The Legal Scholar Boissonade, Keio University, the Takanawa Embankment, and Yokohama: "New Discoveries" in "Boissonade and His Civil Code"

2021/11/18

"Open the window and you can see the sea"—this is a line from "Oka no Ue," with lyrics by Mizuho Aoyagi and music by Meiro Sugawara. This was not fiction. One could actually see the sea from the Mita Campus. The Keio University college song "Oka no Ue," sung when winning the Waseda-Keio rivalry, was composed in 1928. In those days, the southern side of the campus was open toward the sea.

Furthermore, in the Meiji era, most buildings in the city were wooden one- or two-story structures, so the Mita Campus was literally a "mountain." When the Mita Media Center (Keio University Library) (Old Building) was completed in 1912, photographs remain showing the distant view of the Gothic-style Western building standing tall on the hill as seen from the sea side.

Last year, in 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, news of the discovery of the remains of the "Takanawa Embankment" briefly dominated newspapers and television. The former railway between Shimbashi and Yokohama ran along an embankment in the sea around what is now the area between Shinagawa and Tamachi. Most likely, the Mita Media Center (Keio University Library) of that time was clearly visible from inside the train. Just as that news broke, I was at my desk writing my book "Boissonade and His Civil Code [Expanded and Completed Edition]" (Keio University Press), which coincidentally connects three stories: research on the foreign advisor Boissonade regarding my specialty of civil law, Keio University, and the Takanawa Embankment.

Here, I would like to write about the continuation of several "new discoveries" that could only be partially included in the academic book published in September of this year. The keyword is "The Hill with a View of the Sea." This is a story from around 1892, before the library was even built.

The name Boissonade (Gustave Émile Boissonade de Fontarabie, 1825–1910) is likely a name that anyone who has studied civil law in the Faculty of Law has encountered several times. He was a French legal scholar who performed exceptional work among the so-called foreign advisors of the Meiji government. His activities at the time were celebrated as the "Danjuro of the legal world," and he made immense contributions ranging from legal education to diplomatic negotiations, in addition to drafting the Old Civil Code and the Old Penal Code.

He was heavily relied upon by Toshimichi Okubo starting from the negotiations with Qing China the year after his arrival in Japan in 1873. His greatest achievement, the Old Civil Code, is said to have vanished in the Code Controversy after being promulgated, but in reality, it was "revised" by Japanese committee members, and a considerable number of articles remain in the Meiji Civil Code that continues to the present day. Ultimately, he stayed in Japan for a long period of 22 years and is called the "Father of Modern Japanese Law."

I first began my research on Boissonade, which connects civil law interpretation and history, in 1975 when I became a graduate student. This research, started under the guidance of my mentor in civil law, Dr. Keishiro Uchiike, and the authority on Meiji legal history, Dr. Yutaka Tezuka, finally culminated in the 2011 collection of papers "Boissonade and His Civil Code." Now, I have published the [Expanded and Completed Edition], adding four chapters and approximately 200 pages. In this [Expanded and Completed Edition], regarding Japanese old customs, I touched upon the correspondence between Boissonade in his final years in Japan and Wigmore, who came to Japan as the head professor of the Department of Law in the Keio University college established in 1890 (based on the study by Professor Juro Iwatani, current Vice-President). This led to the story of the railway passing through the Takanawa Embankment and even to the story of Kanagawa Station before the terminus.

John Henry Wigmore was recruited from Harvard University as the head professor of the newly established "college / Department of Law" at Keio University in 1890 (the same year Boissonade's Old Civil Code was promulgated). Yukichi Fukuzawa, having decided to establish the college, requested Harvard President Eliot to dispatch three head professors for the department of political economy, the department of literature, and the Department of Law. Among those three, the youngest member to arrive in Japan was the 26-year-old Wigmore.

