Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/61

THE TOKUGAWA COURT ing a child caused a Chiuro to be subjected to roughness that imperilled her own life and detroyeddestroyed [sic] that of her offspring. Nevertheless, since the position of a favourite Chiuro offered extraordinary opportunities for influencing the Shōgun, that office, as well as the post of "Elder," was much coveted, and inasmuch as neither position could be secured without the aid of some influential person about the Court, large sums were often expended to obtain that aid. Under any circumstances the petty passions that disfigure human nature must have found a wide field for exercise among a community of ladies condemned to such a life, cut off from free intercourse with the outer world or with the other sex, and having few objects of legitimate ambition. It appears that the practices and morals of the O-oku-Jochiu were not among the fairest pictures of Tokugawa times. So far as discipline is concerned, the system was very strict. The gate leading to the ladies' apartments in the Palace had to be closed by ten o'clock every evening, after which hour neither ingress nor egress was permitted. Even during the daytime none of the ladies might go out without a passport. Thrice yearly—in January, May, and December—they were permitted to visit their homes, but under no other pretext, except in case of the serious illness or death of a parent, was their absence from the Palace tolerated, and every frivolity in the nature of visiting places of amusement was interdicted. Moreover, on enter-