Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 4/Chapter 5
Chapter V
PHILOSOPHY, EDUCATION, CUSTOMS, AND COSTUMES
Historical note having been cursorily taken in a preceding chapter of the numerous philosophical sects that grew out of the moral activity of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and of their political influences, it remains now to refer to their effect in moulding the mind of the nation.
Broadly speaking, the educated section of the nation—that is to say, the military class—ranged itself under the banners of two schools, that of the Chinese philosopher Chu, as interpreted chiefly by Hayashi Razan and his descendants, and that of Wang Yang-min, as expounded by Nakaye Tōju and his followers. The salient difference between the two schools is that Chu's philosophy is inductive, Wang's deductive. Chu flourished in the eleventh century; Wang in the fifteenth and sixteenth. Chu taught that all knowledge is acquired, even the knowledge of good and evil; therefore any attempt to determine the moral law must be preceded by scientific investigation, any study of noumena by acquaintance with phenomena. Wang, on the other hand, maintained that man possesses intuitive perception of the moral law; that study of self is the highest learning; that to know one's own heart is to have an infallible guide in all moral emergencies. Chu's cosmogony was dualistic. Nature existed in his eyes by the action of a determining principle and a primordial aura, the one directing, the other producing and modifying. The determining principle, according to his view, was entirely independent of the mind of man, which belonged to the sphere of the primordial aura. Wang's theory was monistic. He regarded the determining principle and the primordial aura as merely two attributes of God, and he held that to discover the laws of nature a man need only look into his own heart. The heart, according to Wang's philosophy as expounded by Nakaye Tōju, is a mirror in which all phenomena are reflected. Like the face of a crystal lake, it holds no shapes nor is defiled by any impurity. But in it may be detected, by close scrutiny, the reflected images of all things. Chu held that a knowledge of the material world is the first desideratum, and that therein lie the texts from which the gospel of virtue may be constructed. Wang taught that man needs no knowledge other than knowledge of his own heart, and that to acquire the latter he must resort to introspection and meditation, abstracting himself from his surroundings and learning to count them as nothing compared with the promptings of conscience. He maintained that all mankind are one family, separated only into those that have found the truth and those that are still without it. He denied that God has any existence separate from the forms of his manifestations, and while affirming that the deity who created all things is anthropopathic and capable of meting out rewards and punishments according to man's deserts, he attributed to that deity a kind of omnipresence incompatible with anthropomorphism of any kind, though consistent with the attribute of boundless mercy. But he declined to attach importance to the conception of an imaginary universe, or to admit that human beings need concern themselves about a supernatural world of which they have no evidence nor can acquire any information.
It is evident that Wang's creed, as submitted to the Japanese nation by Nakaye Toju, partook of Shintō, of Buddhism, and of Confucianism. Its simple faith in the power and sufficiency of a pure heart represented the essence of Shintō. Its doctrine of introspection and abstraction, as well as the methods it prescribed for educating self-knowledge, resembled the teachings of the Zen sect of Buddhism. Its refusal to indulge in speculations about a supernatural realm, as well as its assertion of universal brotherhood, placed it in touch with Confucianism.
Of these two creeds that of Chu commended itself strongly to the governing classes, while that of Wang seemed in their eyes heterodox and dangerous. For whereas the inductive philosophy of Chu led men to devote their whole attention to learning, and imbued them with reverence for the existing order of things and for established systems, thus educating a mood of conservatism and reverence, the deductive philosophy of Wang taught that all men are equal, that the promptings of conscience should be obeyed unhesitatingly, and that a knowledge of the right, as indicated by a man's heart, must be translated immediately into action. No doctrine could be less conducive to the stability of a military despotism, for, apart from the democratic tendency of a creed based on equality and fraternity, the disciple of Nakaye's school was educated to believe that if he received from his own mind a clear indication of a ruler's or an official's corruption or wickedness, and, further, if the truth of the indication was attested by an unflinching impulse of self-sacrifice, then duty required him to undertake the removal of the guilty person. The one system produced narrow-minded students and bigoted traditionalists, opposed to all progress; the other produced, not scholars indeed, but heroes, men of action, of magnanimity, and of progressive patriotism. It is not surprising to find that the Shogunate denounced and prescribed Nakaye's philosophy, but patronised and encouraged that of Hayashi's. Yet of the two Nakaye's creed seems better suited to the genius of the Japanese samurai, and has unquestionably exercised wide influence. A long list of illustrious names attests the quality of its disciples, and if in its extreme applications it begets assassins such as those whose self-sacrificing steadfastness of purpose has enabled them to strike down some of the loftiest figures upon the stage of modern Japan's politics, its really representative product is a man of active mind, unflinching resolve, and virtuous life, who looks for no reward beyond the approval of his own conscience, and who never allows himself to be deflected by difficulties from the path of duty or high purpose. There are obvious defects in the system, but the integrity of heart that constitutes its ideal is a beautiful basis of ethics. Probably the prevalence of Nakaye's philosophy among educated Japanese offers a strong barrier to the spread of Christianity, for not only does it exclude the supernatural world upon which the Christian's thoughts are fixed, but also, while denying the existence of an alternative path to truth, it refuses to admit that any garment of forms and ceremonies can be made to fit all nations.[1] The ethical system introduced to his countrymen by Nakaye Tōju was unquestionably the most remarkable and important product of the Tokugawa era, and next to it ranks the revival of pure Shintō under
the inspiration of Motoori and Hirata, to which 
Oji Tea-House, Tokyo.
chapter.
Having thus become acquainted with the general character of these Chinese philosophies as interpreted by Japanese scholars, it remains to notice briefly their relation to education.
Education and learning were naturally much neglected during the disturbances of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras (1192–1565), nor did Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, the Taikō, find leisure to effect any change in that respect. It was on the advent of the Tokugawa to power that a new spirit began to show itself, and the credit belongs partly to Iyeyasu and partly to Fujiwara Seika, a scholar who by his profound learning and nobility of character won the esteem of the Tokugawa leader. Fujiwara was not an originator: the philosophy of the Chinese writer Chu, with which alone he concerned himself, had long been studied in Japan. But not until Fujiwara became its expounder did it win many believers. Around him gathered a band of brilliant scholars, the most remarkable among them being Hayashi Razan, to whom and to his successors the Tokugawa chief granted the presidency of an university in Yedo. The teachings of this school received the name "metropolitan learning," while those of another school (founded by Minamimura Baiken and having for its most distinguished representative Ogura Sansho) went by the name of "Nangaku" (southern learning). Both schools had a common text-book, the philosophy of Chu: the difference between them was purely one of locality. The first departure from this philosophy was made by the celebrated Nakaye Tōju (1605–1678), who, as already stated, took for guide another Chinese philosopher, Wang Yang-ming. This man's influence was very large. People spoke of him as the "saint of Omi;" he had a multitude of disciples whose lives illustrated the value of his teaching; his school was known as the "Kōseisha," because he resided on the west (sei) of Omi lake (kō), and he numbered among his followers Kumazawa Banzan, one of the most practical and outspoken philosophers of any era. This was the man who, as described in a previous chapter, in an hour when military feudalism was at its zenith and when the nation's dread of political Christianity had become absorbing, preached openly that the samurai were bandits subsisting on unearned incomes, and that Christianity should be suffered to stand or fall on its own merits. The contemporaneous existence of three schools—the "metropolitan," the "southern," and the "lake"—two of which were opposed to the third, produced a result analogous to that caused by contact with the warring sects of Christianity at the close of the nineteenth century: an eclectic school sprang up (1685) under the presidency of Kinoshita Junwan, who numbered among his disciples the celebrated Arai Hakuseki, statesman, philosopher, and historian. The "southern" and the "lake" schools now lost their influence among officials, and the metropolitan school under Hayashi, adhering strictly to the philosophy of Chu, alone remained to dispute the field with the eclectic under Kinoshta. Tsunayoshi, the fifth Tokugawa Shōgun (1680–1709), who, before he abandoned himself to debauchery, showed all the instincts of scholarship, encouraged erudition, and went so far as to deliver lectures on the Chinese classics in the hall of the university over which the Hayashi family presided. Thus a fashion was at once set, and, many of the feudal chiefs following it, several schools were established throughout the provinces. That their teachings should in a measure reflect the rivalries of the fiefs was inevitable. To that cause probably as much as to honest conviction is to be attributed the birth of other schools with which are associated the names of men famous in their day and even now well remembered; Yamada Sōkō, master of several eminent disciples; Kaibara Yekken, compiler of celebrated text-books for women and children; Ito Jinsai, who popularised the Analects in Kyōtō; Ogyū Sōrai, who followed the same line in Yedo; and not a few others. Speaking broadly, these various teachers undertook to give correct interpretations of Confucius and Mencius, and to prove that the exigeses of Chu and Wang were erroneous. Ogyu Sōrai, whose school in Yedo was largely attended, went so far as to relegate self-cultivation to a secondary place, declaring that the only things of real importance were social etiquette, music, and administration. But the results of such teaching, as exemplified in the lives of Ogyū's disciples, were most unattractive, and moreover he gave umbrage in patriotic quarters by applying to his countrymen the epithet Tō-i no hto (Oriental aliens) in an essay eulogising Confucius. Hayashi Razan, the great exponent of Chu's philosophy, had roused the ire of imperialists by identifying Jimmu, the first mortal sovereign of Japan, with a prince of ancient China who shaved his head, caused himself to be tattooed and fled from his father's court. That sacrilegious doctrine contributed largely to the genesis of the Mito school of historians, described in a former chapter, and now Ogyu Sōrai, enemy of the Chu philosophy and friend of the Confucian, applied an insulting epithet to the whole Japanese nation. Thus each school provoked critics who set out by differing from its doctrines and ended by differing from each other, so that the closing years of the eighteenth century saw the representatives of the schools fighting with zeal scarcely cooler than that of religious controversialists in mediæval Europe. Iyenari, one of the four great Tokugawa Shōguns, came to power under such circumstances, and by the advice of his sagacious minister, Matsudaira Sadanobu, he issued a decree declaring the doctrines of Chu to be the only orthodox system of philosophy. This pronouncement left men's minds unsatisfied, of course, but had at least the effect of inducing all candidates for official favour to adopt the teachings of the school founded by Fujiwara Seika and brought into special prominence by Hayashi Razan.
