Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/84

 promulgated, and doubtless China furnished models in this matter, as she did for nearly all the institutions of the time. The code shows that expenses connected with food, clothes, and medicine for prisoners, as well as the cost of repairing jails under the new system, were defrayed out of the proceeds of confiscated goods supplemented by grants from the treasury; that there were periodical inspections; that in case of severe illness a prisoner's fetters were removed, and that in the event of death his body was either handed to his relatives or decently interred by the authorities. The influence of Buddhism displayed itself in educating a practical sense of the sanctity of life, for not only had the sovereign's permission to be obtained by an elaborate process before inflicting capital punishment, but also on the day of execution all musical performances were suspended in the capital. A holiday was allowed to the inmates of a jail every tenth day, and if a prisoner's parents died he was permitted to mourn for seven days. Diagrams still extant indicate that the dual system common to all institutions having a Chinese origin was adopted in the case of jails: they were divided into the "right prison" and the "left prison," but concerning the purpose of the division nothing is now known. From the same diagrams it is learned that the cangue was imported from China, and that, in addition to chain fetters, there were manacles for the hands and stocks for the feet both made out