Route of Cave Pioneering (cont’d)
Tetsuji Ishida was a sailor and migrated to this country in around 1887 by a sealing schooner. He was also fishing salmon in the Winch Cannery (Steveston Cannery) one time, although half of his earning came from gambling. Later he also had a soba noodle store in San Francisco. When he had a scow in Vancouver, he took care of Takahashi, whom you know, so they knew each other very well. This relationship helped Tetsuji go to Nelson and succeed Takahashi to run a devil cave, which was already eight or nine years ago.
When Tetsuji closed down his cave in Nelson, it was Jinzaburō Kawamoto who took it over, and Kawamoto is still ruling Nelson today. Kawamoto, or Chabujin, was born in Bicchu Kasaoka and he is already 48 years old this year. When he was young he served for a broker in Nagasaki. After the Satsuma Rebellion* the price of rice oscillated—it dropped when they purchased and rose when they sold—and the situation did not settle. Meantime, when he visited Yokohama he was also asked to work for a room rental business and helped it for a while, but in the end he got on a sealer boat and migrated to this country in around 1887. A man called Taizō Kishida was operating a hotel for sailors in Yokohama then and he has also been an owner of a cave in around Blairmore.
Since he came to this country, Chabujin has fished salmon in the river and owned a gambling place. As he has a characteristic of helping the weak, he was once respected by others and there was a time when he owned a sawmill in Whatcom. But eventually he became a brothel owner.
When he was the owner of Diamond House in Seattle a few years ago, he had the help of some person and had a woman over from Chemainus, turned her into his wife and had a girl, who is already six years old now, with her. Chabujin officially registered himself as an adopted child of his wife’s family and his wife is now raising her daughter in her hometown, Azatominoo, Shinshomura, Kugagun, Yamaguchi. However, Chabujin never writes her and completely left her alone and apparently she is resentful of him.
The cave, which Chabujin now owns in Nelson, used to be Ishida’s house. After saving some money Ishida left for Japan, and there is a rumor that he has been a loan shark but we do not have detailed information about this. But one time he was followed by a detective very closely and had a full account of his activities published in a series in Tōkyō Asahi Shimbun. Anyway, the pioneering in Nelson has been shifted from Takahashi to Tetsuji Ishida, and to Jinzaburō Kawamoto, and by now, although this is ridiculous, their caves have an extremely good reputation by police and the city. The devils themselves confessed that they no longer need to distribute extra money among whites.
Currently, Nelson has four caves, including those of Chabujin, Tamekichi Shiraishi, Inada and Terada, and in a total of fourteen women. Here I would like to say a few things about Shiraishi.