this prohibition appears to have been disregarded, as it was followed by another a few years later.
Not long after Shiganosake’s time, it was proposed to build in Yedo a temple with a frontage of a hundred and thirty-two yards, in imitation of such an edifice in Kyoto; and permission was obtained from the authorities to harden the ground by professional wrestlers’ holding six days’ matches on the site. The booth was daily crowded; and from that time matches were held there after the temple
THE WRESTLING ARENA AT EKOIN.
had been constructed. When, after its destruction by fire, it was rebuilt on another site, these matches became annual; but in 1769 when the new temple was blown down by a storm, the annual matches were transferred to another temple in South Yedo. This also was closed in 1805, when a great fight took place there between wrestlers and fire-
