and every two homesteads had to furnish one palace waiting-woman (uneme), who must be good-looking, the daughter or sister of a district official of high rank, and must have one male and two female servants to attend on her--these also being supported by the two homesteads. In every homestead there was an alderman who kept the register, directed agricultural operations, enforced taxes, and took measures to prevent crime as well as to judge it. *The cho was two and a half acres approximately. Thus it is seen that a regular system of national taxation was introduced and that the land throughout the whole empire was considered to be the property of the Crown. As for the nobles who were deprived of their estates, sustenance gifts were given to them, but there is no record of the bases upon which these gifts were assessed. With regard to the people's share in the land, the plan pursued was that for every male or female over five years of age two tan (about half an acre) should be given to the former and one-third less to the latter, these grants being made for a period of six years, at the end of which time a general restoration was to be effected. A very striking evidence of the people's condition is that every adult male had to contribute a sword, armour, a bow and arrows, and a drum. This impost may well have outweighed all the others. SEPULCHRES Another important reform regulated the dimensions of burial mounds. The construction of these on the grand scale adopted for many sovereigns, princes, and nobles had long harrassed the people, who were compelled to give their toil gratis for such a purpose. What such exactions had entailed may be gathered from Kotoku's edict, which said, "Of late the poverty of our people is absolutely due to the construction of tombs." Nevertheless, he did not undertake to limit the size of Imperial tombs. The rescript dealt only with those from princes downwards. Of these, the greatest tumulus permitted was a square mound with a side of forty-five feet at the base and a height of twenty-five feet, measured along the slope, a further restriction being that the work must not occupy more than one thousand men for seven days. The maximum dimensions were similarly prescribed in every case, down to a minor official, whose grave must not give employment to more than fifty men for one day. When ordinary people died, it was directed that they should be buried in the ground without a day's delay, and, except in the case of an Emperor or an Empress, the custom of temporary interment was strictly vetoed. Cemeteries were ordered to be constructed for the first time, and peremptory injunctions were issued against self-destruction to accompany the dead; against strangling men or women by way of sacrifice; against killing the deceased's horse, and against cutting the hair or stabbing the thighs by way of showing grief. It must be assumed that all these customs existed. ABUSES