nces, from seventy per cent, for the landlord and thirty for the
tenant to thirty for the landlord and seventy for the tenant.

CURRENCY

It has been shown above that, from the time of the fifth shogun,
debasement of the coins of the realm took place frequently. Indeed it
may be said that whenever the State fell into financial difficulty,
debasement of the current coins was regarded as a legitimate device.
Much confusion was caused among the people by repeated changes in the
quality of the coins. Thus, in the days of the eighth shogun, no less
than four varieties of a single silver token were in circulation.
When the country renewed its foreign intercourse in the middle of the
nineteenth century, there were no less than eight kinds of gold coin
in circulation, nine of silver, and four of copper or iron. The
limits within which the intrinsic value of gold coins varied will be
understood when we say that whereas the gold oban of the Keicho era
(1596-1614) contained, approximately, 29.5 parts of gold to 13 of
silver and was worth about seventy-five yen. The corresponding coin
of the Man-en era (1860) contained 10.33 parts of pure gold to 19.25
of silver, and was worth only twenty-eight yen.

PAPER CURRENCY

The earliest existing record of the use of paper currency dates from
1661, when the feudal chief of Echizen obtained permission from the
Bakufu to employ this medium of exchange, provided that its
circulation was limited to the fief where the issue took place. These
paper tokens were called hansatsu (fief notes), and one result of
their issue was that moneys accruing from the sale of cereals and
other products of a fief were preserved within that fief. The example
of Echizen in this matter found several followers, but the system
never became universal.

JUDICIAL PROCEDURE

The administration of justice in the Tokugawa days was based solely
on ethical principles. Laws were not promulgated for prospective
application. They were compiled whenever an occasion arose, and in
their drafting the prime aim was always to make their provisions
consonant with the dictates of humanity. Once, indeed, during the
time of the second shogun, Hidetada, a municipal administrator,
Shimada Yuya, having held the office for more than twenty years, and
having come to be regarded as conspicuously expert in rendering
justice, it was proposed to the shogun that the judgments delivered
by this administrator should be recorded for the guidan