Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/124

 rised, indeed, to submit to the deputy of his district a written account of any damage produced by drought or inundation or of any circumstances causing discontent. But a peremptory interdict forbade him to combine with his fellows for the purpose of presenting petitions or to make any direct appeal to a feudal chief. All petitions or appeals thus preferred, whether just or unjust, were to be rejected, and those preferring them stood convicted of audacity meriting even capital punishment. The deputies and the magistrates in the various localities wielded almost irresponsible authority, and there is evidence that they often abused it. It was against these deputies and magistrates that the aggrieved peasant had to complain, yet it was to the deputy or the magistrate that his complaint must be carried, and it was at the hands of the same deputy or magistrate that he suffered punishment if his manner of appeal seemed turbulent or seditious. Not until 1771 were the deputies and magistrates deprived of competence to fix penalties for such offences, and the law making that wholesome change contained provisions that the ringleader of a combination to prefer a complaint, or the person whose signature stood first among the names on a petition, should be sent into penal servitude; that delegates carrying a statement of farmers' grievances to their feudal chief's mansion in Yedo should be handcuffed for from thirty to fifty days; that their co-signatories should be