and placarded throughout the city of Yedo
and provincial towns or villages. On such a placard (kosatsu) posted
up, in the year 1711, at seven places in Yedo, it was enjoined on
parents, sons, daughters, brothers, husbands, wives, and other
relatives that they must maintain intimate and friendly relations
among themselves; and that, whereas servants must be faithful and
industrious, their masters should have compassion and should obey the
dictates of right in dealing with them; that everyone should be hard
working and painstaking; that people should not transgress the limits
of their social status; that all deceptions should be carefully
avoided; that everyone should make it a rule of life to avoid doing
injury or causing loss to others; that gambling should be eschewed;
that quarrels and disputes of every kind should be avoided; that
asylum should not be given to wounded persons; that firearms should
not be used without cause; that no one should conceal an offender;
that the sale or purchase of human being, should be strictly
prohibited except in cases where men or women offered their services
for a fixed term of years or as apprentices, or in cases of
hereditary servitude; finally, that, though hereditary servants went
to other places and changed their domicile, it should not be lawful
to compel their return.

In the days of the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, it being held that
crimes were often due to ignorance of law, the feudatories and
deputies were directed to make arrangements for conveying to the
people tinder their jurisdiction some knowledge of the nature of the
statutes; and the result was that the mayors (nanushi) of provincial
towns and villages had to read the laws once a month at a meeting of
citizens or villagers convened for the purpose. Previously to this
time, namely, in the days of the fourth shogun, Ietsugu, the office
of recorder (tome-yaku) was instituted in the Hyojo-sho for the
purpose of committing to writing all judgments given in lawsuits. But
in the days of Yoshimune, the rules and regulations issued by the
Bakufu from the time of Ieyasu downwards were found to have fallen
into such confusion that the difficulty of following them was
practically insuperable.

Therefore, in 1742, Matsudaira Norimura, one of the roju, together
with the three administrators, was commissioned to compile a body of
laws, and the result was a fifteen volume book called the Hatto-gaki
(Prohibitory Writings). The shog