“A trustworthy man,” says Rakuo,[113] “who had travelled in this district [northern part of country], told me that in a village which had previously contained 800 houses there were only thirty left, the inhabitants of the rest all having died. Having entered a village in which the houses seemed to be larger and more numerous than usual, he proposed to rest there for the night. He soon discovered, however, that not a single house was inhabited, but in all the houses he saw bones and skulls scattered about the floor. As he went on he saw innumerable bones and skulls by the roadside. He met a man leading a pack-horse on the road, who said that he could survive without eating the flesh of human beings as he was supported by a rich uncle. In some places even those who abandoned themselves to eating human flesh could not find food enough to live. Great numbers starved to death. The price paid for a dog was 500 sen, sometimes even as high as 800 sen, a rat 50 sen. A rare work of art found no purchasers and could not be exchanged for a _go_ of rice. If a person died he was of course eaten by the survivors. Those who died of starvation, however, could not be eaten, because their flesh decayed so soon. Some people, therefore, killed those who were certain to starve and put the flesh into brine so as to keep it for a long time. Among other people there was a farmer who went to his neighbour and said, ‘My wife and one of my sons have already died from want of food. My remaining son is certain to die within a few days, so I wish to kill him while his flesh is still eatable, but being his father, I do not dare to raise the sword against him, so I beg you to kill the boy for me.’ The neighbour agreed to do this, but stipulated that he should get a part of the flesh as a reward for his service. This was agreed to and the neighbour at once killed the boy. As soon as the deed was done, the farmer, who stood by, struck his neighbour with a sword and killed him, saying that he ‘was very glad to avenge his son and at the same time have double the quantity of food.’” Up to the close of the seventeenth century, feudal legislation was very harsh, one of the worst laws of ancient times in force until that time being that by which children were punished for the crime of their parents.[114] If a man or a woman had been sentenced to be crucified or burnt and had male children above fifteen years of age, those children were similarly executed, and if they were under that age they were given over to a relative to be reared until they reached the age of fifteen, when they were banished. When the criminal parent was condemned to the ordinary hanging or beheading it was still within the discretion of the judge to condemn the male children to be executed or exiled. The female children, while exempt from the capital punishment, were liable to be sold as slaves.