The most remarkable of the various scholastic institutions that grew out of this philosophical movement was the University of Yedo, known in history as the Seidō. Originally founded (1630) by Hayashi Razan in the Uyeno district of the city, it was moved to the Hongo suburb, sixty years later, by order of the Shōgun Tsunayoshi, and in 1789 it became an official college, its dimensions and endowment being enlarged under the patronage of Matsudaira Sadanobu. So long as it remained a private school, admission was restricted to samurai of Yedo, but after the changes of 1789 it was thrown open to samurai from all the fiefs. The Seidō must not be regarded in the light of a modern university. Its objects were political and ethical rather than scholastic. The textbooks, carefully chosen from the Chinese classics, were in strict accord with the inductive philosophy of Chu, and everything that tended to encourage independent reasoning was tabooed. In fact the institution, modelled by officialdom at the close of the eighteenth century, was an attempt—largely futile—to avert the danger to which unlimited study of Confucianism would have exposed the fabric of military feudalism. Teachers were required to confine their expositions to the doctrines of Chu and to refrain from all expression of private opinion. The college course covered five years. Severe periodical examinations were held, the questions being prepared by the faculty and submitted to the Shōgun for selection, and teachers having to pledge themselves against favouritism by a written oath sealed with their blood. Orthodox exegeses of classical passages, the meaning of the ideographs with which they were written, and the impression they produced upon the student,—these were the subjects of examination. A severe system of discipline prevailed, no excuse for wrong-doing being entertained under any circumstances, nor any disposition tolerated to query the justice of a decision. Thus habits of self-control and a mood of deference to lawfully constituted authority were educated, as well as—it need scarcely be said—courteous manners. The Seiaō also served the purposes of a Stationer's Hall. All learned works must be submitted to it before publication, and it had a special bureau for examining translations of Western books. An interesting fact may be mentioned in this context, namely, that a special school was opened in Kyōtō for Court nobles in 1842, the representatives of that class being noted at the time for idleness and immorality.
There were also many schools throughout the provinces, notably the Kōjō-kwan in Yonezawa, the Meirin-dō in Kaga, the Kōdō-kwan in Mita, the Meirin-dō in Owari, the Kōshi-kwan in Kagoshima, the Jishū-kwan in Kumamoto, the Yōken-do in Sendai and others. One of the most spacious was the Sendai institution: it had twenty-five rooms, and the buildings covered an area of one-third of an acre. Of such schools thirteen were under the direct patronage of the fiefs where they were situated, but not a few were independent of all official aid. Among the implements of education must also be counted a number of lecture halls where the philosophies of China, as interpreted by Japanese students, were publicly expounded, the lecturers generally collecting a fee from their audience.
All this educational machinery was for the samurai only: merchants and farmers had nothing to do with it. For them, however, there were popular lectures. Ishida Kampei inaugurated these lectures in the middle of the eighteenth century, and the fact bears significant testimony to the new place won by the middle and lower middle classes under Tokugawa rule. Ishida went by the name of "Baigan." At the age of forty-five he began lecturing in Kyōtō. He employed language intelligible even to women and children, and he taught a mixture of Shinō, Confucianism and Buddhism. The female part of the audience sat behind bamboo screens, a precaution which showed that practical morality occupied a prominent place in Ishida's attention. Teshima Tōan, his disciple, acquired even greater popularity than the master himself, and his discourses always attracted crowds. There was no element of erudition in these lectures. Among those that flocked to hear them many could not read or write, and would have been quite unable to comprehend any abstruse doctrine. Scholars ridiculed this novel departure, but the authorities did not interfere, and there can be no question that the people derived great benefit. They had long been accustomed to listen to Buddhist sermons, which are, perhaps, the most practically useful form of religious discourse preached by the exponents of any creed. But the lectures of Baigan and Tōan raised the "commoner" into the intellectual atmosphere of the samurai, and stimulated his reasoning faculties to an unprecedented extent. Nakazawa Dōjin, a pupil of Baigan and Tōan, was the first (1789) to deliver such lectures in Yedo, and it is recorded that his teaching won many converts, not among the common people only, but also among the nobles.
The schools spoken of above were for the instruction of youths, from the age of fifteen upward, who had already received an elementary education. Such youths might have been difficult to find in any numbers prior to Tokugawa times. For throughout the first four centuries of the Military epoch, 1192 to 1590, children's education was greatly neglected. Scarcely any persons were competent to teach the reading of the Chinese classics. Under the Tokugawa, however, a great improvement took place. At first the Government did not adopt any active measures of direct encouragement; it confined itself to allowing elementary school-teachers to live among the samurai, take a family name, and carry a sword. Such privileges, however, being valued very highly, could not fail to produce considerable effect. The status of teacher acquired unprecedented dignity, and attracted a class of men who would not otherwise have thought of such an occupation. Yoshumune, the eight Shōguns, gave additional importance to elementary education by employing it as a medium for carrying out his policy of making the law familiar to the people. He distributed to school-teachers copies of all newly enacted criminal regulations, together with a Japanese translation of a standard Chinese work on morality,[2] and he liberally rewarded a physician of Shimane who was found to have been giving instruction to children in the Laws of Iyeyasu (Gojōmoku). A great stimulus was imparted to education by these means. Before the middle of the eighteenth century Yedo had about eight hundred teachers who are said to have taught an average of fifty pupils each, and the inhabitants of the other chief cities as well as of the provinces, though not so well equipped, enjoyed educational facilities such as had never before existed. In the towns the teachers were for the most part rōnin (unemployed samurai); in the country districts headmen, physicians, and Shintō or Buddhist priests discharged the function. The priests converted the temples into schools, but in other cases the teacher's house served as a place of instruction. Class hours were from morning to noon, and the curriculum consisted almost entirely of penmanship, in which term, however, were included reading, composition, geography, and ethics. Boys and girls sat in the same room, but in different parts of it. The course for boys was, first, the two syllabaries called hiragana and katakana; then the twelve signs of the zodiac; then the names of provinces and towns, and finally the writing of letters. There were books containing forms of letters such as had to be written in compliance with the code of social etiquette, and such as might be needed in the common contingencies of every-day life. These orthodox epistles and the ideographs used in inditing them were memorised accurately, with the inevitable result that the art of letter-writing, as understood and applied in the Occident, never became known among the Japanese. In their hands letters degenerated into stereotyped formulas of congratulation, of condolence, or of inquiry, and were not at all regarded as vehicles for communicating the thoughts and experiences of the writer. Sons of merchants received special instruction in a manual of commerce, and sons of mechanics in a manual of industry, while sons of samurai learned to read and write, first, an essay containing a thousand of the ideographs in commonest use, and secondly an anthology of Chinese poems. Girls also began with a syllabary—the hiragana only—and then, having learned to write the numerals, they studied a manual of simple ethics and received lessons in domestic management. Reading, the use of the abacus, the rules of etiquette and music were also taught to girls of the better class, and they learned sewing from the wife of their teacher. An excellent spirit pervaded these schools. A teacher was regarded with such reverence that even to "tread within four feet of his shadow " seemed a sacrilege, and, on the other hand, he treated the pupils as though they were his own children, while they reciprocated by regarding him in the light of a father and evincing gratitude to him throughout his life. There were no such things as examinations in these elementary schools. Their place was taken by monthly "repetitions" (saraye) and by one great repetition and two caligraphical tests annually; namely, on the second of the first month and the first of the seventh. Learning, in fact, consisted mainly of caligraphy. All the religious observances in the schools illustrated that fact; as when flags having the name of the deity inscribed on them by pupils were offered at the shrine of Inari; or ideographs of unusual size were indited at the festival of Tenjin; or, on the eighth of the fourth month, ink made from tea powdered on the image of Shaka was used for the daily copies; or all the worn-out writing-brushes were offered at the shrine of Temman-gu. Children entered the schools at the age of five or six, and the course extended from five to seven years. Sons and daughters of high-rank samurai had special instructors, but the children of inferior samurai shared the education of the "commoner." There were not any technical schools; practical training was obtained by apprenticeship. The apprentice—who will be spoken of more fully in a future chapter—had partly to study a trade or handicraft and partly to act as a servant. He received, in short, a general training and underwent wholesome discipline. Even wealthy people often sent their sons to serve for a term of years in the house of a court nobleman or a feudal chief, on the principle that to be a man one must mix with men. It was also customary for parents to place their daughters in the family of some man of rank, in order that they might learn the etiquette and domestic usages of polite society, and in some country districts a girl found it difficult to make an eligible match unless her education had included this practical experience. It is not to be understood, however, that she was treated with any special consideration during her residence in such a house; she had to discharge all the duties of a servant, with the exception of the rough functions that fell to the lot of the lowest menials, the "rice-boilers" (meshi-taki), and the "water-drawers" (mizu-kumi).
