With the exception of the guests, no persons are allowed to wear z�ri (sandals) inside the brothels.
Of late it has become a rule that the office which manages all affairs in the Yoshiwara shall distribute to the various tea-houses registration books, of a uniform style, in which are to be minutely recorded the personal appearance of visitors, status and place of registration, profession, general figure and build, aspect, style of clothes, personal effects (i.e. rings, chains, watches, etc., etc.) The books are carefully ruled off in columned blanks headed:—“Nose, Ears, Mouth, Status, Place of registration,� etc., etc.; and the descriptions have to be written in under the respective headings. In short, these books (for which, by the way, a charge of 20 to 30 sen is made) are something like the usual Japanese hotel registers but more complex and detailed, and when the blanks are faithfully filled up an exceedingly good description of guests is secured. In all brothels similar books are kept, and the duty of comparing the entries in these with the entries in those of the hikite-jaya devolves on the staff of the Yoshiwara office. In addition to these duties there are a good many harassing and vexatious police regulations to be observed by the introducing houses. Should any hikite-jaka keeper or employé secretly introduce a guest who is in possession of explosives, a sword, or poison, he is severely punished and caused no end of trouble. The payment of the guest’s bill is made through the hikite-jaya on his return to the introducing house in the morning. The guest pays his total bill to the hikite-jaya and the latter squares up accounts with the brothel. The strict rule is for the hikite-jaya to settle up these accounts daily with the brothels, but it has become a custom with the majority to balance accounts only twice a month—viz:—on the 14th and 30th day of each month. In case of a frequent visitor being without money, and unable to pay his bill, the hikite-jaya will not, as a rule, refuse him credit in consideration of the patronage he has extended to the house and in anticipation of future visits. Sometimes, however, it happens that a regular customer becomes heavily indebted to a certain house, and turning his back on this establishment he seeks for new pastures and fresh credit; but here the extraordinary secret intelligence system upsets his calculations. Among these tea-houses exists a kind of “honor among thieves� esprit de corps, and besides, self-protection has forced the houses to give secret information to each other where their mutual interests are threatened; so when a party is in debt to one of the hikite-jaya he will be boycotted by the others. A smart hand may successfully pretend to be a new arrival in the Yoshiwara once or twice, but his trick is sure to be discovered ere long. Faithful service of employés is ensured in the Yoshiwara in a similar manner. In case of a servant-maid employed in one house being desirous to enter the service of another establishment, she must first obtain the consent of her employer, and the master of the house to which she wishes to go will certainly confer with the master of the establishment she wishes to leave. In ordering food from a dai-ya (a cook-house where food is cooked and sent out to order), or in making purchases from storekeepers in the Yoshiwara, a maid-servant belonging to any of the hikite-jaya requires no money with her because the dealers all place confidence in the house from which she has come, and this they know at once by the inscription on the lantern she carries. Immediately an order is given by a maid-servant the goods are handed over without the slightest hesitation, so under these circumstances an evil-minded woman might resort to fraud without any difficulty; but should she once be detected she would never again be able to get employment in the Yoshiwara.
The fifty tea-houses outside the Ō-mon (great gate) were in former times called “Kitte-jaya� (ticket tea-houses) or “Kitte-mise� (ticket shops); they were also colloquially termed in Yedo slang—“Yoshiwara no go-jū-mai kitte� (the fifty “tickets� of the Yoshiwara) because they had the monopoly of issuing tickets or passes for the Yoshiwara. In a book called the “Hy�kwa Manroku� (��漫錄) it is recorded that in the 3rd year of Keian (1650) one of the tea-houses named “Kikuya� (sign of the Chrysanthemum Flowers) issued tickets—or rather passes—for the passage of women through the great gate. On one of these old passes was written:—
I certify that these six ladies belong to the household of a gentleman who patronizes my establishment.
January 26th—.
  Ticket-shop,
To    (signed) Kikuya Hambei.
The keeper of the great gate.
It appears from this that every lady who wished to enter the precincts for the purpose of sightseeing, or for any other reason, had to obtain a pass from the tea-houses above-mentioned. Afterwards, the “Midzu-chaya� (rest-houses) began to be built on the Nihon-dsutsumi (Dyke of Japan) and as they gradually increased and prospered they at length encroached upon the Naka-no-ch� where the tradesmen of the quarter were living. This continued until the street came to be monopolized by Midzu-chaya, and from the latter the present hikite-jaya were finally evolved. It is recorded that since the era of Genroku (1688–1703) the keepers of funa-yado (a sort of tea-house where pleasure boats are kept and let out on hire for excursions and picnics) used to arrange for guests to go and come in their river-boats, “and among the sights of Yedo were the long lines of boats floating up and down the river with gaily-dressed courtesans and the jeunesse dorée of the city in them.� During the 8th year of Kwambun (1668) all the unlicensed prostitutes in Yedo city were pounced upon by the authorities and placed in the Yoshiwara, and about this time the inconvenient custom of being obliged to visit brothels through an ageya was abolished. The tea-houses which had their origin on the banks of the Nihon-dsutsumi, now acted as guides (tebiki) to intending visitors to brothels, the old custom of the place was broken, and the name of hikite-jaya come into existence. [The tea-houses belonging to the Ageya which were removed from the old Yoshiwara, and the “Amigasa-jaya� (see this [heading] further on) which sprang into existence while the brothels were temporarily situated at Sanya, after the Furisode-kwaji (fire) of the era of Meireki, are separate establishments.] In this way the newly evolved tea-houses prospered greatly, and their influence grew apace until the older houses in Ageya-machi began to lose their trade. No doubt but the decadence of the older institutions is attributable to the superior facilities afforded to guests by the new houses. In the old days the tea-houses in Ageya-machi were allowed to construct balconies on the second stories of their establishments for the convenience of those guests who desired to witness the processions of courtesans (Yūjo no d�-chū) that formed one of the most interesting features in the life of the Yoshiwara. Prior to the fire of the Meiwa era (1764–1771) the second stories of all the tea-houses in Naka-no-ch� were fitted with open lattice-work in front, but subsequent to that memorable conflagration this restriction was removed and the houses were built so as to render them convenient for sight-seeing from the upper floor. This freedom did not prove of much advantage to many of the houses, however, as it was decided that the processions should thenceforward be confined to the Naka-no-ch�. In the 10th year of H�reki (1760) the “Ageya� completely disappeared, and the receiving of and arranging matters for guests became the monopoly of the tea-houses. Taking advantage of the position attained, the tea-houses abused their prosperity and influence and allowed their establishments to be used by courtesans, geisha, taiko-mochi, and various guests, for the purpose of carrying on illicit intrigues and advancing amours between men and women of loose morals. Not only this, but the houses allowed their accounts with the brothels to fall into arrears, or made payment in an unpunctual and perfunctory manner, and for these reasons many were suspended from exercising their business. In the era of Temp� (1830–1843) all food served to the guests in hikite-jaya was prepared on the premises by professional cooks in the service of the houses.