It is necessary here to add a word respecting the position of the village mayors, who play so important a part in the tale.

The peasants of Japan are ruled by three classes of officials:  the Nanushi, or mayor; the Kumigashira, or chiefs of companies; and the Hiyakushodai, or farmers’ representatives.  The village, which is governed by the Nanushi, or mayor, is divided into companies, which, consisting of five families each, are directed by a Kumigashira; these companies, again, are subdivided into groups of five men each, who choose one of their number to represent them in case of their having any petition to present, or any affairs to settle with their superiors.  This functionary is the Hiyakushodai.  The mayor, the chief of the company, and the representative keep registers of the families and people under their control, and are responsible for their good and orderly behaviour.  They pay taxes like the other farmers, but receive a salary, the amount of which depends upon the size and wealth of the village.  Five per cent. of the yearly land tax forms the salary of the mayor, and the other officials each receive five per cent. of the tax paid by the little bodies over which they respectively rule.

The average amount of land for one family to cultivate is about one cho, or 9,000 square yards; but there are farmers who have inherited as much as five or even six cho from their ancestors.  There is also a class of farmers called, from their poverty, “water-drinking farmers,” who have no land of their own, but hire that of those who have more than they can keep in their own hands.  The rent so paid varies; but good rice land will bring in as high a rent as from L1 18s. to L2 6s. per tan (1,800 square feet).

Farm labourers are paid from six or seven riyos a year to as much as thirty riyos (the riyo being worth about 5s. 4d.); besides this, they are clothed and fed, not daintily indeed, but amply.  The rice which they cultivate is to them an almost unknown luxury:  millet is their staple food, and on high days and holidays they receive messes of barley or buckwheat.  Where the mulberry-tree is grown, and the silkworm is “educated,” there the labourer receives the highest wage.

The rice crop on good land should yield twelve and a half fold, and on ordinary land from six to seven fold only.  Ordinary arable land is only half as valuable as rice land, which cannot be purchased for less than forty riyos per tan of 1,800 square feet.  Common hill or wood land is cheaper, again, than arable land; but orchards and groves of the Pawlonia are worth from fifty to sixty riyos per tan.