From all this it will be seen that, in the case of the great bulk of the people, namely, the commoners and the inferior samurai, education during the last century and a half of Tokugawa sway had no wider range of subjects than caligraphy, the principles of Confucian ethics, and a superficial study of criminal law as actually in force. There were, of course, special teachers of the tea ceremony, of flower-setting, of music, of dancing, and of incense-burning; but these constituted polite accomplishments, and were beyond the range of ordinary education.
Passing from this examination of ethical and educational factors of progress to the actual life of the people, the first noticeable fact is that, on the accession of the Tokugawa Shōguns, Yedo becoming at once the administrative and the military capital of the Empire, the manners and customs of its citizens were dictated by samurai canons, and the influence of the city's example was felt throughout the whole of eastern Japan. Not only the Mikawa-bushi (Tokugawa vassals), but also retainers of all the other feudal chiefs assembled there, and it resulted, as will be understood from what has already been written about the "way of the warrior," that commerce and industry were not counted of any importance, soldierly accomplishments alone being esteemed. As the commencement of the Kamakura epoch, so in the early days of the Yedo era, frugality of life and simplicity of costume were held to be characteristic of the true samurai, though on his arms, his armour, and his war-horse no expenditure seemed extravagant. Indifference to money or material gain of any kind marked all his transactions, and borrowing or lending was also eschewed, on the ground that no to-morrow existed for the soldier (bushi), since, holding his life always at the command of duty or of his lord, he could not logically enter into any engagement relating to a future date. Evidently that extreme view of the uncertainty of life was not likely to commend itself to the civilian, who incurred no such risks, and there is little reason to think that the samurai's contempt for money in any and every shape ever found many imitators among the people at large, or indeed that it continued to be a conspicuous trait of soldiers themselves after the middle of the seventeenth century. Some customs born of the time when the sway of the sword was complete, did survive, however. Thus, if a husband detected his wife in the commission of an act of infidelity, he was empowered to kill the woman and her paramour forthwith, and if two samurai quarrelled, both were punished without distinction, the principle being that lack of sufficient moral decision to refrain from fighting disgraced a soldier no less than intemperate truculence. It is not just, perhaps, to include this latter rule among the products of militarism, for it embodies a doctrine of civilised forbearance that has not yet received full practical recognition even in Anglo-Saxon communities. Nevertheless, it was one of the enactments of feudal days, and if modern Japanese laws, borrowed from Europe, have ignored the old theory, the laws are the losers. Another evidence that a military mood survived the long succession of peaceful years secured by Tokugawa rule is that the obligation of revenge impressed itself on the people more forcibly than ever throughout the seventeenth century. Official permission could always be obtained to prosecute a vendetta, and a man armed with such permission might kill his enemy wherever he found him. Years being often devoted to the consummation of these acts, and many of them being achieved amid circumstances of extraordinary hardship and after an exercise of splendidly patient endurance, the memory of the avenger was held in perpetual honour, and his tomb received the worshipful tendance of subsequent generations. Even after decadence had overtaken the military spirit, forty-seven retainers of Ako sacrificed their lives to avenge their chief (1704), and a few years later a farmer's daughter and a prostitute slew their fathers' murderers. It may be noted, however, that although these manifestations of loyalty and filial piety evoked enthusiastic admiration, no difficulty was found in enforcing a rule that one act of vengeance must end a vendetta. Men understood that feuds might otherwise prove interminable.
The difference between the customs of Yedo and Kyōtō is illustrated by the fact that in early Tokugawa days every display of effeminacy was dubbed "Kamigata style,"—"Kamigata" being the popular name for the Imperial capital; and the samurai's conception of the mercantile class may be gathered from his habit of applying the epithet "tradesman's fashion" to all luxurious tendencies. The samurai, indeed, struggled resolutely against the spread of civilian customs. Long after any renewal of the ancient inter-fief fighting had become improbable, he accustomed himself to live on one meal daily, and continued to practise the feat called igamono-gui, which consisted in eating anything that came to hand, however unpalatable. In the absence of war he sustained his love of fighting by quarrelling with his comrades. Thus, despite the severe veto mentioned above, formal challenges were given, the issue being decided with the sword. Such duels received the significant name halashi-ai (mutual ending). It is on record that two samurai of Owari, having agreed to settle a difference, were about to set out for the appointed place, when rain began to fall. They proceeded under the same umbrella, chatting pleasantly, and, arriving at their destination, engaged in a combat fatal to both. There were also more unsightly incidents. Not infrequently a commoner was slaughtered at night by a samurai for the sake of trying the temper of a sword or the efficacy of a special stroke. This bloody practice is often quoted as conclusive evidence of the samurai's inhumanity, and certainly it merits the extremest condemnation. But instances of it were rare. The law, too, was in some degree responsible, for it allowed a military man to exercise within his own house authority so unlimited as to be certainly productive of abuse. Thus, if a servant committed a theft, or rode on his master's horse, or engaged in a liaison with a handmaid, he was at his employer's mercy; and undoubtedly the latter did not fail to exercise his authority, for it is recorded that during the Kwanyei era (1624–1644) two or three deaths occurred monthly in Yedo from such causes.
The fact is that, like all systems demanding severe moral discipline, the samurai's habits were apt to degenerate into extravagance. Absolute indifference to death, brusque and haughty manners, immediate and forcible resentment of anything like an insult, openly displayed contempt for whatever is gentle or effeminate, readiness to face any odds in defence of the weak against the strong,—these are traits which, though admirable so long as their display is confined to legitimate occasions, become unsightly when they perpetually seek opportunities for display.
The extreme development of the latter type was the kyōkaku ("champion of the weak"), called also otoko-date ("gallant") and yakko ("squire"), who had many representatives in the seventeenth century and who unconsciously parodied the true samurai by excessive emphasis of his traits. These persons were easily recognisable by their remarkably long swords,—too long to be drawn without special training,—by the rococo fashion of their garments, and by their hair, which was gathered into a queue of exceptional thickness. They found imitators among the tradespeople, who, partly because they admired this vehement type of manhood, but chiefly because they were roused to resistance by the overbearing methods of the swaggering samurai, aped the latter's fashions, so that, from the middle of the seventeenth century, the "citizen squire" (machi yakko) began to pit himself against the "banneret squire" (hatamoto-yakko). Both claimed the title of "gallant" (otoko-date), but it ultimately came to be applied to the citizen only. It is not always possible to distinguish between the otoko-date and the members of less reputable associations that had their origin in the early part of the seventeenth century, and became very fashionable some fifty years later. They called themselves by various quaint names, as "great and small deities" (daishō shingi-gumi), "iron sticks" (tetsubō-gumi), "Chinese dogs" (token-gumi), "wag-tails" (sekirei-gumi), and so forth, being, in short, clubs of roisterers who showed some of the worst traits of military licence side by side with features of the genuine samurai. On the one hand, they turned night into day, loved fighting, drew the sword for a trifling cause, exacted deadly vengeance for a petty insult, indulged in sensual debauchery, lived mainly by gambling, thought no shame of indulging in drunken sleep by the wayside, and carried all their excesses and refinements to the utmost extreme. On the other, they scorned to break a promise; despised gain; would not demean themselves by counting money; incurred deadly risks for the sake of any stranger that appealed to their protection; deemed it a sacred trust to act as mediator in the quarrels of others, and never hesitated to espouse the cause of the weak against the strong. It is related of these men that they would go into a restaurant, eat and drink freely, and then beat the landlord if he asked for his reckoning, but, if he trusted them implicitly, they would come back at some future date and throw him a piece of gold without asking for change. The citizen otoko-date imitated most of these fashions, except that he lent his aid to civilians against samurai, and both classes of gallants constituted a perpetual obstacle to the preservation of public peace. Measures to suppress them were adopted at the close of the seventeenth century, but though their organisations were broken up, their spirit survived, finding exponents in the yedokko (Yedo "boys") of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who laughed at misfortune, sided with the weak against the strong, fought as blithely as the "Prentice Lads" of mediæval Europe, abhorred avarice, stoned the funeral procession of a notorious swindler, burned incense perpetually at the grave of his assassin, and worshipped regularly at the tombs of the "Forty-seven Loyal Rōnins." Readers of what has been already written about the modern soshi and the oyabun of the chevaliers d'Industrie will recognise their prototype in some of the qualities that disfigured the Otoko-date and the Yedokko.
