CHILD-LIFE IN JAPAN.* IF the treatment of children constitutes a
criterion of the humanity of a race, the Japanese certainly stand high in the scale. It is a veritable children's paradise that is described by the author of these pleasant chapters when he asks,— " What has a baby to be miserable about in a land where it is scarcely ever slapped ; where its clothing, always loose, is yet warm in winter ; where it basks freely in air and sunshine, and lives in a house that from its thick grass mats, its absence of furniture, and therefore of commands not to touch,' is the very beau-ideal of an infant's playground ?" What Mr. Ayrton calls the "quaint cheeriness" of the Japanese is nowhere more pic- turesquely exhibited than in their nurseries. The babies them- selves, brown, half-naked atoms of humanity, for ever con- tentedly scrambling about, are perhaps more attractive in the earliest stages of their existence than any other children on the face of the earth, and their dolls are incomparably the most fascinating toys that we have ever seen. Years ago, when the present writer was a sixth-form boy at a Public School, and occupied the responsible position of head of his house, he made the acquaintance of a Japanese doll at a fancy warehouse in the neighbouring town, and, captivated by its ingenuous countenance, purchased it on the spot, and took it back to ornament his study. He placed it sitting on a bracket ; but as it looked lonely, he bought two or three more. This infatuation came to the ears of the house-master, who had no patience for what he considered to be so childish a weakness. The result may easily be guessed. These dolls had an extraordinary knack of turning up at inopportune moments whenever there was any likelihood of the house-master's appearing. They came to breakfast. They frequented the house library. Their squeak was heard in the study passages by day, and enlivened the dormitories by night. At last the house-master became seriously annoyed, and the dolls were given away. Only the other day, the offender was calling at the chambers of a distinguished official, and while waiting for his host was surprised and delighted to see sitting on a bracket, in the familiar attitude,—a Japanese doll. He felt inclined to write off to his old house-master at once, and acquaint him with this justification of his childish behaviour.
Next to dolls, the tops of the Japanese are their most im- portant toys. One of the seven delightful full-page illustra- tions in the volume before us represents two boys with pates closely shaven except for the circlet of hair on the crown— faithfully reproduced in Japanese dolls—and the gummed side-locks, intently watching the gyrations of their tops.
stupet inscia supra Impubesque mantis " These tops, wound and spun in a manner somewhat different from ours, are famous for the length of time which they keep in motion. Some—the fighting tops—are iron-clad, and the object of the player is to damage his opponent's top or make it cease spinning. Top-spinning is also practised as a pro- fession by jugglers, who earn a living by their dexterity. It has often occurred to us as strange that in this age, when no limits are set to the absurdity of the entertainments of fashionable people, nobody should have started top-spinning as a means of killing time at afternoon parties. Per- forming dogs, whistling ladies, fortune-tellers, music-hall • Child-Life in Japan, and Japanese Child-Stories. By M. Chaplin Ayrton. With Illustration". L3ndon : Griffith, Farran, and Co.
"artists,"—all these have been tried in turn. Decidedly there is an opening for tops. Another favourite pur- suit for Japanese young people of all ages is the flying of kites. Generally rectangular in shape, these kites are elaborately decorated with pictures of ancient heroes and heroines, dragons or monsters. The illusion is further heightened by the addition of a vibrating tongue of whale- bone, which makes them sing in a high wind. Boys often name their kites after the two celebrated rival clans Genji and Heiki, and engage in a sort of aerial warfare, each com- batant endeavouring to bring down his opponent's kite. "For this purpose the string for 10 ft. or 20 ft. near the kite end is first covered with glue, and then dipped into pounded glass, by which the string becomes covered with tiny blades, each able to cut quickly and deeply. By getting the kite into proper position and suddenly sawing the string of his antagonist, the severed kite falls, to be reclaimed by the victor." In these and many other games, grown-up men take part with the keenest zest. On this Professor Griffis, in the appendix to this volume, remarks as follows :—" If we, in the conceited pride of our superior civilisation, look down upon this as childish, we must remember that the Celestial, from the pinnacle of his lofty, and to him immeasurably elevated civilisa- tion, looks down upon our manly sports with contempt, thinking it a condescension even to notice them." More sympathetic was the attitude of the aged Turk at Constanti- nople, who on witnessing a game of football played by the deli ingliz (mad English), cried out in despair,—" Will no one stop this fight ?"
Many of the games of the Japanese are of a national character, patronised by all classes and at stated seasons.
