An Old Japanese Foot Measure by BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN. PHILADELPHIA, 0 (Extract from the Proceedings of The Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, for 1887-89.) AN OLD JAPANESE STANDARD FOOT MEASURE. (Read May 2d, 1889.) On the fourth of April, 1873, at the Treasury Department of the Japanese government, an old standard measure of length, called the Tsuchimikadoshaku, also more vulgarly called the Tesshaku, or iron foot, was shown to me. It was a bar of iron about half an inch, or five-eighths, thick and sixteen inches long and two inches and a quarter wide, but hollowed out into the shape of a narrow link, widened a little for about three inches at one end and five-eighths of an inch at the other end, as shown by the accompanying drawing roughly copied from it. The bar contains three standards of length, measured be- tween certain interior angles of the link. It is another of the numerous cases where an opposite method is adopted in the extreme East to what a European or American would consider the most natural one : — instead of using a simple bar as a standard, the space inside the hollow of a link is taken. Although we are apt thoughtlessly to condemn the ways of others as ridiculous and less practical or advantageous than our own, it often happens that the Oriental method, if the choice be not wholly a matter of indifference or of chance, is in reality more rational and better suited to the cir- cumstances of Eastern countries. In the present instance, the method chosen is not without some arguments in its favor. A simple bar as a standard of length is subject to change from the wearing off of its ends, especially at the corners, either in use or in the rubbing to which it may be exposed in the course of centuries, even if it be, with addi- tional complication, ordinarily preserved in an outer protecting case. On the other hand, a standard length taken between the inner angles of a link can with moderate care, never become shortened in time, and is little liable to any alteration either from legitimate use or from accidental wear. The iron link is itself a strong and inseparable pro- tector around the standard. The weight of the arguments for invaria- bleness, security, simplicity, and practicalness seems then, after all, to be on the side of the Orientals in this case. As shown by an inscription on the bar, or link, it dates back to the year 1047 of our era. The inscription says: — “ Human king, seven- 68 6 9 Plate 4. 7o tieth reign, Tegai, Eishoo second year first month — day.” Tegai is the name of the year according to the sixty-year cycle, and Eishoo, mean- ing endless reign, is the name of the first period in the reign of the Japanese ruler Goreizei. The bar is said to have been brought at that time from China to serve as a standard of measures ; but as it goes by the name of Tsuchimikado, the Japanese ruler from A. D. 1199 to 1231, it was probably not legalized or enforced as a standard until 150 years after it had arrived in Japan. Or possibly Tsuchimikado, the name of a noble family, may have been the name of the ambassador who brought the bar from China. It is said that the length, on the face that bears the inscription, from the inner angle of the link at the longer widening, but at the corner furthest from the inscription, to the nearest corner of the shorter wid- ening is the standard for the “great measure of T’ang,” the country and dynasty that ruled in China from A. D. 620 to 907. The stand- ard for the “small measure of T’ang,” is upon the other face of the bar, and is the distance from one extreme angle of the shorter widen- ing of the link to the nearest corner of the larger widening. The “whale foot,” as it is called in Japan, is the full length of the link on the same face of the bar from the other extreme inner angle of the shorter widening to the furthest angle on the same side of the link. The shorter or small measure of T’ang is about one-sixteenth of an inch shorter than the English or American foot and is the same as the ordinary foot of Japan at the present day, except that for the past 165 years the length of the common foot measure has been regulated by another standard called the Kiyoohooshaku, which, according to a brass copy of it in the Japanese Treasury Department, is, it is said, about a thousandth of a foot shorter than the Tsuchimikado standard. The Kiyoohooshaku is said to be probably like the present bar, in form and material, and was established as a standard by the Shoogun Yoshi- mune (1716-1745) from some measure in the Kumano temple at Hon- guu (or possibly Shinguu) village in the province Kii, some 60 miles south of Osaka. Kiyoohoo is the name of the period A. D. 1716- 1 7 3 5 . Still another standard of the common foot measure, called the Matashiro standard, is kept at the Osaka mint ; but according to a brass copy of it in the Treasury Department, is, it is said, about four- thousandths of a foot shorter than the Kiyoohooshaku. Within the last few years the mean of these two standards has been adopted for the foot. The common foot of Japan is called kanejaku, or the foot of the carpenters’ square, which is called magarikane (bent metal), or more shortly kane (metal.) 