It was owing to the growth of a gentler civilisation that these rough representatives of militarism gradually passed out of fashion. Kyōtō was the source of that growth. In all ages Kyōtō had been the Paris of Japan. There the refinements of life had their origin; there the fine arts were most assiduously practised, and there the nation found its standards of taste and erudition. Osaka, which from the days of the Taikō acquired metropolitan importance, served in Tokugawa times as the portal for the passage of Kyōtō influences to the nation at large. In neither city did the spirit of simplicity and integrity manifest the robustness that it attained in Kamakura under the early Hōjō viceregents or in Yedo under the first four Tokugawa Shōguns. Osaka and Kyōtō loved gain; took supreme pleasure in amassing money; regarded dainty viands, rich costumes, and artistic surroundings as the chief desiderata of existence; freely indulged their sensuous appetites, and attached comparatively small value to female chastity or even to conjugal fidelity. Adultery was not infrequent. Records show that the babies abandoned in Osaka numbered from five to twenty every month. Suicides were common, owing to the belief that those dying for one another's sakes would be united eternally beyond the grave. The growth of dramatic literature promoted this mood. The great author, Chikamatsu Monzayemon, perceiving the sentimental value of such tragic incidents, wove them into his dramas so skilfully that they became models for popular imitation. Widely celebrated stories, like those of Ohatsu and Tokubei, of Koharu and Jihei, of Onatsu and Seijūro, of Ohan and Choyemon, of Okame and Yohei, and of Osome and Hisamatsu, were simply tales of amatory intrigue so refined and idealised by the touch of literary genius that they appealed with resistless force to the heart of the nation. Singers of the jōruri recitative in Kyōtō and Osaka took similar subjects for their themes, and enhanced their effect by music and histrionic skill. In Yedo, on the contrary, jōruri performers, seeking inspiration in the realm of courage, loyalty, and military heroism, assisted to maintain the warrior spirit of the northern samurai and of the citizens who took them for models. Gradually, however, as intercourse between Kyōtō and Tōkyō became closer, this difference between the morality of the two cities disappeared. The first three Tokugawa Shōguns repaired to Kyōtō to receive investiture at the Emperor's hands, and in the case of their successors an imperial delegate travelled to Yedo to convey the sovereign's commission. A regular transport service was organised for the purposes of these communications, and also for the convenience of the feudal chiefs as they passed to and from Yedo with their large retinues every second year. Further, by the close of the seventeenth century, a fleet of merchant vessels under the control of a powerful guild plied regularly between Yedo and Osaka. Mere contact with evil need not have disturbed the morals of the Shōgun's capital, especially as the samurai of Yedo professed to despise the ways of Kyōtō. But the military type naturally lost its pre-eminence as the era of peace became prolonged. Even though the fifth Shōgun had not made the Genroku epoch (1688–1704) notorious by his depraved example, a strongly demoralising influence would have been exercised by the circumstances of the feudal chiefs' residence in Yedo, each deeming it a point of prestige not to be surpassed by his fellow-peer in magnificence of appointments and grandeur of life. Not merely because of the immense sums lavished by the Shōguns on the mausolea of Shiba and Uyeno, but also for the purpose of decorating the splendid mansions of the territorial nobles in the northern capital, artists that had formerly made their residence in Kyoto flocked to Yedo, creating new standards of taste among the citizens. Debasement of the coinage by the Shōgun Tsunayoshi (1680–1701) contributed to the disturbance of society, for the immediate result was a sharp and sudden appreciation of the price of rice, in which commodity the incomes of military men were paid, so that the latter saw themselves apparently enriched and were betrayed into all sorts of extravagance. The most conspicuous exponents of luxurious habits were the seneschals (rusui-yaku), to whom was entrusted the charge of the Yedo mansions of the feudal chiefs during the latter's absence every second year. These men not only supervised all the business of the mansion, but also acted as media of communication between the Shōgun and the fiefs. The nature of their functions and the wealth they amassed would have made them important figures under any circumstances, but they attracted an exceptional share of public attention by organising meetings which, though nominally for the purpose of discussing the affairs of the fiefs, became in reality occasions for rival displays of pomp and splendour, and were among the most conspicuous social features of the eighteenth century.
Another change that began to be notable in the Genroku era (1680–1704) was the acquisition of large fortunes by tradesmen. The annals of Yedo allege that one or two mercantile plutocrats lived in every street, and that not a few samurai associated themselves secretly with these traders, thus increasing the latter's facilities. It was in the days when the fifth Shōgun, Tsunayoshi, lost himself in debauchery and extravagance, that a merchant called Kinokumiya[3] Bunzayemon became famous for riches. His residence occupied a whole block in Yedo, and his manner of life rivalled that of a Daimyō. In Osaka a tradesman of even greater wealth, Yodoya Tatsugoro, had a garden of over eighty acres in the city; his dwelling-house covered three acres; his warehouses numbered forty, his villas four, and his domestic servants one hundred and fifty. At a later period of the Yedo epoch, Zeniya Gohei, having been convicted of secret trading with foreigners, suffered the penalty of death, and his property when confiscated was found to amount to nearly four million riyo.[4]
On the other hand, cases of extreme indigence were numerous. It was always the custom in Japan for families to follow from generation to generation the profession adopted by a progenitor. This conservatism created for such employments an air of respectability which, in its turn, imposed conventions easily satisfied in times of simplicity and economy, but irksome and onerous when the standard of living rose more rapidly than the rewards of labour. It thus happened that, owing to the great economical changes of the eighteenth century, the rapidly increasing cost of sustenance, and the growth of luxurious habits, many of the old families in the middle classes fell into indigence, and others were ruined by the extravagance of their members, so that numbers of persons had to support themselves by pursuits differing little from mendicancy. They wandered about the streets earning a meal by such trivial work as removing the fleas from a pet cat or dog, polishing rice-boilers, scrubbing cooking-boards, cleaning people's ears, telling fortunes, or displaying their proficiency in some slight accomplishment. There also came into existence a class of persons who earned a livelihood by ministering to the superstitions of the citizens,—worshipping for them by proxy, repeating incantations, or undertaking to make pilgrimages.[5]
The great merchants were not wanting in charity towards these indigent folk, but there is no evidence that they ever thought of making voluntary contributions to public purposes. The spirit that suggests such acts was checked by the danger of being required at any moment to find large sums to meet deficiencies in the State revenue or to cover exceptional official outlays.
Thus it appears that the ambition of a wealthy merchant in the capital of the Shōguns a hundred and fifty years ago was not merely to lavish gold on the appointments of his house, on his garden, on his clothes, and on his cuisine, but also to make dazzling displays at the theatre, on festival occasions or even in the prostitute quarter. It is recorded of one commercial magnate (Kinokumi-ya) that he caused the floor-mats in his house to be resurfaced for each new party of guests,—which is as though a Western householder should lay fresh carpets for every entertainment,—and of another that he spent thousands of pieces of gold, in other words, thousands of pounds, on the occasion of a visit to the haunt of the Phrynes. A great Osaka merchant (Ibaraki-ya Kosai) actually built for himself a mansion in Yedo, that he might compete with these magnificent spendthrifts on their own ground; and Nakamura Kuranosuke of Kyōtō became equally famous for reckless extravagance. Umaya-gashi in the Asakusa district of Yedo was the Eldorado of the capital, and from that quarter the middle classes took their models of fashion and finery. The merchants of Umaya-gashi had an easy road to riches. Through their hands passed the rice allotted for the maintenance of the samurai; and the latter, studiously indifferent about money matters and perpetually impecunious, made im- provident drafts in advance on their incomes, and so fell an easy prey to the shrewd tradesmen. Concerning one of these Asakusa merchants, it is related that on his luncheon alone he spent as much as the total revenue of a samwrai with five hundred koku of rice (about as many pounds sterling), a sum which may not seem remarkably extravagant until one remembers that a family of the lower middle class could live comfortably at that time on an income of thirty shillings a month.