Battledore and shuttlecock is extensively indulged in at the New Year by boys and girls alike. "The boys sing a song that a wind will blow, the girls sing that it may be calm, so that
their shuttlecocks may fly straight Those who fail in the game often have their faces marked with ink, or a circle drawn round their eyes." So, again, in games of cards, the losers are similarly marked ; or if they are girls, they have a paper or wisp of straw stuck in their hair. Many of these card games are of a highly educational character, proficiency in them involving familiarity with the literature of Japan or China. Two games—the object of which is presumably to test the courage of children—are so curious as to deserve especial notice. They are called "One Hundred Stories," and "Soul-Examination." In the former,— " A company of boys and girls assemble round the hibachi, while they or an adult, an aged person or a servant, usually relate ghost stories, or tales of a blood-curdling character. In a distant dark room, a lamp (the usual dish of oil) with a wick of one hundred strands or piths, is set. At the conclusion of each story, the children in turn must go to the dark room and remove a strand of the wick. As the lamp burns down low the room becomes gloomy and dark, and the last boy, it is said, always sees a demon, a huge face or something terrible. In the Kon-clameshi, or Soul- Examination,' a number of boys during the day plant some flags in different parts of a graveyard, under a lonely tree, or by a haunted hill-side. At night they meet together, and tell stories about ghosts, goblins, devils, &c., and at the conclusion of each tale, when the imagination is wrought up, the boys one at a time must go out in the dark and bring back the flags, until all are brought in."
On the third day of the third month is held the famous "Feast of Dolls," or Hina Matsuri :— " Every respectable family has a number of these splendidly dressed images, which are from four inches to a foot in height, and which accumulate from generation to generation. When a daughter is born in the house during the previous year, a pair of hina or images are purchased for the little girl, which she plays with until grown up. When she is married, her hina are taken with her to her husband's house, and she gives them to her children, adding to the stock as her family increases."
At first sight there appears to be a sort of resemblance between these hina and the Roman imagines, but the former are not necessarily effigies of ancestors :— "They represent the Mikado and his wife ; the Kuge or old Kioto nobles, their wives and daughters, the Court minstrels, and
various personages in Japanese mythology and history The girls make offerings of sake and dried rice, &c., to the effigies of the Emperor and Empress, and then spend the day with toys, mimicking the whole round of Japanese female life, as that of child, maiden, wife, mother, and grandmother."
The manufacture of these elaborate and costly dolls gives occupation to hundreds of people in every town. In no country in the world are there so many toy-shops, or persons who gain a livelihood by amusing or catering for children,—showmen,
story-tellers, conjurers, postarers, dancers, and above all, itinerant sweetmeat-sellers. The latter show a true apprecia- tion for the cooking instinct implanted in all children, and for a small sum will hire out all the requisite implements and ingredients for the making of cakes, &c. The earlier part of Mr. Ayrton's book adequately fulfils the aim in- dicated in the preface,—that of bringing home the spirit of Japanese child-life to Western children. The "seven scenes" with which the book opens are prettily told, and charmingly illustrated by the pens of native artists. The snowballing encounter, the children playing with puppies, and the child- musicians are drawn with singular charm and vigour, and the descriptive text is so clear and simple as to be easily com- prehended by an intelligent child. But the specimens of Japanese tales are disappointing in the extreme, destitute of literary skill or variety of incident, and monotonous in their constant iteration of the value of filial piety. There is, however, one very quaint story of a wrestler and a snake. We quote the exceedingly naive conclusion:— " Tsuneyori afterwards wanted to know the force of the snake compared with that of men. So he prepared a large strong rope, and tied it to one of his legs, and ordered at first ten men to draw it at the other end ; but he increased the number of the men very much, saying continually, Yet more are wanted;' ' The traction is still unequal to the snake's;' ' More, yet more.' When. about sixty men were engaged in pulling the rope, Tsuneyori said that he felt about the same as when pulled by the snake. From this it appears that Tsuneyori was equal to one hundred ordinary men in strength."
Some curious angularities of expression are to be noticed in these pages, even where the author is not translating from the
Japanese. But these blemishes, and a certain want of homo- geneousness in the contents—parts being designed for children, parts for adult readers—do not impair the attractiveness of the whole. English people who have not gone further on the road to Japan than Knightsbridge, will considerably extend their acquaintance with the customs and character of this attractive race by the perusal of Mr. Ayrton's pages.
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