me time and ended in the creation of several new islands; the
outbreak of the Asama crater, in 1783, when half the provinces of the
Kwanto were covered with ashes; and the loss of forty thousand lives
by a flood in the Tone-gawa. Of all these visitations the shogun
remained uninformed, and, in spite of them, luxury and extravagance
marked the lives of the upper classes. Many, however, were
constrained to seek loans from wealthy merchants in Osaka, and these
tradesmen, admonished by past incidents, refused to lend anything. At
last the intolerable situation culminated in a deed of violence. In
April, 1784, Sano Masakoto, a hereditary vassal of the shogun, drew
his sword upon Okitsugu within the precincts of the castle in Yedo
and wounded him severely. Masakoto was seized and sentenced to commit
suicide, but the justice of his attempt being recognized, the
influence of Okitsugu and his son began to decline. Two years later
(1786), there appeared a decree in the name of the Bakufu, ordering
that the temples in all the provinces, the farmers, the artisans, and
the merchants should send their gold and silver every spring to the
Central Government, to the end that the latter might lend this
treasure to the feudatories, who would pledge themselves to pay it
back after five years.*

*The funds thus obtained were called yuzu-kin (accommodation money).

There is reason to believe that the shogun himself knew nothing of
this ordinance until a multitude of complaints and remonstrances
found their way, in part, to his ears. At all events, the
extraordinary decree proved to be the last act of Okitsugu's official
life. He was dismissed from office, though whether the credit of that
step belongs to the Sanke and the elder officials or to the shogun,
is not certain, for Ieharu is said to have died just before the final
disgrace of the corrupt statesman was consummated. The Yedo upon
which he closed his eyes in October, 1786, presented features of
demoralization unsurpassed in any previous era. In fact, during the
period of forty-one years between the accession of the ninth shogun,
Ieshige, in 1745, and the death of the tenth, Ieharu, in 1786, the
manners and customs of the citizens developed along very evil lines.
It was in this time that the city Phryne (machi-geisha) made her
appearance; it was in this time that the theatre, which had hitherto
been closed to the better classes, began to be frequented by them; it
was in this time tha