Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/37

 straw sandals per month for three years; and every peasant girl between the ages of thirteen and twenty had to furnish sufficient cotton for a piece of cloth nine yards long, which cotton women between twenty and forty had to weave. Side by side with such practical measures of organisation readers of the annals are surprised to rind evidence of old-time superstitions against contamination. The whole of the persons engaged in the work were divided into parties of one hundred and seven each, and if any artisan received news of a death among his relatives, not only the man himself but every member of his party had to suspend work for a period of from one to three days, and to undergo a process of purification at the hands of a Shintō priest. The same superstition showed itself in the treatment of diseases. Provision was made for the care of a sick person at the scene of the works during twenty days, but thereafter, however critical his condition, he had to be removed elsewhere, lest death should take place in the immediate neighbourhood of the mausoleum.

While the feudal barons were building for themselves splendid mansions and laying out beautiful parks in Yedo, and while the Shōgun was not only following their example but also creating colossal battlements for his castle, as well as mausolea of the utmost splendour in memory of his predecessors, the citizens of the capital continued to inhabit houses of the frailest and hum-