What I learned at work yesterday... (or reason #74563 why I love my job)

In the expanses of Japanese-controlled Manchuria, trains were the major source of transportation of just about anything. The company history of the Southern Manchurian Railway Company includes a fare and tariff chart that lists the prices for various types of items.

In the early 20th century it cost 30 sen (100 sen in 1 yen) per mile (not km, which is interesting as Japan is most definitely metric now) to transport dead bodies. Children were half price (just as live children riding trains in Japan today). Passengers (live ones, sitting in passenger cars) cost considerably more, depending on the class of carriage they chose. Cremated remains cost significantly less, the same price as small (live) animals such as chickens or dogs. In addition, dead bodies could be left at stations for periods of time up to six hours (although this was later extended, with a fee being charged per every 24 hour period the body was held by the station).

I was told all this by a delighted coworker, who rushed to make copies of the pages from the history so she could use it in some later research. We giggled over the painstakingly detailed instructions and rules (and complete lack of hiding behind polite euphemisms as would be common in modern society, especially here in Japan), ignoring the obviously sad message, that the railway likely carried a fairly large number of bodies, especially during the war.

Either way you look at it, however, how can you say historical documents are dry and boring?