en below.]

At the end of the sixteenth century the courtesans of Yedo lived in
three special places: these were the street called Koji-machi, in
which dwelt the women who came from Kioto; the Kamakura Street, and a
spot opposite the great bridge, in which last two places lived women
brought from Suruga. Besides these there afterwards came women from
Fushimi and from Nara, who lodged scattered here and there throughout
the town. This appears to have scandalized a certain reformer, named
Shoji Jinyemon, who, in the year 1612, addressed a memorial to the
Government, petitioning that the women who lived in different parts of
the town should be collected in one "Flower Quarter." His petition was
granted in the year 1617, and he fixed upon a place called Fukiyacho,
which, on account of the quantities of rushes which grew there, was
named _Yoshi-Wara,_ or the rush-moor, a name which now-a-days, by a
play upon the word _yoshi,_ is written with two Chinese characters,
signifying the "good," or "lucky moor." The place was divided into
four streets, called the Yedo Street, the Second Yedo Street, the
Kioto Street, and the Second Kioto Street.

In the eighth month of the year 1655, when Yedo was beginning to
increase in size and importance, the Yoshiwara, preserving its name,
was transplanted bodily to the spot which it now occupies at the
northern end of the town. And the streets in it were named after the
places from which the greater number of their inhabitants originally
came, as the "Sakai Street," the "Fushimi Street," &c.

The official Guide to the Yoshiwara for 1869 gives a return of 153
brothels, containing 3,289 courtesans of all classes, from the
_Oiran_, or proud beauty, who, dressed up in gorgeous brocade of gold
and silver, with painted face and gilded lips, and with her teeth
fashionably blacked, has all the young bloods of Yedo at her feet,
down to the humble _Shinzo_, or white-toothed woman, who rots away her
life in the common stews. These figures do not, however, represent the
whole of the prostitution of Yedo; the Yoshiwara is the chief, but not
the only, abiding-place of the public women. At Fukagawa there is
another Flower District, built upon the same principle as the
Yoshiwara; while at Shinagawa, Shinjiku, Itabashi, Senji, and
Kadzukappara, the hotels contain women who, nominally only waitresses,
are in reality prostitutes. There are also women called _Jigoku-Omna,_
or hell-women, who, without being bor