One Hundred Famous Views of Edo No.86Naito Shinjuku Station at Yotsuya

Shinjuku, meaning “New Station”, was established at the site where Daimyo (Lord) Naito’s mansion was located, and thus the station was called Naito Shinjuku. It lay at Yotsuya on the Koshukaido Highway and thrived because of the many people going to and coming from Kai Province, north of Mt. Fuji.
Hiroshige depicts a street running through the station. The woods seen in the distance were once on the grounds of Daimyo Naito’s mansion. The highway was lined with inns, restaurants and teahouses, as is the case at other stations.
The functions of the station were: 1. To provide lodgings for members of the feudal lord’s procession; 2. To provide horses and porters for travellers, including lords; and 3. To provide inns for ordinary travellers. According to old records, the station provided the facilities of one house for lords, 24 inns for travellers, 24 horses to carry the luggage of travellers and 24 porters.
Maidservants stand in front of the inns and try to appeal to passing travellers to enter their particular inn. Some of the inns employed “meshimorionna”, maidservants who attended the travellers at night and while dining. These servants, considered quasi-prostitutes, became popular among Edo people and attracted visitors from around the station. Having found that the servants were effective at increasing visitors, the landlords wished to increase their numbers. But the shogunate, which intended to maintain public order, restricted them. To the right of the print, horses’ hooves can be seen. They are wearing straw sandals in order to protect their hooves, which was common practice in the Edo period because horseshoes were not yet available in Japan.
Farm products produced around the station were transported to Edo city on horseback. Thus, many horses could be found on the street in front of the station. They left behind many lumps of dung, as seen in this print, and these lumps became sarcastically known as a symbolic feature of the station.