in dealing with them; that all absorption of land into great estates should cease; that barriers, outposts, guards and post-horses should be provided; that high officials should be dowered with hereditary estates by way of emolument, the largest of such grants being 3000 homesteads; that men of unblemished character and proved capacity should be appointed aldermen for adjudicating criminal matters; that there should be chosen as clerks for governors and vice-governors of provinces men of solid competence "skilled in writing and arithmetic"; that the land should be parcelled out in fixed proportions to every adult unit of the population with right of tenure for a term of six years; that forced labour should be commuted for taxes of silk and cloth; and that for fiscal and administrative purposes households should be organized in groups of five, each group under an elder, and ten groups forming a township, which, again, should be governed by an elder. Incidentally to these reforms many of the evil customs of the time are exposed. Thus provincial governors when they visited the capital were accustomed to travel with great retinues who appear to have constituted a charge on the regions through which they passed. The law now limited the number of a chief governor's attendants to nine, and forbade him to use official houses or to fare at public cost unless journeying on public business. Again, men who had acquired some local distinction, though they did not belong to noble families, took advantage of the absence of historical records or official registers, and, representing themselves as descendants of magnates to whom the charge of public granaries had been entrusted, succeeded in usurping valuable privileges. The office of provincial governor had in many cases become hereditary, and not only were governors largely independent of Imperial control, but also, since every free man carried arms, there had grown up about these officials a population relying largely on the law of force. Kotoku's reforms sought to institute a system of temporary governors, and directed that all arms and armour should be stored in arsenals built in waste places, except in the case of provinces adjoining lands where unsubdued aborigines (Yemishi) dwelt. Punishments were drastic, and in the case of a man convicted of treason, all his children were executed with him, his wives and consorts committing suicide. From a much earlier age suicide had been freely resorted to as the most honourable exit from pending disgrace, but as yet the samurai's method of disembowelment was not employed, strangulation or cutting the throat being the regular practice. Torture was freely employed and men often died under it. Signal abuses prevailed in regions beyond the immediate range of the central government's observation. It has been shown that from early days the numerous scions of the Imperial family had generally been provided for by grants of provincial estates.