Incidentally, while all private law schools at the time were teaching French law, British law, and the draft of Boissonade's Old Civil Code in Japanese, Yukichi Fukuzawa had Wigmore teach Anglo-American law (unrelated to Japan's statutes or drafts at the time) entirely in English. Furthermore, the tuition was three times that of other private law schools, and the entrance exam consisted of an unprecedented 10 subjects, excluding the Imperial University. As a result, the Keio University college Department of Law naturally became the latest-starting private law school with an extremely small number of students at the time. However, that unique vision led to the development of the Department of Law in the Faculty of Law, which is now considered one of the most difficult private humanities departments in modern Japan, and to the prosperity of the Law School, which competes for the top spot in the number and rate of successful bar exam candidates.

Wigmore later became a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago and a master of legal history and the law of evidence. After arriving in Japan, he became interested in Japanese old customs and began research, writing letters to Boissonade to seek his guidance. It was Professor Iwatani's research 20 years ago that clarified the details of this (Juro Iwatani, "An Introductory Study of 14 Letters from Boissonade to Wigmore: The Civil Code Controversy and Two Foreign Lawyers," Hogaku Kenkyu Vol. 73, No. 11).

In Boissonade's second reply to Wigmore (February 1891), the place of origin is listed as "Kanagawa, Takashima yama." Regarding this "Kanagawa, Takashimayama," Professor Iwatani cites explanations from geographical dictionaries, stating, "Currently called Takashimadai, it is a plateau over 40 meters high located in the southern part of Kanagawa Ward, Yokohama, at the junction with Nishi Ward. The name originates from Kaemon Takashima, who directed the reclamation of Takashima-cho from this height in the early Meiji era and resided there in later years." He further notes, "The Tokaido road ran as if circling below this height, and a large bay spread out in front of the station."

Let me continue from there. At the end of the eighth letter from Boissonade dated November 23, 1892, presented by Professor Iwatani, there is a sentence: "I also go to the Ministry of Justice every Tuesday and Friday from 10:30 AM to noon." Comparing this with maps of the time, the area after descending Takashimayama (Takashimadai) was where Kanagawa Station was located—an intermediate station before the terminus of the railway between Shimbashi (now Shiodome) and Yokohama (now Sakuragicho) that opened in 1872 (located slightly closer to Tokyo than the current Yokohama Station). This means that at some point after his temporary return and re-arrival in Japan in 1889, and certainly by February 1891 after the Old Civil Code was promulgated, Boissonade was already living on this Takashimayama (at the Kaemon Takashima villa mentioned later) and "commuting" to the Ministry of Justice by train.

And since he says around November 1892, "I go to the Ministry of Justice every Tuesday and Friday from 10:30 AM to noon," his attendance was only twice a week for one and a half hours each. This seems to offer a glimpse into the Meiji government's treatment of Boissonade—who was once lionized as the "Danjuro of the legal world" and was extremely busy—after the decision to postpone the enforcement of the Old Civil Code.

Now, while I have recorded up to this point in my book "Boissonade and His Civil Code [Expanded and Completed Edition]," the "new discoveries" regarding Boissonade's residence during his final years in Japan do not end here. Was the "train commute" I imagined actually possible in a smooth manner? I sought help from Professor Toshinori Wada (currently Professor at the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo), who taught criminal law at the Keio University Law School. Professor Wada is one of the leading railway experts in Japan's legal academic community and is the author of "The Story of Railways and Criminal Law" (NHK Publishing New Book). He immediately provided the following response:

"Thank you for giving me the exciting opportunity to imagine Boissonade's commute. It seems that every time the train timetable was revised back then, a public notice (advertisement) from the Railway Bureau was published in the Official Gazette. For 1892, as far as I have investigated, the most recent time revision was implemented on January 12, 1891, and that timetable was published in the Official Gazette on December 22, 1890. Looking at this, for the outbound trip, the express train departing Kanagawa at 9:25 AM and arriving at Shimbashi at 10:05 AM, and for the return, the local train departing Shimbashi at 1:10 PM (arriving at Kanagawa at 2:00 PM) would be the perfect trains."

