although he sold everything he himself possessed by way of example, a
police official, Oshio Heihachiro, raised the flag of revolt and
became the instrument of starting a tumult in which eighteen thousand
buildings were destroyed in Osaka. In a manifesto issued before
committing suicide in company with his son, Heihachiro charged the
whole body of officials with corrupt motives, and declared that the
sovereign was treated as a recluse without any practical authority;
that the people did not know where to make complaint; that the
displeasure of heaven was evinced by a succession of natural
calamities, and that the men in power paid no attention to these
warnings.

The eleventh shogun, Ienari, after fifty-one years of office,
resigned in favour of his son, Ieyoshi, who ruled from 1838 to 1853.
Ienari survived his resignation by four years, during which he
resided in the western castle, and, under the title of o-gosho,
continued to take part in the administration. As for Ieyoshi, his
tenure of power is chiefly notable for the strenuous efforts made by
his prime minister, Mizuno Echizen no Kami, to substitute economy for
the costly luxury that prevailed. Reference has already been made to
this eminent official's policy, and it will suffice here to add that
his aim was to restore the austere fashions of former times. The
schedule of reforms was practically endless. Expensive costumes were
seized and burned; theatres were relegated to a remote suburb of the
city; actors were ostracized; a censorship of publications checked
under severe penalties the compilation of all anti-foreign or immoral
literature, and even children's toys were legislated for.

At first these laws alarmed people, but it was soon found that
competence to enforce was not commensurate with ability to compile,
and the only result achieved was that splendour and extravagance were
more or less concealed. Yet the Bakufu officials did not hesitate to
resort to force. It is recorded that storehouses and residences were
sealed and their inmates banished; that no less than 570 restaurants
were removed from the most populous part of the city, and that the
maidservants employed in them were all degraded to the class of
"licensed prostitutes." This drastic effort went down in the pages of
history as the "Tempo Reformation." It ended in the resignation of
its author and the complete defeat of its purpose.

TOKUGAWA NARIAKI

Contemporaneous with the wholesale refo