Naturally the munificent expenditure of these tradesmen gradually rendered them objects of much greater interest to the citizen at large than was the austere figure of the old samurai with his empty pockets and his pride of poverty. In the days when the profession of arms derived éclat from constant occasions to exercise it, the merchant's highest ambition was to wear a sword, to be mistaken for a soldier, and to give his daughter to be the wife of a samurai. But now, finding himself the samurai's creditor, he conceived a new idea of his own importance. He set the fashion, and the samurai adopted it. In the first century of the Tokugawa epoch, commoners alone went to a theatre or listened to a jōruri, and only a commoner's wife or daughter learned to play the samisen. The samurai's amusement was to listen to annals of fighting and heroism, to judge the merits of a sword, to attend to ceremonials, or to witness the dancing of the Nō, and a lady of the samurai class played the koto or occupied herself with needlework. But in the early part of the eighteenth century, a jōruri expert (Miyakoji Bungo) came to Yedo from Kyōtō, and sang love dramas with so sweet a voice and to such tender music that he created a furore in the Tokugawa capital. All classes went to hear him, and noble ladies, laying aside their koto and their needle, took up the samisen, and employed maidservants that could play it or dance to its sounds. At first there was question only of attending the performances of professionals. But soon wives and daughters of merchants began to take lessons, and presently it became fashionable for teachers of jōruri to organise periodical reúnions at which their pupils performed and the latter's parents, relatives, and friends attended. These meetings passed into occasions for displays of rich costumes and for banquets on an extravagant scale. The samurai were drawn into the vortex, and Yedo became as fully engrossed with these musical romances as Kyōtō had been with the more refined pastime of couplet composing during the Fujiwara epoch. Fashion suggested that private citizens should imitate the costumes and coiffures of professional jōruri singers, and from this extravagance men and women soon passed to copying the style of actors and even of the demi-monde. The samurai became an effeminate dandy. He bestowed minute attention on his hair and his garments, and considered the furniture of his sword more important than the quality of the blade. Objects hitherto disregarded began to receive special æsthetic study. The clasp of the girdle, the pipe and its case, the tobacco-pouch with its ornaments and appendages of metal or ivory, the pocket-book of rare and costly material,—on all these things the whole resources and ingenuity of applied art were lavished. Rich lacquer utensils, highly ornamented bronzes, censers and vases of silver, shibuichi, shakudo or gold, fine porcelains and faiences, novels illustrated with prints and chromoxylographs of remarkable technical and artistic merit, together with many other objects of beauty and luxury, were added to the life of the people. The samurai, who had been demoralised by a sudden access of fictitious wealth at the close of the seventeenth century, owing to currency debasement, felt the pressure of subsequent poverty with increased sharpness, and having recourse to the merchant class for assistance, forfeited the respect he had hitherto received from the latter. Rich farmers and tradesmen began to pay large sums for having their sons adopted into samurai families, an abuse which continued until the Meiji era, and marriages between the daughters of commoners and the sons of patricians became essentially pecuniary arrangements.
On the other hand, there are abundant proofs that throughout the Tokugawa epoch strenuous efforts were made by the Government to check the growth of luxury. Official zeal differed in degree from time to time, but the general tendency was uniform. It is true that no monopoly of such legislation can be claimed for the Tokugawa. The Hōjō and even the Ashikaga issued enactments against extravagance, and the Taikō not only directed vetoes against the embroidered and silk-lined leather breeches and socks fashionable in his time, and against the use of sedan-chairs by any except the aged or the sick, but even sought to introduce some kind of order into extra-marital relations by a general interdict against the keeping of many concubines, and subsequently by an explicit command that however wealthy a man might be his concubines must not exceed two. In that particular region of immorality the Tokugawa rulers never attempted to effect any reforms: it would have been necessary for them to begin by remodelling their own establishments. But for the rest their statutes indicate that legislative attention was vigorously directed to the restraint of extravagance. Sometimes the capriciousness of fashion appears to have influenced law-makers themselves; as when, in the time of Iyemitsu, certain methods of hairdressing were proscribed, and the wearing of beards was forbidden under penalty of imprisonment together with fines varying from £3 to £5; or when (1688) an edict denounced the use of garments having a design of cranes woven or dyed on them, or the adoption of names in which the ideograph tsuru (crane) occurred. But in general the spirit informing the sumptuary regulations of the era was essentially economical. Thus the number of servants in a samurai's family was limited to one if the employer's yearly income did not exceed the equivalent of £400, and to ten in a household with an income not greater than £4,800. Peasants were forbidden (1628) to have any material but cotton in their clothing, though their wives as well as the headman of a village might wear pongee, and ordinary samurai must not use damask or brocade. In 1685, the law interdicted the making of any costly utensil gilded, embroidered, or lacquered, even though the order were given by a samurai, and merchants must not have saddles ornamented with gold lacquer or embroidery. Even in such matters as the puppets for the boys' and girls' festivals, toy bows and arrows set up at New Year for driving off evil spirits, and the battledore and shuttlecock of spring, gold foil might not enter into the decoration. By and by legislators went a step farther; they enacted (1663) that to be in financial difficulties should thenceforth be regarded as a crime. Then the growing opulence of the farmer evoked (1668) an injunction that he must be more frugal, must eat grain inferior to rice, must inhabit a house only just large enough for his needs, must wear the cheapest clothes, and must avoid all sorts of amusement and comfort. When it proved impossible to command the full compliance of rich men themselves, the authorities sought to effect their purpose through the working classes, and contractors, carpenters, and masons were forbidden to undertake any building exceeding a certain scale of dimensions. In 1683, costly inrō (medicine boxes) and other trinkets were declared unlawful; sign-boards were not to be ornamented with gold, silver, or lacquer, nor might tradesmen possess screens decorated with gold or silver. At the close of the eighteenth century the administration went so far as to instruct the police to arrest any one wearing fine garments in the streets, and to order that mercers should be heavily fined if they sold a robe exceeding £10 in value. Drunkenness was not treated even as a misdemeanour, yet minute regulations were framed (1716) as to the quantity of sake allowed at an official banquet, high dignitaries being limited to three cups and those of inferior rank to two. So, too, as to food. Whatever a man's rank, he might not lawfully have more than two kinds of soup and six of other eatables at his ordinary meals, and inmates of the Council Chamber were served with two kinds of soup and five of fish, the menu being gradually reduced for lesser officials to one soup and one dish of fish. In 1713 the law directed that even for a lady of the Shōgun's household no dress must cost more than £8, the maximum in the case of a nobleman's wife or daughter being £6, and for a lady of lesser rank, £4. Girdles, sedan-chairs, travelling trunks, robe-chests,[6] wadded quilts, household furniture,—everything became the subject of restraining legislation. In 1743 the sale or manufacture of combs or hairpins ornamented with gold or gold lacquer in relief was strictly interdicted, and shortly afterwards the law forbade the construction or purchase of new villas by samurai, even feudal chiefs being directed not to have more than two detached seats, except in the case of buildings already erected. Still, as time passed, the luxurious tendency of the age defied these restraints, and the laws became more and more stringent. From the close of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth, legislation was of such a nature that it checked progress for the sake of inculcating thrift. In 1790 a veto was imposed on the sale of single-sheet chromoxylographs, which had now become very beautiful and correspondingly expensive; and presently officials set limits to the number of blocks used in manufacturing coloured prints, which were then a chef-d'œuvre of Japanese artists. The sale of costly flower-pots; the use of large flags and numerous lanterns at festivals; advertising displays by medicine-venders, restaurant-keepers, and fruiterers; the manufacture of crepe ornaments for woman's hair; expensive funerals; the wearing of mourning by any except near relatives; the sending of hot-house vegetables to market; the making of any toy more expensive than fourpence,—all these things were forbidden during the first forty years of the nineteenth century. In 1842 a most arbitrary measure was taken. It was proclaimed that all merchants in possession of gold or silver ware in contravention of the regulations must carry it at once to the mint for exchange, the duty of enforcing the order being entrusted to district headmen. The result is said to have been the surrender of quantities of women's ornaments and household utensils, beautiful works of art which were all thrown into the melting-pot. Incidentally these sumptuary laws convey information as to the remuneration of servants, for a regulation of 1843 fixea the maximum yearly wage of a manservant at £3, and that of a female servant at £2, and directed that these limits must not be passed even by mutual consent.
