irst
month's subscriptions, the other members are open to receive bids for
their shares. That is to say that, when the time comes round for the
second paying out of 50 yen, member F, who happens to have become as
much in need of ready money as A was, offers, if the month's moneys be
handed over to him, to distribute among the members sums up to 20 yen.
July and December, when most people need ready money, are months in
which a hard-up member of a _tanomoshi_ may sometimes offer to
distribute as much as 50 per cent. of what he receives. The result of
such bidding for shares is that well-to-do members of a _tanomoshi_,
who are the last to draw their 50 yen, receive in addition to it all
the extra payments made by impoverished members who took their shares
earlier. Benevolence in a _tanomoshi_ is not seldom a mask for avarice
that the law against usury cannot touch. In truth, the only virtuous
part of a _tanomoshi_ may be the first sharing out to the person in
whose interest it was supposed to be started. It should be added,
however, that there is a sort of _tanomoshi_ which has no particular
beneficiary and is merely a kind of co-operative credit society. In
one place I heard of a _tanomoshi_ that maintained a large fund for
the relief of orphans and the sick.

In many villages there were private or co-operative godowns for the
storage of rice against fire, rats and damp. Though the farmer who
sends rice to such a store receives a receipt, it is not legally a
marketable document. Hence an improvement on this simple storage plan.
I visited the premises of a company that could store more than 500,000
bushels of rice, and I found purification by carbon bisulphide going
on. The receipts given by this company--"certificated" for large
quantities and "tickets" for small--certify not only the quantity but
the quality of the rice, and are readily cashed. The storehouse owners
work under a licence, and they have the advantage that the buyer of
the receipts of non-licensed stores is not protected by the courts.

In the office of the company were samples of eleven market qualities
of rice, and before them, by way of showing respect to the great food
staple, was set the _gohei_ of cut white paper seen in Shinto
shrines. Outside the office, girl porters carried the bales of rice to
and fro. Close to the store was a river in which some of the dusty,
perspiring porters were washing and cooling themselves with a
simplicity to which Wes