Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/145

 early part of the eighteenth century caused concern to Tokugawa legislators, who saw in such amusements a danger to good morals. In the middle of the seventeenth century an attempt had been made by the third Shōgun, Iyemitsu, to segregate Yedo from the histrionic developments then beginning to attract attention in Osaka and Kyōtō. He appointed special constables to arrest actors said to be going about the city corrupting men's morals, and he expelled them immediately on apprehension. But this interdict being subsequently withdrawn, the theatre became a popular institution in Yedo, and serious abuses grew up about it. The building being made three storeys high, chambers in the top storey served for debauches of various kinds, and secret passages connecting the manager's residence or the green-room with houses of assignation, enabled the actors to carry on intrigues which began to constitute romances in the lives of many girls and women occupying respectable positions. Drastic steps for checking these immoralities were finally taken by the Government. It interdicted the building of theatres more than two storeys high, the making of secret passages, the use of bamboo blinds for screening the galleries, the giving of performances after sunset, and the construction of private rooms connecting with tea-houses attached to theatres. Actors were forbidden to repair to a tea-house by invitation, except for histrionic purposes, or to invite a private individual to their own