Rickshaw is a form of transportation common in South and East Asia. It is a wagon (often two-wheeled), which pulls the shafts of people. The latter is also called rickshaw. Typically, the wagon is designed for one or two people. Now you know the meaning of the word rickshaw. And below we will tell in detail the history of the appearance of this type of transport.
First version
Carts similar to rickshaws were very common in Paris in the 17th-18th centuries. In 1707, the artist Claude Gillot depicted this type of transport in his comic picture. However, soon the wagons became obsolete. The 1860s and 1870s were the milestone when a form of transport such as rickshaw spread from Japan to other Asian countries. This invention is attributed to the American missionary Jonathan Goble (Scobie). He came up with a stroller to transport his sick wife.
Second version
There is another story of how a rickshaw appeared. This happened in Tokyo in 1870. Three Japanese people came up with a stroller - Kosuke Takayama, Tokujiro Suzuki and Yosuke Izumi. They received official permission not only to manufacture, but also to sell wagons. The appearance of rickshaws in Japan is due to Western influence, which intensified many times in 1868 after the Meiji Revolution. In cities, the pace of life has increased significantly, and the need for people to move quickly has increased. The use of palanquins was insufficient. They demanded two porters and moved rather slowly. And the maintenance of horses was much more expensive.
In 1872, in the capital of Japan, there were already 40 thousand rickshaws, and in 1896 - 210. They also began to spread to other countries (China, India, etc.). However, with the advent of the car, their number was regularly reduced. In 1938, only 13 thousand remained in Japan. After the Second World War, in conditions of devastation, some part of the rickshaw returned to the streets of the cities, but not for long. Now in most countries, rickshaw is an element of the tourism industry.
Conclusion
In the postwar years, for technological and financial reasons, this type of transport began to slowly disappear. And in countries with slow economic growth, rickshaws have generally been banned as a visual sign of low wealth and crisis. So in 1949 they disappeared from China. And in 1972, the appearance of carts on the main streets of Calcutta (India) was banned . Ten years later, the city authorities seized and destroyed about 12 thousand strollers. Despite this, according to 1992, about 30 thousand rickshaws worked in Calcutta. In 2005, the West Bengal administration announced its intention to completely ban this type of transport, which provoked a lot of street protests and strikes.