Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/78

 were exempted from the rule of implication, though they might be reduced to the rank of slaves. In the year 1721, however, under Yoshimune's rule, a juster spirit inspired legislation. It was enacted that even in the case of crimes punishable with crucifixion and exposure of the head, the penalty must be limited to the criminal himself, and that with regard to the most heinous of all crimes, parricide or the murder of a teacher, a special tribunal should determine whether the children and grandchildren ought to be implicated. But this leniency applied to farmers and merchants only: the samurai were not included. To punish the offence of a man of rank more severely than that of a commoner is exceptional procedure, though justice suggests that the guilt of an offender should vary directly with the degree of his education and the circumstances of his life. In this matter, however, Japanese law-givers were influenced by expediency rather than by philosophy, crimes committed by samurai being of more consequence to the State than crimes committed by farmers and tradesmen.

Side by side with the above evidence of improved legislative conception, it is strange to find barbarously stringent measures for checking theft. Death was the penalty for stealing anything, no matter how small, or for entering another's house secretly, even though nothing was carried away, or for lying, swindling, or attempted extortion by force. Yet an inexplicable discrimination was