supervised by the shogunate government, with their expenditures being shared among the shogunate government, clans, villages and so on in the ratios predetermined according to the scale of the works, such as governmental, public, lord and private works.

As for sewage systems, stone-built sewer ditches, called “Taiko (or Sewari) Gesui,” allegedly built by Hideyoshi Toyotomi in the late days of the medieval times in Osaka, were expanded in the Edo Period as they were maintained and managed at the responsibility of townspeople from different districts. Records state that ditch cleanup work, called “Suido Sarae,” was carried out jointly by townspeople from these districts and the ditches repaired at their expenses. The Taiko Gesui was later transferred to the Meiji Government, and part of the system is still used at present.

The prototype of the modern urban park in Japan is said to date back to the Edo Period. Yoshimune, the eighth shogun, planted cherry trees in Asukayama Hill near Oji Gongen Shrine to make it a place for viewing cherry blossoms. In addition, the present-day guidebooks were published, including “Edo Meisho-zue” (a pictorial guide to the sights of Edo). Thus, there were places like the modern parks in the Edo Period, where people would gather and feel the nature of the four seasons.

## Column Private Management of Eitai Bridge in the Edo Period

In the winter of 1657, a large-scale blaze, generally known as the "Great Fire of Meireki" set Edo on fire, reportedly burning down about 60% of all the towns of Edo. Later, Daimyo's residences, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines were distributed in a wider area and broad streets built from a disaster preparedness viewpoint, with densely populated towns spreading into locations, such as Honjo and Fukagawa, in the Koto District then in the outskirts of Edo. In line with the expanding sphere of Edo, Ryogoku Bridge was built across Sumida River in 1660, followed by Eitai Bridge in 1698, spurting the metropolitan Edo to grow into the so-called "Eight Hundred and Eight Towns of Edo. Eitai Bridge was first built at the Big Ferry of Fukagawa, about 200m downstream from the present bridge location. The huge wooden bridge was 207 meters long and 6.8 meters wide, with clearances of at least 3 meters to allow vessels to pass even in times of spring tides.

Eitai Bridge is widely known as a passage way for the forty-seven ronin en route to Sengakuji Temple in Takanawa after they had broken into Kira's residence to take their vengeance and is also reputed as a privately managed bridge in the Edo period.

While both Ryogoku Bridge and Eitai Bridge were built by the Edo shogunate government, maintaining and managing multiple long and large bridges could have imposed a heavy burden upon the governmental finance. The removal of Eitai Bridge was decided in 1719 in the Kyoho Period as its pace of decay aggravated significantly. But as local townspeople filed a petition for continued existence of Eitai Bridge, the shogunate government authorized its survival, but subject to the bridge being maintained and managed by the townspeople on their own.

Then, the maintenance and management of the bridge by townspeople began, but it often suffered breakage as the piles were decayed by seawater and also under the influence of rainstorms and so on. In the circumstances, the shogunate government recognized that burdening the townspeople with all of the maintenance and management expenses incurred was no longer practicable and decided to authorize the collection of 2-mon per capita from the passengers, except for samurai, for a limited period of seven years from 1726. This was when the administration of the bridge, as well as its maintenance and management, by the townspeople began. The bridge toll thus collected financed the reconstruction of the bridge as early as in 1729. The shogunate government authorized the collection of bridge tolls by 1-mon and also as necessary to finance its renovations incurred by its destruction by fire, washout and so on for 10 years from 1736.

In 1807, Eitai Bridge collapsed, leaving more than 500 dead reportedly on the date on which a festival