Many of these singular laws were certainly inspired by a tendency on the people's part to carry special fashions to extravagant excess, though history is not sufficiently accurate to indicate clearly the connection of cause and effect. There seems to be in the character of the Japanese a proneness to run to extremes in matters of sentiment or fancy despite their habit of moderation and compromise in affairs of reason or interest. In 1842 they began to buy plants in pots so eagerly that the authorities put a limit of £2 on the price of such objects. Ten years later, there was such admiration for the Rhodia Japonica that shows were organised and competitive sales arranged, until once more the law stepped in, vetoing all cultivation of the plant except for purposes of amusement. During the Meiji era, too, similar fantasies had vogue: rabbits, pigs, roses, and orchids succeeded one another as objects of popular esteem, each being the rage for a season. It was not uncommon to see a Yorkshire sow, a pair of lop-eared rabbits, or a "gloire de Dijon" rose sold for any amount from a hundred to three hundred pounds. The Government had to interfere in every case by means of prohibitive taxes. But nothing illustrates more forcibly the difference between past and present Japan than the fact that of the innumerable sumptuary statutes and regulations of the Tokugawa epoch not one remains in force to-day. A nation which, thirty-five years ago, could not eat a meal, ride in a public conveyance, or wear a garment without considering whether the law would be offended, is now absolutely free from every restraint of the kind, and does not seem to find the liberty injurious. The history of Japan's swift transition from the old civilisation to the new has furnished illustrations of many theories, but nothing has been more marked than the lesson it teaches as to the futility and needlessness of paternal legislation.
There are many facts to be noted with regard to means of communication, changes of costume, forms of entertainment, and so on during the Tokugawa epoch. At a very early period of the era the use of ox carriages passed out of fashion for ordinary purposes of locomotion. They were still employed at festivals or on the rare occasions when the Emperor or Empress went abroad, but among the upper classes and the people in general their place was taken by palanquins. Of these there were four varieties, two of them, called nori-mono (things for riding), being elaborately constructed of costly materials, and two, called kago, being much simpler. All were carried on men's shoulders, and the bearers were trained to walk so that the motion of the legs did not communicate itself to the upper part of the body. The commonest form of kago, which served for long-distance journeys, was constructed entirely of bamboo and borne by a special class of coolies to whom, in consideration of their vagabond and lawless habits, people gave the name kumosuke (cloud-fellows). These men showed wonderful powers of endurance. The pressure of the angular kago-pole on their bare shoulders seemed to cause them no inconvenience, and they would easily walk twenty or thirty miles daily carrying between two of them a kago and its inmate. Their feats in that respect do not apparently bear comparison with those of the modern jinrikisha coolie, who will run from fifty to eighty miles in twenty-four hours without exhibiting any distress. But kago-bearing was far more arduous than jinrikisha-pulling, for in the former case the whole weight of the rider and of the vehicle had to be supported by the bearers, whereas in the latter it rests on the wheels. In either case, however, the performances of these men are quite beyond the capacity of the meat-eating Occidental. The question of diet, indeed, seems to be vital. Dr. E. Baelz, an eminent physician, whose authority on such matters is conclusive, says that rice is specially adapted to sustain a man during violent exercise, since it is only by his profound inhalations under such circumstances that oxygen is supplied to the stomach in sufficient quantities for the digestion of the grain. The same consideration explains the gastric disorders from which the upper classes in Japan suffer; their sedentary habits render a rice diet particularly indigestible.
The kago is indirectly responsible for a considerable growth of the tattooing habit in Japan. A strange conception that prevails in Europe and America about the attitude of the Japanese towards tattooing is illustrated by the fact that a large percentage of the European and American gentlemen visiting Japan get themselves tattooed. But no Japanese gentleman is ever tattooed. Such a thing was never heard of. And the same is true of the Japanese peasant, the Japanese merchant, the Japanese artisan, the Japanese fisherman, and even the Japanese mendicant. Tattooing is nothing more or less than a substitute for clothing; and its use is consequently confined to men whose arduous labour requires them to strip their bodies, and who, while so stripped, come under the observation of the better classes. These conditions were essentially fulfilled in the case of the betto (groom) that ran before his master's horse, and, above all, in that of the kumosuke that carried a kago. Parts of the body visible under ordinary circumstances—as the face, the hands, and the legs below the knee —were never tattooed. The tattooer took for model a sleeveless tunic that covered the back, the bosom, the shoulders, the thighs, and perhaps the arms above the elbow, and the person tattooed was invited to select the pattern. It follows that tattooing has always been considered a mark of extreme vulgarity in Japan. Yet the Japanese are probably the most skilled tattooers in the world.
To keep one's own carriage is counted a presumptive proof of opulence in the West, but in Japan during the seventeenth century there was no presumption about the circumstances of a man seen riding in a norimono; the law required that he should be possessed of an income of at least ten thousand pounds annually. At first even the least ostentatious form of kago might not be employed except by persons of rank, physicians, old folks, or invalids. But of course such a distinction could not be permanently enforced, and from the middle of the eighteenth century a norimono or kago ceased to indicate its rider's social status, and became, like the carriage of the West, an index of his wealth. Rich lovers of ostentation spent great sums to have their sedan-chairs decorated with gold lacquer, and men of æsthetic tastes employed renowned artists to paint the interior panels of the vehicle, which thus became an object of great beauty.
The hand-cart for transporting goods is generally regarded as an ancient institution in Japan, but in truth it did not come into existence until the second half of the seventeenth century, and nothing is known as to its origin. Its capacities were quickly appreciated, and gradually the onerous task of drawing it produced a class of men broad-shouldered and heavy-thewed, who rank next to wrestlers in Japan's athletic scale. As to symmetry of muscular development the first place belongs to the seafaring population. Their method of standing erect when using a big two-handed scull, throws equal labour upon every muscle of the body, and results in types comparable with the galley-slaves of ancient Rome. But the drawer of the ni-guruma (goods-cart) is a more powerful man, though clumsier. It has been calculated that he accomplishes twice as much work as a horse in a given time,—the Japanese pony being, of course, the unit of comparison,—and his daily allowance of food is twice that of an ordinary adult.
The horse was not used for purposes of traction in Tokugawa times. His first employment in that capacity dates from the beginning of the Meiji era. It is remarkable how unprogressive the Japanese showed themselves in the matter of means of locomotion. From the heavy, slow-moving ox-carriage they might have been expected to pass quickly to lighter vehicles drawn by horses. But they never made the change until carriages were imported from Europe in modern times. Perhaps for that reason their manner of constructing wheels did not undergo any alteration from century to century. Not only were axles of wood, but the felloes also were not shod with metal, and, the rim being very narrow, a heavily laden cart cut deeply into the surface of the road. More unfavourable conditions for traction could scarcely have been devised. They may be seen in China also to-day, and the explanation is that in both countries alike what the people wanted was a vehicle that could traverse ruts and holes rather than one that could move rapidly.
It will be inferred that the roads were bad. The Japanese never discovered how to make them good. That failure is largely ascribable to the fact that from a military point of view roads were invested with a double character, that of means of access and that of obstacles to accessibility. The Tokugawa Shōguns and the territorial nobles took care that the highways leading to their capitals should cross steep defiles and bridgeless rivers where all passage might be barred by a small force. Thus one of the main thoroughfares from Kyōtō to Yedo was led over the Hakone pass, the other over the Usui; and any one attempting to take a circuitous route so as to avoid the guardhouses at either of these precipitous places was liable to be crucified. Great rivers like the Oi, the Tenryu, the Fuji, and the Rokugo, served similarly to control traffic. They were never bridged, and travellers had to cross by ferry-boats or to be carried over on the shoulders of coolies, being subjected in either case to strict official supervision. Injunctions to keep the roads in repair were constantly issued to the people living near them; but as no official aid was given, the farmers naturally avoided expenditure and confined themselves to essentially superficial methods. Credit belongs to the Tokugawa, however, for organising a regular transport service between Yedo and Kyōtō. From the very commencement of the seventeenth century a scale of charges for coolies and pack-horses was fixed by law,—one penny farthing, approximately, per ri (two and a half miles) for a pack-horse carrying a load of three hundred and seventy-five pounds, and one-half of that remuneration for the driver; and the same sum (11⁄4 d. per ri) for a transport coolie. Stringent measures were adopted against overcharging. Any attempt of that nature exposed a coolie to fifty days' imprisonment, the headman of his village to a fine of thirty shillings, and every inhabitant of his ward to a fine of sevenpence. On the main roads converging to Yedo—the Tokaidō, which lay along the eastern seacoast; the Nakasendō, which passed through the mountainous interior; the Kōshiu-kaidō, which communicated with Kōfu; and the Oshiu-kaidō, leading northward—traffic became very heavy in consequence of the frequent passing of feudal chiefs and their great retinues to and from Yedo. By these nobles the horses and coolies along the route were requisitioned in large numbers, and as the service was very unpopular, the Government had to organise a regular system (1694), making all villages within five miles of the line of route generally responsible for the maintenance of a certain number of transport men and animals, and villages not more remote than twenty-five miles for a smaller number on exceptional occasions. The agricultural classes found this duty very onerous, and were generally glad to commute it for a fixed payment, which is said to have amounted in some cases to the total of the taxes otherwise levied. Fifty-three stations were established along the Tōkaidō between Yedo and Kyōtō, sixty-nine along the Nakasendo; and the journey by the former road occupied ten days, that by the latter twelve. The distance by the Tōkaidō being three hundred and thirty miles, it is seen that the rate of progress was thirty-three miles a day, and the average interval between the stations six and a quarter miles. It must be understood that this transport system was intended for the benefit of the samurai class only: if a commoner wanted horses or coolies, he had to hire them as best he could. In the case of samurai, however, a regular scale existed for determining the number of men and animals that a traveller might demand at a station. He received an officially signed order for that number before setting out on his journey, and it was notified that the people might refuse to comply with any requisition in excess of the fixed limit. Further protection was extended to the peasants by enactments in 1625 and subsequently, to the effect that a horse's load must never weigh more than three hundred and twenty-nine pounds—it had previously been three hundred and seventy-five pounds—or a coolie's more than forty-one and two-thirds pounds.
