Besides the above-mentioned _kuge_, samurai, and the common people were the lowest classes. Although there were in this way four grades of society, such grades did not regulate the material circumstances of the people belonging to them; but as a whole the _kuge_ were poor and the _daimyo_ wealthy. With the samurai wealth was considered contrary to the principles of Bushido; and while they made it their pride that they possessed no more than a hat to shelter them from wind and rain, few tried to accumulate wealth; but as the samurai spirit began to decline, there were many who sought for wealth. The most wealthy were to be found among the common people, for, debarred from the rights and privileges enjoyed by the samurai, they directed all their energies to money-making; it must, however, be added that many of them also lived in abject poverty. BUSHIDO AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS. The vendetta of the retainers of Ako was an outward expression of the spirit of Bushido. A few words must be here added regarding Bushido, a peculiar product of our country, which reached its highest development under the Tokugawa régime. The people of the Eastern Provinces, the centre of which was Yedo, were from the oldest times noted for their fearless courage. Moreover, when Yedo became the seat of the feudal government, the samurai who had been engaged in rapine and slaughter during the wars preceding the Shogunate of Tokugawa, flocked to the city and made it their place of residence. The city became the second home of the simple and intrepid samurai of Mikawa, the province, of which Tokugawa Iyeyasu was originally _daimyo_; and the retainers of other clans also repaired thither in great numbers. In fact, Yedo was the centre of neither commerce nor industry; it had been established solely for the residence of samurai; and there hundreds of thousands of samurai gathered to practise military arts. In short, in Yedo, Bushido was in greatest vigour. The principal elements of Bushido were three in number:—