Pit Workers in the Old Days #4 (Murder Case)
1958 - 1963

Mukashi no Yamabito #4 (Satsugai Jiken)
[Pit Workers in the Old Days #4 (Murder Case)]
21.2 x 30.3 cm Ink Painting

This is not a play but a true story. This case happened in San-nai Coal Pit (today's Aso Farm in Iizuka City) run by Mr. A around 3:00 p.m. on May 27, 1908. The 28-year-old personnel supervisor (hitoguri) named Ryotaro Kuboyama of the No.1 naya miners' group managed by Kyubee Tsuji beat Rintaro Uryu aged 23 of the same naya group for being lazy in the check house. The latter held a grudge against the former and ran after Kuboyama, who was delivering tickets to confirm the next day's arrangements for miners to enter the pit to each miner's row house. Using a Japanese sword 1 shaku 3 sun (39 cm) long, Uryu stabbed and slashed Kuboyama as many as eleven times to death. San-nai Coal Pit was such a peaceful pit that it was the first murder case in the pit. It goes without saying that all the people in the pit were very much surprised, though they knew that Uryu's pride led him to carry out this murder.
Uryu surrendered himself to Iizuka Police Office with the bloody sword in his hand and was interrogated by Prosecutor Watanabe. Later he was sentenced to 12 years for manslaughter and was sent to the jail of Miike Coal Mine.
A 5-shaku-8-sun-tall (175.7-cm-tall) handsome young man, Kuboyama, who had been called a kenka taro (quarrelsome man) and had about 50 old sword-wounds across his body, was killed and sent to the other world. Meanwhile, 5-shaku-1-sun-tall (154.8-cm-tall) Uryu was imprisoned in the above hellish jail and died of disease several years after he was released from prison. Indeed, nothing is as foolish as fighting.

Lettering in the Circle
If two tigers fight with each other, one will die and the other will be injured and fall.


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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