Another effect produced by this greatly increased traffic was the establishment of properly equipped inns along the chief highways. Up to the first quarter of the seventeenth century, there existed only rude hostelries where the traveller was furnished with fuel to cook his meals and with a place to sleep. He carried his own stock of rice and his own bedding, such as it might be. But now the inns undertook to supply rice as well as fuel; and presently they became properly equipped hotels where a wayfarer found every provision for his comfort,—a warm bath, excellent and even dainty food, and bedding of wadded silk. Roadside rests also were erected, where hot tea, mulled wine, and cakes were always procurable. These changes were effected with remarkable rapidity, and almost simultaneously inns in districts where competition prevailed began to adopt a very practical system of advertising, first by sending out male touts along the roads, and afterwards by employing maidservants to lay hands on passers-by and hale them forcibly to the entertainment awaiting them within. Travelling thus became comparatively easy, but by no means safe. Kago-bearevs and baggage-coolies often despoiled unarmed wayfarers, and innkeepers acted in collusion with the thieves. Sometimes commoners obtained immunity by disguising themselves as samurai and carrying a sword, but, on the other hand, such a device exposed them to official penalties. On the whole, however, travelling in Japan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was less perilous than travelling in Europe at the same epoch.
Under the auspices of the Tokugawa Shōguns was established the first regular postal system in Japan. At the outset it was limited to official uses. Men in uniform wearing two swords started at regular intervals from Yedo and Kyōtō travelling viâ Osaka. In 1663 this example found imitators among the business-men in the three cities: they organised a service of runners, performing the journey three times a month. Arriving at their destination, these men's habit was to expose upon a piece of matting in the open air the letters they had carried in order that the addressees might come to claim them.
The reverential attitude required of the people during the passage of a feudal chief and his retinue has already been mentioned. At no time was the etiquette in such matters stricter than in the Tokugawa epoch. Iyemitsu (1623–1650), the most imperious of all the Shōguns, required every house to be closed in the streets or highways where he passed, all fires to be extinguished, a large vessel of water to be placed before the gate of each building, fresh sand to be strewn on the road, and dogs and cats to be confined. Tsunayoshi (1680–1709), whose hysterical superstitions have been described in a previous chapter, dispensed with the rule about dogs and cats, but retained all the other ceremonies. On occasions of ordinary progresses the Shōgun's retinue was divided into forty-one groups, each composed of a fixed number of officers, men-at-arms, bearers of various weapons, banners, armour-chests, robe-boxes, umbrellas, chairs, tea and luncheon utensils, and other matters, and three steeds were led each by two grooms. But on special occasions, as a journey to Nikkō or Kyōtō, the retinue assumed very large dimensions, the feudal chiefs being obliged to contribute soldiers equal to one-half of the number for which they were liable in time of war. These processions and those of the great territorial nobles were splendid and imposing spectacles. They were observed by thousands of persons, though every spectator had to kneel with bowed head at the moment of the great personage's passing, and they contributed materially to the prosperity of the inns and stations along the main roads.
The reader is already familiar with the fact that in order to check foreign intercourse the third Tokugawa Shōgun, Iyemitsu, interdicted the building of any vessel over one hundred and seventy tons, and further imposed a method of construction which effectually prevented distant voyages. An interesting conception of the methods of naval architecture followed in his time may be gathered from a coast-defence vessel called the Ataka Maru, which he caused to be placed in Yedo Bay. She measured one hundred and eighty-six feet in length; had three decks, the uppermost carrying a species of conning tower and surrounded with pennons and streamers; was without sails or sculls of her own, the intention being to tow her with row-boats, and on the whole showed singular ignorance of the requirements of a fighting machine. Proving quite unmanageable, she had to be broken up ultimately. It is inconceivable that the Japanese, who for years have been navigating distant seas and had acquired some knowledge of foreign ship-building from the British pilot Will Adams, should have been unable to construct a more serviceable war-vessel. Probably the Ataka Maru should be regarded as a freak of some naval constructor rather than as a type of the best battle-ship of her time. But she had no successors. After her destruction the Tokugawa remained without any pretence of a navy. The trading junk of the era, as modified in obedience to official instructions, was as little capable of navigating the high seas as the Ataka Maru was of fighting. Her stern, standing high out of the water, carried a kind of pavilion; her bow supported an open cabin accommodating several passengers, and her very low bulwarks made it impossible that she could live in a high sea. These junks, or a modified form of them, nevertheless plied regularly between Osaka and Yedo from the middle of the seventeenth century, hugging the shore and carrying cargo at the rate of about four shillings per six tons. Of pleasure-boats there were several types. The most aristocratic had a roof stretching over the whole deck except at the stem and the stern. The space under the roof was covered with mats and otherwise fitted like a Japanese chamber, and was divided by a partition of sliding doors, so that the servants accompanying a party of pleasure-seekers could sit separately. All these boats were similarly propelled by means of one or two long oars which, balanced on a pivot, were thrust into the water from the stern and worked by a man standing. It need scarcely be said that the Tokugawa Government, which endeavoured so strenuously to check extravagance in matters of every-day life, did not fail to extend its supervision to pleasure-boats. Regulations were issued from time to time limiting their number or curtailing their dimensions, and legislation proved more effective in this case than in many others.
