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In the case, however, of damage which exceeds the farmers' capacity to repair, the facts should be reported to the taiko who will grant necessary assistance. There follow various sumptuary regulations. We have next a series of interesting instructions known as "wall-writings" of the castle of Osaka: Intermarriages between daimyo's families require the previous consent of the Taiko.
He granted an interview to the two ladies from Osaka and sent them on to Yedo to visit the wife of Hidetada, the lady Yodo's younger sister. The Osaka deputies naturally drew favourable inferences from this courteous mood, and taking an opportunity to refer to the affair of the inscription on the bell, elicited from Ieyasu an assurance that the matter need not be regarded with concern.
By these stipulations the signatories swore to abide strictly, and declared that any violation of the provisions of the oath would render the violator liable to severe punishment. Among the signatories there were not found any members of the Osaka party.
It had been practised from medieval times and often with direct sanction of the authorities. But in no circumstances was it officially permissible within the cities of Kyoto, Yedo, Osaka, and Sumpu, or in the vicinity of the shogun's shrines. The forty-seven ronins had therefore committed a capital crime.
As nearly as I can make out, relying on the investigations of Rev. J.H. Pettee and Mr. Ishii, there are to-day in Japan fifty orphan asylums, of which eleven are of non-Christian, and thirty-nine of Christian origin, support, and control. Of the non-Christian, five are in Osaka, two in Tokyo, four in Kyoto, and one each in Nagoya, Kumamoto, and Matsuye.
Now it so happened that a frog from Osaka had determined to visit Kiôto, and had also ascended Tenôzan; and on the summit the two frogs met, made acquaintance, and told one another their intentions. So they began to complain about all the trouble they had gone through, and had only arrived half-way after all: if they went on to Osaka and Kiôto, their legs and loins would certainly not hold out.
Of course this answer profoundly enraged the Osaka party. They appreciated for the first time that they had been deceived throughout, and that by a series of adroit manoeuvres they had been removed from an almost impregnable position to a practically helpless plight. Not a few turned their backs on the castle, but a great majority determined to renew the conflict and to die at their posts.
The master of the house, who was greatly taken aback, consented of course; so he told the woman of the house to hide Hichirobei's dirk, and as soon as the latter, wearied with his journey, had fallen asleep, he reported it to the policeman, who went upstairs, and having bound Hichirobei as he lay wrapped up in his quilt, led him back to Osaka to be imprisoned with his brother.
He is specially worshipped on account of his miraculous birth; his mother, the Empress Jingo, having, by the virtue of a magic stone which she wore at her girdle, borne him in her womb for three years, during which she made war upon and conquered the Coreans. In the second month of the year pilgrims are flocking to the temple of Hachiman at Mount Otoko, between Osaka and Kiôto.
Driven to desperation by the sight of the people's pain and by his own failure to obtain from wealthy folks a sufficient measure of aid, 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.
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