BEGGING IN JAPAN

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1929, Page 5

BEGGING IN JAPAN

A THREE-HOUR DAY. The three-hGU. day for beggars is now in effect in Tokio. Not the authorities, but the beggars themselves, have restri jd the working day to that length. While begging in Japan is not the fine art and honourable calling that it is in some parts of China, nevertheless in Tokio and other large cities there are hundreds who make their living by soliciting alms in public. Competition incident to a highly commercialised age has made it necessary for these mendicants to organise, and a beggars’ guild now enacts and enforces beggars’ law. Because of the increasing number of beggars and the scarcity of locations where the “pickings” are good, the threehour day has been adopted. No beggar is allowed to “work” longer than that, and at the end of his three-hours’ shift he must surrender his “pitch” to a compatriot. The beggar who goes off duty, however, does not necessarily cease to earn for the day. The beggars have adopted a communistic system regarding the distribution of wealth, and the day’s takings are divided equally among them, with no discrimination to age or sex. There are two “popular” begging “centres” in Tokio. One is Asakusa Park, a huge amusement resort in a thickly populated district, where there also is a temple where thousands go daily to worship. < The other is outside the crematorium in Senju, -where mourning relatives o< the.d ea d'are often likely to show living.