Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/22

Rh the "dog year" of the sexagenary cycle, he believed that his own fate depended on the degree of protection he gave to animals. Several persons had been capitally punished for killing dogs or cats before his officials, in order to save the lives of the citizens, constructed in the suburbs of Yedo a kennel, covering an area of one hundred and forty-eight acres, whither all the dogs in the city were sent to be cared for. The military men, then the nation's ethical models, forgot their fine traditions under such a ruler and the "manners and customs of the Genroku era" became a byword. The career of the eighth Shōgun, Yoshimune, offered a strong contrast to that of this hysterical libertine. His efforts were persistently directed to mend the morals of the age. He revised the laws, promoted industry, sought to effect a revival of the true samurai spirit, and provided facilities, though on a limited scale, for the study of foreign languages and science. Had he been succeeded by men of like quality, the era of Japan's enlightenment would not have been deferred until the nineteenth century. But after his death the Yedo Court, under the sway of two successive Shōguns, relapsed into a state almost as evil as that of Tsunayoshi's days. Then again the eleventh Shōgun, Iyenari, aided by an able Premier (Matsudaira Sadanobu), undertook reforms like that of Yoshimune, and effected such an improvement in the