7i The “ great measure of T’ang ” is one-fifth longer than the small one, or the common foot, kanejaku ; and appears to have been used for measuring land, and is also the Japanese gofukujaku for cloth measur- ing, but is no longer used in Japan. The whale foot, or kujirajaku, is one-quarter longer than the common foot, or kanejaku, and is now used in Japan for measuring cloth. The name is said to be given be- cause the measure is often made of bone from a whale’s fin ; and not, therefore, because of the extreme size of the measure. The measures of T’ang appear to have been introduced into Japan in consequence of intercourse between the countries that became fre- quent about the beginning of our seventh century, and to have been established by law about A. D. 713, just at the beginning of the strictly historical period, displacing a Corean foot that is said to have long been in use and to have been about one-fifth longer than the kanejaku ; and before that, spans and hand-breadths are said to have been used. (See Gakugei Shirin, vol.'IV, p. 220.) In A. D. 713, 717, and 720 laws are by the same authority said to have been made in regard to weights and measures, based on those of T’ang ; and standard measures and weights to have been distributed to the provinces. It is clear that even in those days, the Japanese with their remarkable appreciation and docility, were ready and eager to adopt from the most enlightened foreign countries the results of the best civilization known to them. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether better enlightenment could have been found anywhere in the world at that time than in China. In the matter of standard measures, — and perhaps there is no better single test of the enlightenment of a country than the precision and uniformity of its measures and weights, — the foot measure of the T’ang dynasty, and presumably the one already long used in the country T’ang, was far from new, and is in fact claimed to be the same as the one established by the Shang dynasty, some 3000 or 3500 years ago (B. C. 1766-1122). The Shang foot is said (Wakansan- saidzue, vol. 24, p. 2) to be just one-fourth longer than the foot of the previous Hia dynasty, the first thoroughly historical dynasty, about four thousand years ago (B. C. 2205-1766) ; and from that time to the present the Chinese foot has always been divided into tenths and hun- dredths, a decimal division of measures that does not even now date back a hundred years in any part of Europe, though our decimal arith- metical notation has been a special European, but not Chinese, ar- gument in its favor for nearly a thousand years. In the more or less fabulous period before the Hia dynasty the foot is said to have had the same length as the Hia foot, but to have been divided into ninths and 72 eighty-firsts, as far back as Hwangti, 4500 years ago (B. C. 2697-2597). It is claimed that by his command his musician Ling Lun made the first standard of length from a joint of bamboo that when used as a pitch pipe gave forth a certain note. The contents of the pipe also served as the base of measures of capacity, and so too of weights. The idea of taking a pitch pipe as a standard of measure may seem fanciful and more poetical than practical, but certainly compares fa- vorably with the origin of our own standard measures, the length of the king’s arm about 800 years ago. It bears some resemblance, more- over, to the very modern project of taking for a standard the length of a wave of light of a certain color. It is reasonable to suppose that a people whose government was so- licitous about a uniformity of weights and measures should be in other respects somewhat advanced in civilization. We find, indeed, that in the peaceableness and justice of the government, in the freedom of the people from government oppression while pursuing happiness, in the safety of property and life, in the orderliness and decorum of the av- erage behavior of the public, in the loftiness of moral ideas, purity of religion, freedom from degrading superstitions, morality of the priesthood, literary and artistic taste and skill, industry, agriculture, commercial integrity and enterprise, bodily comfort, in every one of these important things the Japan of 1047, the epoch of this standard foot measure, was at least on a par with the Europe of the same time and in many of them decidedly more advanced. For that was the moment when Europe was more deeply sunken than at any other in the ignorance, superstitions, vice, lawlessness, rudeness, and poverty of the Dark Ages. Indeed, if we should go much further back in China and compare its condition in all those respects with Europe we should constantly find the comparison highly favorable to the Orientals. We must remember that the time of our foot measure just preceded the Norman conquest