A Ruling in Samurai Era Japan
Arai Hauseki (1657-1825) was an elite samurai directly serving the Shogun (the king of whole samurai clans in Japan) who presided the samurai government placed in the great castle of Edo (presently Tokyo).
Hakuseki is today however known as one of the greatest scholars in the samurai era (1603-1868) reigned by the Tokugawa clan or the Tokugawa shogun.
One day he was informed of a worrisome criminal case. A owner of an inn in Shinagawa town in southern Edo wanted maidservants. So he sent out to local regions one of his assistant managers to get suitable girls, providing him with 20 ryo ($40,000 or so) as working funds.
The assistant manager traveled far to the west, passing through checking stations on the Tokaido highway linking Edo to Kyoto and further going down to the Ki-i Peninsula south of Kyoto 500 km from Edo. There he found a poor wife and husband who had two young daughters. So the Edo man fraudulently persuaded the married couple to send their girls to Edo for some good chance to make money. Finally the whole family, namely the couple and their daughters, decided to go up to Edo with this smart townsman.
However they had to go through a critical checking point on the highway to Edo. To avoid investigation by the samurai police, they took a detour in mountains to Edo. After clearing the checkpoint, the Edo man asked the parents to sell their daughters to the inn at 25 ryo. But the father of the daughters refused it. So, the band finally came to Edo to settle the matter.
But the owner of the Shinagawa inn didn't like the young daughters, since they looked so young. He rejected an idea of hiring the two girls and tried to fire the assistant manager. But the failed man begged desperately his master to take care of him and the family he took with him to Edo from the distant village. Eventually the owner of the inn asked a broker of prostitutes to take care of those girls. As a price of the girls, he took 105 ryo from the broker, while distributing 34 ryo to the assistant manager and 14 ryo to the parents. Then the duped parents had no way but to live on some business the broker provided for them. As time went by, the mother of the girls died of illness.
One day people around the father of the sold girls advised that he should honestly deliver himself to the samurai authority as breaking through a barrier station on a highway was a serious crime, though they were sorry for the tragedy the family suffered. Following the advice, the father surrendered himself to the samurai authority. But while the criminal investigation was going on, he died of illness, too. Two young daughters were left in a licensed quarter of Edo so helplessly.
Finally a samurai judge ruled that the father's dead body should be displayed, as a punishment of braking a checkpoint and changing of address without official permission, publicly in his home country as a serious offender; the two girls should be demoted to the public servant class or should belong to the inn owner; the assistant manager should be beheaded; and the inn owner should be banished to a far local area from capital Edo.
But Arai Hakuseki reviewed this easy ruling to override it. Hakuseki issued a new judgment: This serious crime was conducted by a sole initiative of the greedy inn owner. He should be beheaded. His assistant manager who persuaded the family to break through a checkpoint station should receive sever punishment. The father of the girls should be pardoned as he could be regarded as a victim of this serious fraud, though he was already dead.
So, the Edo Government took up the judicial opinion by Arai Hakuseki to handle the case and correct the ruling. The two poor girls were sent back to a samurai lord who governed the local country in west Japan where their family had lived before this incident.
This is one example of daily administration by samurai bureaucrats in the Edo period, though it is also an example where wisdom and sense of justice of Arai Hakuseki was manifested.
Arai Hakuseki (1657 – 1725) was a Confucianist, scholar-bureaucrat, academic, administrator, writer and politician in Japan during the middle of the Edo Period, who advised the Shogun Tokugawa Ienobu...
In 1693, Hakuseki was called up to serve by the side of Manabe Akifusa as a "brain" for the Tokugawa shogunate and shogun Tokugawa Ienobu. He went on to displace the official Hayashi advisers to become the leading confucianist for Ienobu and Tokugawa Ietsugu. While some of Hakuseki's policies were still carried out after Ienobu's death, after the 6th shogun, Tokugawa Ietsugu, died and Tokugawa Yoshimune's rule began, Hakuseki left his post to begin his career as a prolific writer of Japanese history and Occidental studies.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arai_Hakuseki
http://www.ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp/H2103%20chikanobu.html
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Act 9:1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
Act 9:2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
Act 9:3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
Act 9:4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?