Delivery of Newspapers and Letters to the Pit around 1904
1964 - 1967

Meiji Sanju Shichinen Zengo Yama no Shimbun to Yubin
[Delivery of Newspapers and Letters to the Pit around 1904]
38.3 x 54.1 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink

The charge for newspapers was 70 sen a month in the end of the Taisho era (1912-1926). Only officials (executives) of the pit or bosses of extremely large boardinghouses for unmarried male workers (o-naya toryo) subscribed before the Russo-Japanese War, and a few pit workers also began to take newspapers after the war. There was no evening edition at that time. National papers such as the Osaka Asahi and Mainichi were delivered on the next day of the date of issue. There were also local papers, such as the Fukuoka Nichinichi and Kyushu Nippo. A copy of the Asahi and Mainichi consisted of at least 6 pages and at most 12 pages, and had a considerable number of advertisements. A copy of the Fukuoka Nichinichi (Fukunichi) and Kyushu Nippo (Kyunichi) consisted of 6 to 10 pages and was sold at 50 sen (0.5 yen) and 36 sen (0.36 yen) a month respectively. They sometimes issued their special editions with pages printed in color. Among newspaper advertisements at that time, those for Jintan were king and the company inserted their ads using a whole page or a half page spread every day. The second largest-scale ads were for a specific medicine for syphilis by Arita Drug, and the rubber models issued by the company of the diseased part were displayed in the pharmacies in towns. The third largest-scale ads were for a fortifier called Jiarin, in which a sumo wrestler was holding a bottle of the medicine in his hand. Ads for the face lotion by Momoya Juntendo, the toothpaste by Lion and others (such as the Soap by Miyako no Hana Sekken, the eye lotion by Daigaku, and other countless goods) also filled the advertisement columns of the above papers.
The newspaper deliverer was not a student or a boy like today, but a physically challenged man with healthy legs.
A postcard cost 1 sen 5 rin (0.015 yen), a postage stamp cost 3 sen (0.03 yen) and the prices never changed. In the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho eras, the mail was thrown into the letter rack prepared in front of the station (jinjigakari-shitsu) for the personnel boss, lumping them all together. Some of the envelopes were broken and their contents visible, while many others were actually blind envelopes. They were also delivered to each addressed person in the pit in the Showa era (1926-1989).

The letter rack was nailed beneath the front window of the station (kaikoba or torishimari/jinjigakari-shitsu) for the personnel boss in front of the pit mouth of the manway slope. It was dirty because some of the miners who exited the pit checked letters in it.
Newspapers were delivered to each reader's house in pits or villages in the east of Iizuka Town (such as Tateiwa, Kayanomori, San-nai Coal Pit, and others) by a man without his right hand in the end of the Meiji era and the beginning of the Taisho era.
The Fukuoka Nichinichi serialized Taikoki (a story of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, one of the conquerors of Japan in the end of the warring states period) around 1902 or 1903. The Asahi serialized Ako Gishi Den (a story of forty-seven samurai retainers of the Ako Clan) around 1906. Both novels were written by Hakuryu Kanda.


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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