16
Notices of Japan, No V
JAN.
tobacco.cutter, who, some months before, had suddenly disappeared from his master's shop. The journeyman tobacco-cutter had been personated by a noble of the land, who had assumed that disguise in order to exercise the office of a spy, for which he had been sent to Matsmai by the court.”
To return to Nagasaki. The officers hitherto mentioned are all governmental officers; but the affairs of the town itself, its own police, &c., are managed, not by them, but by separate municipal authorities-to wit, a council of nine, some- thing akin to a mayor and aldermen, but holding their offices hereditarily. The resolutions of this council must, however, be unanimous; if not, they are submit- ted to the governor. The municipal council employ, as their ministers and ser. vants, a regiment of ottona aud kashira, to whose superintendence the peace and good conduct of every street in the town is committed; a superintendence much facilitated by closing the gates of every street at a certain hour of the even- ing, after which no one can pass in or out, without an especial permission from
his kashira or ottona.
But all this organization of watchfulness does not satisfy the care, despotic or paternal, of the government, or perhaps we should say of the institutions, for the safety of the people. Every town and village in the realm is parceled out into lots of five houses, the heads of which are made answerable for each other; each is bound to report to his kashira every and any misdemeanor, irregularity, or even unusual occurrence, in any of his four neighbors' houses, which from the kashira is transmitted through the ottona to the municipal council; so that it may be said, not that one half, but that each half, of the nation is made a spy upon the other half, or that the whole nation is a spy upon itself. The householders are further bound to exercise the same vigilance over the portion of the street before their houses; any disaster that may there happen, in a chance broil among stran- gers, being imputed to the negligence of the adjoining householders. Any neglect of interference or report is punished, according to the occasion, with fine, stripes, imprisonment or arrest in the offender's own house; which last is a very different thing in Japan from what it is in other countries. In Japan, the whole family of the man sentenced to domiciliary arrest is cut off from all intercourse with the external world; the doors and windows of the house being boarded up, to insure the seclusion. The offender is suspended during the whole time, if in office, from his office and salary; if a tradesman or artisan, from exercising his trade; and, moreover, no man in the house may shave, a disgrace as well as an inconvenience. How the subsistence of the family is provided for during this long period of inac. tion and non-intercourse, does not appear.
One consequence or necessary concomitant of this system of mutual espial is, that a man should have some power of choosing the neighbors whom he is to watch and be watched by. Accordingly, no one can change his residence without a certificate of good conduct from the neighbors he wishes to leave, and permis. sion from the inhabitants of the street to which he would remove to come amongst them. The result of this minutely ramified and complete organization is said to be that, the whole empire affording no hiding-place for a criminal, there is no country where so few crimes against property are committed; and doors may be left unbarred, with little fear of robbery.
The population of Japan, which is variously estimated by different writers at from 15,000,000 to 40,000,000 of souls, is divided, if not exactly into castes, yet into nearly hereditary classes. It is held to be the duty of every individual to