About two hundred years ago there was a chief of the police, named Aoyama Shuzen, who lived in the street called Bancho, at Yedo.  His duty was to detect thieves and incendiaries.  He was a cruel and violent man, without heart or compassion, and thought nothing of killing or torturing a man to gratify spite or revenge.  This man Shuzen had in his house a servant-maid, called O Kiku (the Chrysanthemum), who had lived in the family since her childhood, and was well acquainted with her master’s temper.  One day O Kiku accidentally broke one of a set of ten porcelain plates, upon which he set a high value.  She knew that she would suffer for her carelessness; but she thought that if she concealed the matter her punishment would be still more severe; so she went at once to her master’s wife, and, in fear and trembling, confessed what she had done.  When Shuzen came home, and heard that one of his favourite plates was broken, he flew into a violent rage, and took the girl to a cupboard, where he left her bound with cords, and every day cut off one of her fingers.  O Kiku, tightly bound and in agony, could not move; but at last she contrived to bite or cut the ropes asunder, and, escaping into the garden, threw herself into a well, and was drowned.  From that time forth, every night a voice was heard coming from the well, counting one, two, three, and so on up to nine—­the number of the plates that remained unbroken—­and then, when the tenth plate should have been counted, would come a burst of lamentation.  The servants of the house, terrified at this, all left their master’s service, until Shuzen, not having a single retainer left, was unable to perform his public duties; and when the officers of the government heard of this, he was dismissed from his office.  At this time there was a famous priest, called Mikadzuki Shonin, of the temple Denzuin, who, having been told of the affair, came one night to the house, and, when the ghost began to count the plates, reproved the spirit, and by his prayers and admonitions caused it to cease from troubling the living.

The laying of disturbed spirits appears to form one of the regular functions of the Buddhist priests; at least, we find them playing a conspicuous part in almost every ghost-story.

About thirty years ago there stood a house at Mitsume, in the Honjo of Yedo, which was said to be nightly visited by ghosts, so that no man dared to live in it, and it remained untenanted on that account.  However, a man called Miura Takeshi, a native of the province of Oshiu, who came to Yedo to set up in business as a fencing-master, but was too poor to hire a house, hearing that there was a haunted house, for which no tenant could be found, and that the owner would let any man live in it rent free, said that he feared neither man nor devil, and obtained leave to occupy the house.  So he hired a fencing-room, in which he gave his lessons by day, and after midnight returned to the haunted house.  One night, his wife, who