The lonin differs from the ordinary criminal, and is thus ably described by the highest authority on Japanese matters:[4]—
'As a noble or head of a house is responsible for all who are of his family, or claim his protection, when any of his people are resolved upon a desperate enterprise they formally renounce the protection and declare themselves "lonins;"—in other words, outlaws, or friendless men: after which no one is responsible for their acts, and this is considered a highly honourable and proper thing to do.
The worst of this system is, that any one harbouring or assisting a lonin endangers his head; and such men are, therefore, compelled to resort to robbery and extortion as means of supporting themselves. It 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.
LONINS, OR OUTLAWS, ROBBING A RICH MERCHANT'S HOUSE
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was intended for foreigners, who were settled in the country in opposition to the laws of Gongen Sama, which had never been revoked.
With such dread are these men regarded by the non-combatant classes, that it frequently happens that one or two will go into a village and extort what they require without the slightest resistance being offered.