Throughout the Tokugawa era the increase of luxurious habits was reflected in the people's costumes; they grew constantly more elaborate and costly in spite of stringent sumptuary laws enacted with almost pathetic pertinacity by Shōgun after Shōgun. The Yedo Court itself did not generally set a bad example. It never fell into the extravagance that disgraced Kyōtō during the days of the Fujiwara. It is true that there were many rules for regulating the colours and materials of men's raiment, the tying of their breast-knots, the shapes of their hats, the nature of their fans and shoes, the varieties of garb to be used at the different seasons, and the number of badges that might be dyed on outer garments. But these were points of etiquette rather than of elaboration, and the resulting costume, though eminently unsuited for active exercise, was picturesque and in no sense gaudy or gorgeous. In the case of the Court ladies no such rules were officially framed, but habit asserted itself with all the force of law. The Kyōtō fashion of multiple suits telescoping into each other found no favour. Even in winter a Yedo lady wore only six garments,—a strip of linen or silk around the waist and hanging a little below the knees; over that three gowns of white stuff; then a crepe garment, tied with a narrow girdle, and finally a mantle (uchikake), which hung free from the shoulders to the ground and was richly embroidered or curiously woven. Only on the first three days of the year did this fashion vary; the number of gowns increased to eight, supplemented by a pair of crimson silk trousers trailing far behind the feet. As to materials they varied with the season, but it was de rigueur that a complete change of clothes must be made thrice on ordinary days and five times on each of the first three days of the year. The eyebrows were shaved and artificially replaced by various forms, as the "crescent moon," the "cloud-dividing," the "heavenly," and the "natural." These fashions remained inviolate at the Court throughout the Tokugawa era, the only changes being in the coiffure and in hair-ornaments. But there was no such immutability in the costumes of the samurai and the commoner, which, for the rest, resembled each other closely in the early part of the epoch, since tradesmen and artisans, being imbued with the martial spirit of the time, modelled themselves in every respect on the soldier. From the beginning of the military era, a samurai's coiffure was dictated by his helmet, the heat and weight of which compelled him to shave the pate and tie his remaining hair into a queue. This queue began to display fashionable caprices in Tokugawa times. Instead of being small and unpretentious, it became either thick and quaintly twisted or ostentatiously thin. In other matters of personal adornment also the tendency of the time found expression. A samurai, in the early part of the epoch, prided himself on having a thick beard, and took such care of it that a pair of tweezers had to be furnished with the tobacco-box to every male visitor in fashionable houses. The commoner, also, when he walked abroad adorned himself with a false beard and moustache.[7] As to garments, the samurai objected to baggy sleeves and long robes, except for boys; wore leather trousers and leather socks; no longer blackened his teeth, and generally went with uncovered head, though occasionally he wore a straw hat which effectually concealed his features from the mouth upwards, or bound a kerchief round his head. It was his pride when he walked or rode abroad to be followed by a retainer carrying his spear, and upon the garb and appearance of this man much attention was bestowed. By and by, trifling differences in style of coiffure or in the manner of thrusting the swords into the girdle began to attract attention inconsistent with a spirit of true simplicity. Men devised rebuses which they caused to be embroidered on their surcoats or picked out with metal—as when a sickle (kama), a circle (wa), and the character nu were combined to suggest the word kamawanu (do not care), and thus to indicate the wearer's indifference to his surroundings. Such paltry conceits preluded decadence of the nation's martial mood. Beards and moustaches, which the Government had once vainly tried to abolish, went out of fashion, and by the end of the seventeenth century, when debauchery made the Genroku era notorious, men were found powdering their faces as the gallants of Kyōtō had done in old time, increasing the dimensions of their garments laterally as well as vertically, and wearing trousers and socks of silk instead of leather.[8]
Female costume showed its most remarkable variations in the matter of the coiffure and the girdle. At the beginning of the Tokugawa epoch there was a total absence of hair ornaments, and even after the old fashion of flowing locks had begun to be exchanged for structures of curious or picturesque shape built up with pads and false hair, no embellishment was added except a strip of ribbon or paper. But very soon the services of combs and hairpins were requisitioned, one notable innovation being a kogai thrust horizontally through the back hair, which was partially wound about it. It appears that the use of combs and hairpins was inaugurated by danseuses and filles de joie at the end of the seventeenth century, and that "professional styles" were all in vogue at that time. As for the girdle, it had not existed at all in old times, and at the beginning of the Tokugawa era its most elaborate form was a thick silk cord looped behind and hanging almost to the heels. This was replaced by a simply knotted silk belt, which gradually grew wider and longer, until it attained a breadth of over a foot and a length of thirteen feet, and instead of being passed once round the body, was wound in several plies from the breast to the hips, and tied in a knot which itself became an object of inventive ingenuity. On the eyebrows great care was bestowed. From a long list of shapes a young lady might choose whichever suited her style of beauty, from the eyebrow of the nightingale, or of forgetfulness, or of the morning mist, to that of the wistaria or the crescent moon. Indian ink was used to eke out shapes which could not be completed by means of the natural hair alone. When a woman married, however, these vanities passed out of her life; she blackened her teeth and shaved her eyebrows. Rouging the cheeks, gilding a portion of the under lip, and imparting a blush to the nails were among the cares of the toilet, and a writer at the end of the seventeenth century enumerated sixteen articles required by a lady for making up her face and coiffure alone,—a number which increased to twenty by the middle of the eighteenth century. Simultaneously with these changes the fashionable lady lengthened her sleeves till they fell far below the knee, and suspended from them a tiny bell which tinkled as she walked. In her girdle she carried a bag of perfume as well as a little looking-glass, a comb, some rouge and some face powder, and whenever a rude air of heaven had assailed her, she seized the first tranquil moment to restore the symmetry of her coiffure and the graces of her face. It had been her strict rule never to allow any portion of the body to be seen as she walked abroad, her head enveloped in a species of veil and an attendant holding a long umbrella over her. But now when the Phrynes of the city began to walk without socks and to expose their ankles, respectable ladies followed their example, and did not hesitate to borrow new styles of girdle knot from the "male prostitute," who then played a prominent part in society, or novel fashions of head-gear from actors. There is on record a story of two rival belles at the close of the seventeenth century whose husbands, rich merchants of Kyōtō and Yedo, did not limit the funds their wives devoted to a competition of finery. Mrs. Rokubei arriving in Kyvtō from Yedo, Mrs. Juyemon donned a robe of crimson satin having all the celebrated scenes of Kyōtō embroidered on it, and Mrs. Rokubei's reply was to walk about in a gown of black silk ornamented with a design of naruten (nandina domestica) every berry a bead of the finest coral. The fate of the Rokubei family illustrates the ways of the era. Standing, a gorgeously apparelled group, as the Shōgun Tsunayoshi visited a Kyōtō temple, their parade of luxury provoked official displeasure, and Rokubei's property was confiscated, he himself being sent into exile. This sharp lesson had no permanently deterrent effect. Ladies continued to have the finest stuffs dyed in one of the fifty-nine fashionable colours of the time; wore richly lacquered pattens; multiplied the fifteen styles of front hair and the twelve of back hair already recognised by society;[9] spent scores of gold pieces on hairpins; had combs manufactured out of the choicest parts of several tortoise-shells so as to show the most delicate shade of pale yellow; devised new methods of knotting the girdle, and showed themselves sensible in one thing only, the abandonment of rouge for the cheeks. There is a tribute to be paid to Japanese female costume, however. In all ages it has been eminently refined. No staring colours or glittering jewels were ever tolerated in any but the very young. Up to eleven or twelve years of age garments of bright hue and hair ornaments of elaborate shapes were permitted, though anything like garishness or discord of tints was carefully avoided. But beyond that age, however rich or costly the garments, they were invariably characterised by sobriety, softness, and harmony. Above all, society never tolerated for a moment the solecism of an old lady wearing youthful clothes. Such a thing was not seen in any era. Spinsters aping the show and the simper of girlhood were unrepresented in Japan. Every age had its appropriate raiment, and every age wore it frankly. It is probably correct to say that no women of any nation dressed with better taste and less pretension than Japanese women did after the unshapely bulk of ancient Court costumes had been replaced by the graceful garments of the Tokugawa epoch. The Japanese garb has another merit also: materials may be expensive, but the gown and the girdle often outlast their wearer's lifetime and are even transmitted to her daughter. Fashion changes so little that what is appropriate in one generation may generally be worn in the next. Yet when it is claimed that age does not simulate youth in the matter of apparel, it must also be admitted that many women and some men dye their hair. Thousands of boxes of a peculiarly convenient powder, an import from the West, are now sold in the cities and provinces, having, for the most part, taken the place of herb decoctions that used to simmer, once a month, on the braziers of old Japan. Still there is not one user of the cheap foreign powder or the home-made native paste that will profess an age below the truth or dress so as to suggest it. The concealment of time's touches is a purely objective act of politeness, a concession to appearances. Sanemori blackened his hair nine centuries ago lest youths should hesitate to cross swords with him in battle, and if Japanese women and men sometimes hide premature streaks of silver, it is chiefly because such things, in the one case, obtrude unpleasantly upon the observation of friends and acquaintances, and, in the other, suggest incapacity for active employment.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 17.
Note 17. Dr. Inouye Tetsujiro has compiled a voluminous and lucid work on the philosophy of Wang Yang-ming ("Nihon Yōmei-gaku-ha no Tetsugaku"), of which an interesting summary appeared in the Japan Weekly Mail of April 20, 1901, from the pen of Mr. W. Dening.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 18.
Note 18.—The Rikuyu Engi, or "Exposition of the Six Principles," a celebrated primer of Confucian philosophy.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 19.
Note 19.—"Kinokumiya" was the name of his store. Merchants in that era were not allowed to have family names.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 20.
Note 20.—Equal to about as many pounds sterling.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 21.
Note 21.—There were from seven thousand to eight thousand of these persons in the city. They went by the name of yama-bushi (mountain soldiers). A census of Yedo taken in 1787 shows that there were 587,800 males, 697,500 females, 3,844 blind persons, 53,430 Buddhist priests, 3,580 Shintō priests, 7,230 yama-bushi, and 4,500 men and women in the Yoshiwara, or 1,367,840 in all, exclusive of the military class.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 22.
Note 22.—These last two objects were often made of magnificent lacquer.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 23.
Note 23.—Now for the first time hair-dressers for men began to open shops at street corners or on bridges.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 24.
Note 24.—This change was not entirely a caprice of fashion. Leather had become almost prohibitively expensive, owing to its general use for garments worn in times of conflagration.
- ↑ See Appendix, note 25.
Note 25.—Ladies could not command the services of a professional hair-dresser until the middle of the eighteenth century, and in 1835 the Premier, Mizuno Echizen no Kami, declared such a profession illegal,—naturally a futile prohibition.