Another sidelight upon the social prejudice against actors is shown by a story that is told of Kosagawa Juyemon, a samurai in the service of a certain feudal lord, who had become an actor from choice. A member of his family went to the theatre where he was employed, and being informed that he was acting under his own name grew so infuriated that he threatened to kill the young man, but was finally pacified by the people of the theatre. In _Kabuki Koto Hajime_, or the Beginnings of Kabuki, the author rises to the defence of the actor: “The Kawara Kojiki (Riverside Beggars) all belonged to the common people. But this was not so in reality. They washed and cleaned their bodies before praying for the safety and prosperity of the country. What is said of them is not true.” Dr. Yuzo Tsubouchi, one of the leading modern dramatists, in commenting on the prejudice against the actors, writes: “Many persons despised them and still harboured against them the prejudice which had originated in the tradition that they had been put under the control of the eta during the Kamakura shogunate. Even at the close of the Tokugawa rule they were not looked upon as respectable citizens, and consequently the military class studiously avoided intercourse with them and refrained from visiting the theatre.” In a similar strain the late Rev. Arthur Lloyd says in his _Notes on Japanese Drama_ in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan: “The shibai had but a poor reputation. No samurai or respectable person would have degraded himself by attendance at a performance. They were compelled to live like eta, in Ghettos or districts of their own, being shunned by all persons of position or repute. It was folly to expect anything at all noble or inspiring from persons compelled to live in such surroundings, and it speaks volumes for the despised play-actors and playwrights that they did not sink lower.” Captain Francis Brinkley in the chapter dealing with Refinements and Pastimes in his _Japan: its History, Arts and Literature_, writes as follows regarding the attitude toward the actors of Meiji: “Ichikawa Danjuro and Onoe Kikugoro, the princes of the stage at present, would long ago have earned a world-wide reputation had their lot been cast in any Western country. There cannot be any second opinion about their capacities, or about their title to rank with the great tragedians of the world. But in their own country, though their names are household words, taint of their profession clings to them still. Men speak of them as a ballet dancer of extraordinary agility or a banjo player of eminent skill would be spoken of in Europe or America—renowned exponents of a renownless art.”