ABSTRACT
Nobuaki Matsudaira, the lord of Yoshida, who succeeded Sadanobu, was not unlike him in character and a man of strict integrity. He prohibited hairdressers’ shops to respectable women and forbade the common people to disinherit their children, encouraging them to educate their offspring. In August of 1796, to the great surprise of the public, he had sixty-nine priests, who were known to frequent houses of ill-fame in Edo, pilloried at Nihonbashi. These unworthy priests were roped and exposed to public view for some days, and finally those who were superiors of a temple were banished to distant islands, while acolytes were punished according to the ecclesiastical laws. The punishment by penal law of sixty-nine priests caused an immense sensation, but had no effect upon the manners of the priests, who still patronized doubtful resorts, plainly proving how corrupted this age was.
