Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1891-04-23

edge of Chinese classics and siderable
scholarship, SO it is not surprising to
find that the most popular Of them all is
that Of the g fifty three post stations !"
between Toxic and Kyoto. The name
and pictures Of each are given and the
stake deposited on Kyoto. Then they
throw with dice, and whoever arrives at
Kyoto first wins.
Japan is veritably, as Sir Rutherford
Alcock called it, 1.-THE paradise Of ba-
bies." If village is large enough to
hold shop at all it will have toy shop.
The poorest parts Of cities have numbers
of them. The temples are full of them.
Fairs have hardly anything else except
pipe cases and combs, and parents are
forever devising or buying toys for their
children. At any of the matsuri (fcsti.
vals), at great temples like those Of
Shiba and Asakusa, one will see the
poorest Japanese going off laden with
toys for their children.
The toys, it is true, are cheap and
simple. Some of the favorite ones are
made Of dough, blown in much the same
way as glass is, into figures Of gods and
men and iinri kischas and cooks and
foxes and fir trees, and rudely colored.
The favorite pastime Of the japanese
children is, strange to say, initiating the
occupations of their elders--and this il
not only at matsuri time. They do il
with an inimitable gravity and demure-
ness. Perhaps having to assume the re
sponsibilities of nurse and perambulatoi
combined to the baby brother or sister
when only about herself may give girl
the habit.
One constantly sees boys who look
hardly old enough to go to school actively
engaged in business-book- binding OF
painting lanterns and umbrellas or ever
with tiny hammers knocking the gold
leaf into the fretted surface of the great
"Satslma' jars which Toxic and Yoke
hama turn out III such abundance.
One of the prettiest sights one can see
in Japanese street is group of chill
dren buzzing round candy stall or peri
patetic cooking stove, well described by
Griffis:
"Nearly every itinerant seller Of candy,
h-cake, sugared peas and sweetened.
beans has several methods of lottery by
which he adds to the attractions of his
stall. A disk having revolving arrow,
whirled around by the hand of child,
or number of strings which are con.
nected with the faces of imps, goddesses,
devils or heroes lends the excitement OF
chance and when lucky pull or whirl
occurs, occasions the subsequent add.
tion to the small fraction of q cents
worth to be bought. Men or women
itinerants carry small charcoal hrazlel
under a copper griddle with batter,
spoons, cups and Shoyu sauce to hire out
for the price of cash q ITO cents)
each to the little urchins, who spend an
afternoon Of bliss making their cakes
and eating them. The seller of sugar
jelly exhibits devil, taps drum and
dances for the benefit CT his baby Gus
toners. The seller of mochi (rice flour
cakes) does the same, with the addition
of gymnastics and skillful tricks with
balls of dough. The fire eater rolls balls
of camphor paste, glowing with lambert
fire, all over his arms and then extin.
guishes them with his mouth. The bug
man harnesses paper carts to the backs
of beetles with wax, and half dozen in
this gear will drag load OF wax up an
inclined plane. The man with the
magic swimming birds tips his tiny
water fowl with camphor and floats
them in long, narrow dish full OF
water. The wooden toys, propelled from
side to side and end to end by the dis
solving gum, act as if alive to the won
dering eyes of young spectators. In
every Japanese city there are scores, if
not hundreds, of men and women who
obtain livelihood by amusing children.
Il Chicago News.