generally happens that this legalised method of taking the law into
their own hands drives those who avail themselves of it into a series
of crimes, and frequently they become the associates of common
thieves.

Of the gang represented in the illustration as robbing a rich
merchant's house, one or two probably are lonins, the rest being
thieves in disguise.

The servants, kowtowing before two men, whose naked swords plainly
intimate the consequences of any attempt to give alarm, or to offer
resistance to their demands, have apparently been collecting all the
money in the house and are laying it before the thieves. The oblong
boxes are iron safes, in which the Japanese keep their money.

From the position of the other members of the gang, it is evident that
they have not got all they require, and are watching something going
on in the interior of the house. They have probably learnt that the
merchant has to forward some money for the purchase of goods by a
certain date, and know exactly how much to expect.

In the spring of 1865 the Tycoon, in levying a tax on the Yeddo
merchants, congratulated them on the fact that the portion of the
country under his immediate control was exempt from the depredations
of lonins; but notwithstanding this statement, a robbery of the nature
described took place in the capital immediately after the issue of the
Tycoon's manifesto, and a lonin concerned in it gave as an excuse for
his conduct, that he had learnt that the money was intended for
foreigners, who were settled in the country in opposition to the laws
of Gongen Sama, which had never been revoked.