
straw. I heard of the payment of 20 to 25 per cent. to pawnbroker
lenders.

But there is another way of borrowing. The plan of the _ko_ may be
adopted. A _ko_--it is odd that it should so closely resemble our
abbreviation "Co."--is simple and effective. If a man is badly off or
wants to undertake something beyond his financial resources, and his
friends decide to help him, they may proceed by forming a _ko_. A _ko_
is composed of a number of people who agree to subscribe a certain sum
monthly and to divide the proceeds monthly by ballot, beginning by
giving the first month's receipts to the person to succour whom the
_ko_ was formed. Suppose that the subscription be fixed at a yen a
month and that there are fifty subscribers. Then the beneficiary--who
pays in his yen with the rest--gets 50 yen on the occasion of the
first ingathering. Every month afterwards a member who is lucky in the
ballot gets 50 yen. The monthly paying in and paying out continue for
fifty months and all the subscribers duly get their money back, with
the advantage of having had a little excitement and having done a
neighbourly action.

But the _ko_, or _tanomoshi_, as I ought to call it, is not always the
innocent organisation I have described. There is a _tanomoshi_ system
under which, after member A, the beneficiary, has received the f