3-078-012 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Street sketches in Tokio, Japan: seller of vegetables, 1890. 'The city of Tokio, formerly called Yedo,...has three quarters of a million inhabitants...Our Illustrations, furnished by an amateur photographer, Mr. Chas. J. S. Makin, show street life, the figures and costumes of different industrial classes, who are met everywhere in the throng of city folk. We may observe, first of all, the manner in which everything is carried, whatever it may be, from a baby to a bag of flour. The "timtimbo," or shoulder-stick, four or five feet long, is swung over the shoulder, and at each end a basket, suspended by a rope, becomes the carrying vehicle for everything. This mode of carriage is also adopted by the Chinese, and in the east of Asia generally. For heavier articles and merchandise, a cart or barrow, pushed by coolies, is used. Horses are rarely employed for this purpose. The "yarea," or basket-seller, is frequently seen in the streets, pushing a small cart before him, with his stock of bamboo baskets of all shapes and sizes'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.