be fired and plundered. In O[u]kubo a
temple (the Jisho[u]-in) was clean gutted of its treasury--without
notice to its neighbours. Not a sign of the spoil could be traced until
the Sho[u]shidai of Kyo[u]to sent as present to the suzerain a most
valued hanging picture (_kakemono_) of Shu[u]bun, picked up for him in
O[u]saka town, and worthy of being seen by the eyes of Edo's ruler.
Murder and rape were the common accompaniments of these crimes, the
doers of which left no witness, if resisted. _Tsujikiri_, cutting down
wayfarers merely to test the value of a sword blade, found revival. Such
murders in the outward wards of the city were of nightly occurrence. Yet
they all centred in Aoyama's own precinct; starting forth from the
fencing hall of Osada Jinnai. What a band they were! At this long
distant date the names read with that tinge of the descriptive which
such nomenclature gives--Yamaguchi Chiyari, Kanagawa Koni, Sendai no
O[u]kami, Okayama Koshin, Kumamoto Kondo[u], Tsukuba Ende;[26] their
great chief being Kosaka Jinnai.

The eleventh month (December) was closing its first decade. The wine
shop at Shiba Nihon Enoki was celebrating a first opening, a feast in
progress for some hours, and to be maintained for the few ensuing days.
The enthusiasm was at its height, and the wine flowed like water. Some
few guests, who could, tottered home at midnight. Clerks and
domestics--there is little difference in Nipponese practice--shut up the
premises as well as their drunken state permitted. Those who had still
some trace of sobriety proceeded to guzzle what was left in the opened
casks. When the hour of the ox (1 A.M.) struck, not a man in the place
knew front from rear. They lay sprawled out dead drunk--as were some of
the women. This was the hour watched for and chosen by Jinnai. Such of
the females as could give the alarm were bound and gagged by the masked
invaders. Then they gutted place and store-houses. With bending backs
they betook themselves over the hills the short distance to Harajuku.
Here Jinnai, in the unwise benevolence of the bandit chieftain, gave
rein to the licentiousness of these favourites of his mature age, to
these lieutenants and agents in the great movement for which all this
loot was gathered. The circuit was formed. The heads of wine barrels
just stolen were broached. The grizzled, tousled member who officiated
as cook, and as such had been left behind to his own offices, produced
the feast of fish