Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/69



HE city of Yedo was under the administration originally of two magistrates and subsequently of three, each having twenty-five "aids" (yōriki) and one hundred and twenty-five "greffiers" (dōshin). The magistrate wielded executive, judicial, and a measure of legislative authority, but the citizens themselves enjoyed a large degree of local autonomy. Elders (machi-doshiyori) were selected by the people to discharge general municipal duty, and a headman (nanushi)—for which office the principal citizens became eligible in turn—supervised each ward. As to funds for public purposes, they were supplied, in the first place, by prominent landowners (jinushi), who subsequently collected the money from the people in their district in the form of a land rate and a house tax. Seven per cent of the assessed rental of lands and houses was levied for municipal purposes, and as the total of this assessed rental amounted to a little over half a million pounds sterling in 1843,