JAPAN
struct 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,[1] 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
- ↑ See Appendix, note 22.
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