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taken root here, and the low price at which the little ingenious contrivance was at present sold in the streets of Tokei, showed that now at any rate it was manufactured in Japan. The small pieces of curled up paper which when floated in water expanded into various graceful forms might perhaps also be included in the category of toys. With regard to tops, the most curious was one with a splendid hum, cut roughly from a piece of bamboo, so simple indeed and yet so successful that it seemed the very parent of the humming tops of all countries. She had observed occasionally in toy shops a most ghastly mask,—a blanched face with the blood trickling from a wound. The masks used professionally by adult maskers were generally of better quality, and of wood, whilst those to which she referred were made of paper and sold for a few “hiakus,” She wished to know whether these masks were used by children in those games of a weird nature to which Mr. Griffis had referred. In reference to Japan having been called the “Paradise of Children” it must, she said, have occurred to every one, on observing the apparent happiness of all the young folks, to ask what was the reason of their being happier than children of other nations. She thought the principle causes were four:—
1.—The style of clothing, loose and yet warm, was far more comfortable than the dress of our children.
2.—Japanese children were much out in the open air and sunshine. The advantages so derived were not even counter-balanced by the poisonous gases coming from the hibachis, since crouching over a charcoal fire was quite contrary to child nature.
3.—The absence of furniture and, therefore, the absence of repeatedly given instructions “not to touch.” For the complaints so often heard amongst foreigners of the destructive tendencies of children must, she thought, be unknown in Japanese households, possessing, as they did, so little that a child could spoil. The soft thick matting, forming at once the carpet and the beds of all Japanese houses; and the raised lintel on to which the child night clamber as it grew strong, constituted the very beau-ideal of an infant’s play ground.
4.—Fourthly, and chiefly, children were spoilt. This might sound to some of the ladies present a highly undesirable state of things. But she proceeded to define spoilt as meaning that a child was much petted without being capriciously thwarted. She had never observed a child cuffed one moment and indulged the next, as was too frequently seen at home. It was these causes, she thought, which, obviating as they did many of the little troubles that worried our children, led to that good temper and contentment that foreigners so admire in Japanese boys and girls.
Professor W. E. Ayrton remarked that there were two points in connection with the amusements of Japanese children which had puzzled him, and which Professor Griffis could, perhaps, throw some light on. The first had reference to those street-stalls at which a lottery formed a prominent feature. The piece of sweetmeat given to each child seemed, as far as Mr.