Japan and the Japanese

TAXATION.
and, indeed, all over the East ; no necessity for being at law for
many years together, no occasion for so many writings, answers,
briefs, and the like. The case is, without delay, laid before the
proper court of judicature, the parties heard, the witnesses exam-
ined, the circumstances considered, and judgment given without loss
of time. Nor is there any delay to be apprehended from appealing,
since no superior court hath the power to mitigate the sentence
pronounced in another, though inferior. And, although it cannot
be denied but that this short way of proceeding is liable to some
errors and mistakes in particular cases, yet I dare affirm that in
the main it would be found abundantly less detrimental to the
parties concerned than the tedious and expensive
law-suits in
Europe."
Certain yearly contributions, under the name of free gifts, were
paid by all the house-owners and office-holders of Nagasaki, partly
as perquisites to the governor and other officers, and partly for
municipal purposes. So far as the house-owners were concerned,
it amounted to a regular tax, levied according to the size of the
lots ; but this sort of levy was said to be unknown in other cities
of the empire, and at Nagasaki was much more than made up for
by the surplus share of the house-owners in the duty levied on the
foreign trade, which, after paying all particular services and municipal
expenses, was divided among them. The only other tax was
an imperial ground-rent on the house-lots four mas (fifty cents),
in the old town, and six mas (seventy-five cents) in the upper town,
for every kin (very nearly six English feet) of frontage, where the
depth was not more than fifteen kin. On every lot exceeding that
depth the tax was double. This is stated by Kampfer to be the only
town tax levied throughout the empire, whether in the towns of
the imperial domain, or in those belonging to particular lords, and
the city of Miako, by a particular privilege, was exempt even from
this.
A municipal police, similar to that of Nagasaki, was established
in all the other towns, boroughs, and villages, with this difference
only, that the magistrates, though invested with the same power,
were, perhaps, known by different names, and that their adminis-
tration was, in general, much less strict than at Nagasaki.
The adjacent country was under the control of an imperial
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