Professor Wada's email even included a copy of the timetable published in the Official Gazette at the time. I was truly impressed. In other words, with a travel time of 40 to 50 minutes one way, he could leave his home on Takashimayama around 9:00 AM and return to Kanagawa by 2:00 PM (even if he had a leisurely lunch near Shimbashi before returning, he could be back home after 3:00 PM on the next express train departing Shimbashi at 2:20 PM and arriving at Kanagawa at 3:00 PM). It could be called a quite comfortable commute. During his final years in Japan, at a time when his life's work, the Old Civil Code, had been promulgated but its enforcement postponed and slated for a major overhaul, Boissonade was commuting by train twice a week from Kanagawa Station to Shimbashi via the Takanawa Embankment.

This brings the story to the Takanawa Embankment. The exact location of the Takanawa Embankment had become unknown due to land reclamation in the area from the late Meiji to early Showa eras, but in 2019, during the redevelopment of the west side of the new Yamanote Line station, Takanawa Gateway Station, remains were discovered over a stretch of about 1.3 km. On August 23, 2021, the Council for Cultural Affairs recommended that part of the remains of the Takanawa Embankment be designated as a historic site. The reason for constructing the Takanawa Embankment lay in the opposition to railway construction at the time. In particular, the Army and Navy seem to have strongly opposed it; notably, officials from the Ministry of Military Affairs at the Navy's land in Shinagawa Yatsuyama-shita would not even allow surveying, forcing a change in plans to avoid that area.

Hiroshige Utagawa (III), "True View of the Steam Train Railway at the Shinagawa Seaside in Tokyo," circa 1872, large-format nishiki-e triptych (Owned by Keio University)

It was decided to build an embankment about 6.4 meters wide to carry the railway tracks by cutting down Gotenyama and using the soil to fill the shallow sea. Therefore, the Takanawa Embankment runs parallel to the coastline, not far from the original shoreline. In fact, about 2.7 km from Yatsuyama-shita to the boundary of Honshiba and Kanasugi (near the current south exit of Hamamatsucho Station) became the embankment. The remains found this time span a total of 800 meters between the west side of Takanawa Gateway Station and National Route 15. At the time, waterways were created under the tracks in places to allow boats to pass (the nishiki-e "True View of the Steam Train Railway at the Shinagawa Seaside in Tokyo" also depicts parts that look like bridges), and a total of about 120 meters, including "Bridge No. 7," will be preserved as a historic site.

However, the story in this article does not end there. In fact, between Shimbashi and Yokohama, there was another location where major construction was carried out through the sea. This was a massive civil engineering project to reclaim the sea before the terminus, Yokohama Station (now Sakuragicho Station), creating a large shortcut for the curve to the terminus. The person who undertook this approximately 1.4 km "Yokohama Great Dike" (with a width of 65 meters, about 10 times that of the Takanawa Embankment, making it more of a "reclamation" than an embankment) was none other than Kaemon Takashima, in whose villa Boissonade resided.

Looking at photographs from the time, Kanagawa Station was located at the very edge of the coast just below the vicinity of the old Tokaido Kanagawa-shuku as seen from the direction of Tokyo. From there, the tracks extended toward the terminus, Yokohama Station (now Sakuragicho Station), through the sea on reclaimed land much further from the shore than the Takanawa Embankment. In other words, the area between the current heights of Daimachi in Kanagawa Ward and the heights of Tobe in Nishi Ward was an inlet called Sodegaura until the Meiji Restoration ("Yokohama: Historical Street Corners"). The reclaimed land was given to Kaemon and named Takashima-cho. Although the dike was absorbed into the urban area as surrounding reclamation progressed from the late Meiji to the Taisho era, part of the site is still used today as railway tracks and roads.

