dog, and the officials were specially
warned against permitting one animal to be substituted for another.
Strange dogs were to be well fed, and any person neglecting this
obligation was to be reported to the authorities.

At first these orders were not very seriously regarded, but by and
by, when many persons had been banished to Hachijo-jima for killing
dogs; when several others had been reproved publicly for not giving
food to homeless animals, and when officials of the supreme court
were condemned to confinement for having taken no steps to prevent
dog-fights, the citizens began to appreciate that the shogun was in
grim earnest. A huge kennel was then constructed in the Nakano suburb
of Yedo as a shelter for homeless dogs. It covered an area of about
138 acres, furnished accommodation for a thousand dogs, and was under
the management of duly appointed officials, while the citizens had to
contribute to a dog-fund, concerning which it was said that a dog's
ration for a day would suffice a man for a day and a half.

Tsunayoshi came to be spoken of as Inu-kubo (Dog-shogun), but all his
measures did not bring him a son; neither did their failure shake his
superstitious credulity. Solemn prayers were offered again and again
with stately pomp and profuse circumstance, and temple after temple
was built or endowed at enormous cost, while the laws against taking
animal life continued in force more vigorously than ever. Birds and
even shell-fish were included in the provisions, and thus not only
were the nation's foodstuffs diminished, but also its crops lay at
the mercy of destructive animals and birds. It is recorded that a
peasant was exiled for throwing a stone at a pigeon, and that one man
was put to death for catching fish with hook and line, while another
met the same fate for injuring a dog, the head of the criminal being
exposed on the public execution ground and a neighbour who had
reported the offence being rewarded with thirty ryo. We read, also,
of officials sentenced to transportation for clipping a horse or
furnishing bad provender. The annals relate a curious story connected
with these legislative excesses. The Tokugawa baron of Mito, known in
history as Komon Mitsukuni, on receiving evidence as to the
monstrous severity with which the law protecting animals was
administered, collected a large number of men and organized a hunting
expedition on a grand scale. Out of the animals killed, twenty dogs
of remarkabl