Whoa, that's crazy. Why wouldn't they just build a cart to tow it all with? There had to be some level of pride in how much you could carry or how far you made deliveries.
The risk involved in losing an order, or dozens it would seem, all at once back then had to outweigh the benefit of delivery in this method - unless these guys were so good they never dropped it.
The images are great, but I find it very annoying that they cite the photos as "(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons / Flickr / Pinterest / Old Japan Magazine).", and only at the bottom of the page.
I think it's unacceptable to not have each one labelled where it came from and include a hyperlink to the original.
The risk involved in losing an order, or dozens it would seem, all at once back then had to outweigh the benefit of delivery in this method - unless these guys were so good they never dropped it.