Kaemon is said to have directed the construction from the hill with a view of the sea, but visiting the site by crossing Aoki Bridge from Keikyu Kanagawa Station reveals a slope that is short but steeper than expected. Part of the site of the former Kaemon Takashima villa remains today as "Kaemon Park." It is indeed a place that becomes a cliff toward the Yokohama Port side, but since tall buildings now stand below that cliff, nothing can be seen of the sea side (moving slightly east opens up the view of that time). And the monument "Mokindai no Hi," which stated that Kaemon watched the progress of the construction from there, used to be in this area, but it has now been moved to Takashimayama Park on the opposite side of the summit of Takashimadai, and unfortunately, what can be seen from there is in the direction of Tokyo and Chiba.

Looking at maps from the time, the former Kaemon Takashima villa was connected like the Japanese archipelago on the flat land at the top of Takashimayama, which is now occupied by several apartment buildings, facing the port. There was also a Western-style building in part of it. Most likely, it was in that Western-style building that Boissonade stayed. It is known that he not only lived there just before returning home, but was already in "Kanagawa" around September and October 1888, drafting and writing commentaries for the final parts of the property law section of the Old Civil Code (the sections on security of obligations and evidence).

Unable to bear the sight of Boissonade working desperately at his desk while his legs were swollen from the final push of work, Kowashi Inoue and others petitioned to have him work while convalescing in Atami, Kamakura, and then Kanagawa.

Now, the story is still not over. Here, I would like to have Yukichi Fukuzawa make an appearance. Kaemon Takashima was a versatile entrepreneur who rose from a lumber merchant in Edo at the end of the Edo period to run an inn in Yokohama used by many politicians and engage in railway construction (later also involved in the establishment of the Hokkaido Tanko Railway Co., Ltd.). He once established and managed a private Western-style school. In 1871, Kaemon built a large-scale school building for the Western-style school ("Yokohama-machi Gakko," commonly known as Takashima School) in Yokohama Iseyama-shita (said to be around the current Honcho Elementary School in Hanasaki-cho, Nishi Ward—that is, a location very close to Yokohama Station) and requested Yukichi Fukuzawa to become the school principal.

As mentioned in "The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa," his request to become the principal (supervisor) was first declined, and he apparently tried to recruit him again by offering to provide funds for Yukichi Fukuzawa's sons to study abroad. However, Yukichi Fukuzawa may have had some concerns or doubts about Kaemon, who was trying to run the Western-style school as a commercial enterprise (in fact, Yukichi Fukuzawa does not mention Kaemon Takashima's name in his autobiography, writing instead "a certain wealthy merchant in Yokohama").

Yukichi Fukuzawa declined this request and instead seems to have dispatched his disciples Muto Nagoya, Ban Iwata, Senjiro Tsuboi, Susumu Ebina, and Shinichi Murao as teachers (according to "The Fifty-Year History of Keio University." In fact, during this period, there were requests from all over the country to dispatch teachers from the Juku. According to Kaemon's biography, more senior disciples Heigoro Shoda, Jinzaburo Obata, Murao, and Akahoshi were recruited).

Kaemon eventually let go of this Takashima School, and it was short-lived, but classes are said to have begun in early 1872. One's imagination runs wild wondering if the instructors from the Juku commuted by train from Shinagawa Station (built where the embankment at Yatsuyama-shita begins) after the railway opened in October of that year, or if the younger ones still relied on boat transport from off the coast of Shinagawa.

Why did the terminus of the railway end up around the current Sakuragicho Station? What was the nature of the opposition to the railway at the time, as seen in the construction of the Takanawa Embankment? To begin with, the Yokohama foreign settlement was a "Dejima" created on reclaimed land away from the traditional Kanagawa-shuku on the Tokaido. There is still much more that should be written. However, I will close this piece now that I have reached the dispatch of Yukichi Fukuzawa's disciples. I would like to leave the story of the development of the Faculty of Law to another article—a story that began with the interaction between Boissonade and Wigmore, the head professor of the Keio University college Department of Law, which was established in 1890, the year of the promulgation of Boissonade's Old Civil Code, as one of the latest of the so-called nine major law schools.