of England, when the Roman Church was at a low stage of corruption ; the very Pope, Benedict IX, after being twice driven from the throne for scandalous conduct, had just been deposed for simony ; all parts of Europe had long been almost con- stantly in a state of war; Henry III, Emperor of Germany, had just defeated the Bohemians and Hungarians, and claimed the right of nominating the Popes ; Henry I, the weak ruler of France, was aided at first against his rebellious vassals by Robert the Devil, Duke of Nor- mandy, and opposed by him later, and the kingdom was afflicted by many private wars and by a dreadful famine ; England was ruled by “ the good King Edward,” the Confessor, but also torn by many dis- 73 sensions ; the usurper Macbeth was holding Scotland in spite of Ed- ward’s aid to Malcolm ; in addition to the national and provincial wars, Europe was in a state of almost incessant private warfare ; every- where outside the protection of the Church “ the strong hand was the only law;” chivalry was but just beginning its beneficent civilizing career, later to be improved by the intercourse with Asia that the Cru- sades gave rise to ; in science and literature, according to competent critics, there had been for five hundred years only two men of real importance and originality ; very few laymen, of any rank, could sign their own names, and the clergy were as a body little better educated ; all Europe was beridden by the grossest superstitions, such as judi- cial ordeal and trial by combat ; the vernacular languages of Southern Europe had scarcely been reduced to writing ; expensive parchment was practically the only material to write on, and books were very rare ; of the fine arts, ecclesiastical architecture was almost the only one in ex- istence and the magnificent churches of the later Middle Ages were barely beginning to be built ; successful commerce had but lately been established at Venice, Genoa, Dublin and on the Baltic ; manufac- tures hardly existed at all, and merchandise could not be carried from place to place without great risk of robbery and certainty of subjection to extortionate tolls ; the state of agriculture was very low indeed, with an almost inconceivably small extent of cultivated land, little fer- tilizing, and scanty crops ; the morals of the wealthier part of society had become extremely dissolute, and the very numerous monks them- selves were in general notoriously licentious ; judicial perjury was prevalent ; English parents sold their own children as slaves ; bodily comfort was very inferior, especially among the richer classes, to what it is now, and elegance of dwellings or furniture or clothing was almost unknown ; houses had no chimneys nor glazed windows, and carpets, glasses, plate, chairs and even bedsteads were rare for centuries later ; after two hundred years of improvement, as late as the thirteenth cen- tury, in Italy, perhaps the most civilized European country, it is re- corded that “ manners were rude ; a man and wife ate off the same plate ; there were no wooden handled knives, nor more than one or two drinking cups in the house, candles of wax or tallow were unknown : a servant held a torch during supper ; the clothes of the men were of leather unlined.” Nevertheless, it is obvious that in regard to all such points, except perhaps the moral ones, Europe is now greatly in advance of the Far East ; and at an earlier period, too, during the best times of ancient Greece and Rome, the highest civilization of those countries seems to 74 have been decidedly superior in many respects to the contemporaneous condition of China. We are led then, very naturally, to inquire why progress should have been so much more rapid in Europe during the past 800 years, and especially the last 400, as to cause the Orientals to be outstripped ; and on the other hand why Europe should have fallen behind the East during the earlier part of the Middle Ages, so that China and even Japan in their more equable progress appear to have a great advantage at the time of our old standard foot measure. The real secret of these striking differences between the East and the West at different periods seems to be that in the East the refinement of feelings, the gradual improvement of notions as to what is becoming and decorous behavior and conduct of life, that is, morality from the point of view of what looks well or has a pleasing outward appearance, is predominant as the foundation of civilization, rather than the by no means wholly wanting intellectual or logical cultivation, that in Europe has been at the base of the highest enlightenment of both ancient and modern times; though there not disunited from some degree of moral elevation, particularly through sensitiveness of conscience, an intro- spective comparison of one’s own acts with what is known or felt to be true and right, a view never thought of in the Far East. Of course, a certain amount of morality, of orderliness of behavior between men and of peace between nations, induced either by common