bout the condition
of the people, Yoshimune appointed officials who went by the name of
niwa-ban (garden watchmen). They moved about among the lower orders
and reported everything constituting knowledge useful for
administrative purposes. Moreover, to facilitate the ends of justice,
the shogun revived the ancient device of petition-boxes
(meyasu-bako), which were suspended in front of the courthouse in
order that men might lodge there a written statement of all
complaints. It was by Yoshimune, also, that the celebrated Ooka
Tadasuke, the "Solomon of Japan," was invited from Yamada and
appointed chief justice in Yedo. The judgments delivered by him in
that capacity will be famous as long as Japan exists. It has to be
noted, however, that the progressive spirit awakened by Yoshimune's
administration was not without untoward results. Extremists fell into
the error of believing that everything pertaining to the canons of
the immediate past must be abandoned, and they carried this
conception into the realm of foreign trade, so that the restrictions
imposed in the Shotoku era (1711-1715) were neglected. It became
necessary to issue a special decree ordering the enforcement of these
regulations, although, as will presently be seen, Yoshimune's
disposition towards the civilization of the Occident was essentially
liberal.

CODES OF LAW

By this time the miscarriages of justice liable to occur when the law
is administered with regard to precedent only or mainly, began to be
plainly observable, and the shogun, appreciating the necessity for
written codes, appointed a commission to collect and collate the laws
in operation from ancient times; to embody them in codes, and to
illustrate them by precedents. Matsudaira Norimura, one of the
ministers of State, was appointed chief commissioner, and there
resulted, after four years of labour, the first genuine Japanese code
(Oshioki Ojomoku). This body of laws was subsequently revised by
Matsudaira Sadanobu, and under the name of Osadame Hyakkajo ("Hundred
Articles of Law"), it remained long in practice.

LITERATURE

Yoshimune was not behind any of his ancestors in appreciation of
learning. In 1721, when his administrative reforms were still in
their infancy, he invited to Yedo Kinoshita Torasuke (son of the
celebrated Kinoshita Junan), Muro Nawokiyo, and other eminent men of
letters, and appointed them to give periodical lectures. Nawokiyo was
named "adviser to the shogun," who co