instinct, or by superstition, or by religion, or by reason, or by a combination of two or more of these guides, is a necessary condition for the progress of intellectual enlightenment. In addition, however, a special bodily temperament, somewhat inclined to reflection, is particularly favorable to the exercise and unfolding of the reasoning powers. That thoughtful temperament seems to have prevailed in ancient Greece to a higher degree than in Eastern Asia, and to have led more or less directly to the Grecian preeminence in enlightenment, which was copied by the rather less reflecting, more volatile Romans. When the state of morals became low through the blunting of the natural in- stincts by luxury and through an enlightened loss of active faith in the ancient superstitions and religion, the Roman Empire fell gradually into disorder both in its national and private relations and became powerless before the rude northern invaders, who intensified its grow- ing barbarism. The new religion, Christianity, was not directly favorable to intel- lectual cultivation and enlightenment, nor did it specially desire to be so ; though, on the other hand, it did not at first aim directly to oppose them. Its chief purpose was to rectify men’s morality by per- 75 suading them with a new incentive to virtue ; and thereby it prepared the way for a subsequent revival of learning and of intellectual re- finement. The influence of the Church was, to be sure, not in theory or by deliberate intention directly opposed to intellectual progress, but for several reasons had practically that tendency. For the early Christians disliked and despised or distrusted pagan and sec- ular learning and were perhaps, owing to persecutions, shut out from many of the ordinary facilities for acquiring it. St. Jerome, the most learned of the Latin Fathers, thought the study of secular books rep- rehensible ; and a church council of his time (A. D. 398) forbade the reading of them. Many bishops, even, were totally illiterate. Then, too, it was perceived that the power and influence of the priesthood, when once they had become established, were more or less endangered by physical science through the weakening of faith in what were con- sidered essential truths of direct revelation and the very bulwarks of the Church ; and consequently every step of scientific progress has always been stoutly opposed by many of the clergy, down even to our own days, in spite of the fact that it has afterwards invariably come to be universally admitted that no such step has really been in any degree sub- versive of morality or opposed to the ultimate welfare of the human race. The Gothic and other Teutonic northern invaders had never over- come the obstacles of their northern climate so far as to reach any high degree of civilization and were still rude barbarians. But they appear to have always had the reflective temperament and to have in- fused something of their own nature into the more southern and west- ern countries ; so that, when manners had become softened and regu- lated by the new religion, the progress of enlightenment by cultivation of the intellect, of the logical or reasoning faculty, was again taken up, and, though almost imperceptible at first and very slow for a long time, went on at length with increasing speed in spite of every op- posing hindrance. Until the latter part of the eleventh century, about the time of our foot measure, the decline of enlightenment had been almost constant for at least six centuries, until the lowest point of the Dark Ages was reached, and the Far East was then more civilized and enlightened than Europe. Since that time, a great improvement has been effected in Europe, but so little in the East, that its condition seems by comparison almost stationary. Nevertheless, there is doubtless some advance there, notwithstanding temporary fluctuations; though it has been said : — “ Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.” 76 The reason why Oriental progress in enlightenment has not been more rapid seems clearly to be found in the temperament of the East- ern races. As they are not greatly inclined to reflection, to reasoning, they do not so often as others elaborate great original ideas that are both the result of progress and the means of still better attainment and of accelerated advance. That kind of temperament or character of mind does not however belong in equal degree to all the races of Eastern Asia and pertains to the Japanese still more than to the Chinese. It carries with it the teachable appreciation that makes a people ready to adopt from others the important ideas it is unable or indisposed to work out for itself. The character in question is also particularly amenable to moral laws and civilizing influences. The interchange between the two sets of races, then, is not unequal. The reflective ones can themselves reason out most valuable truths and far-reaching principles, but can profit immensely by the others’ ines- timable delicacy and highly refined perception.