Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1891-04-23
CHILDREN In NJAPAN;
THE QUEER GAMES ME LIT
TIE ONES PLAY.

- ING Younger tseuCra-
lions Of the Flowery Kingdom
Kite-Flying Parties Are Very
Popular.
The most delightful things in Japan
are the children. Taken as whole. I
don't think one finds such delightful
children anywhere else in the world.
For to the beauty and the grace Of child
hood they add the ROBUSTNESS, the play
fulness and the gentlencss of puppies or
kittens. They are just as self possessed.
They are always ideally dressed, and
nave considerable amount of actual
beauty, as well as quaintness, in their
little faces, as round and soft as ripe
plum. To begin with, they have mar
Vicious compilations, clear brown skins,
as velvety as peaches, with rich damask
RED on the cheeks. Aud they have the
loveliest little rosebuds of mouths and
the whitest teeth, generally very regular,
though small. They have also beautiful
little hands and feet with clear brown
skin, slender, we'll formed, ssnervons'
fingers and toes and remarkably good
nails.
Outside these points they are beauti-
fully ugly, or quaint. Their queer little
hickory nuts of heads are shaved, all ex-
cept one little tuft of jet-black hair at
the top of the head or over each ear.
Ana their eyes are like black beads,
with hard china whites inkling behind
narrow Sits. They have the funniest
little snubs of noses and plump and
puppyish figures.
The Japanese love to dress their chill
dren in strictly japanese style, in the
most becoming clothes, Just as they ex-
haust their ingenuity in inventing games
and toys for them.
Their dress has always plentiful ad-
mixture of red. Red is the color of
youth in Japan, but on grand occasions
one must go to the rainbow or kaleidos-
cope, or fireworks to find a parallel.
The general effect is that of long gown
open down the front with long, loose
sleeves and broad sash at the waist.
The little girls who are apprenticed for
the profession of geisha Singing girl
wear brilliant and exquisitely lowered
silks, with robes or sashes of rich, stiff
brocade fabulously dear. They seem to
have been rivaled by a little daimio
(feudal prince described BY Mr. Griffis.
Little Matsu Daira, aged or 5, wore
gold hilted sword in his girdle, while
lad of IS, his sword bearer, attended
him to carry the longer badge of rank.
1t is fortunate that nearly all the steeds
IN Japan are human. Otherwise we never
should have got to our destination in
safety, that new years day, when we
took our long drive from our temporary
abode in the castle of Toxic to the fair,
which was taking place in the grounds of
the great temple of Kwannon at Asakusa,
Tor the streets were at the mercy of
throngs of little girls in their gayest
dresses and sashes, with powdered faces
and carmined lips (coloring said to be in
imitation of certain kind of gay beetle),
and with most gorgeous couture, play
ing at hane-tsuki (battledore and shuttle
cock) in pairs of circles. Their shuttle
cocks were tiny feathered balls made of
seeds and their battledores made of the
light kiri wood (Paulownia lmperialis),
OF which clogs are made, had backs in
all the colors of the rainbow, raised up
with cloth, padded silk, ETC., to give
oChS ROPuiaA 0CtOIy ACIO vi IOAlduCC vi
singing girl in the most japanese style
of beauty"
One had to pass through a hall OF
Bhuttlecocks, some of them whizzing
past you point blank, like hard volley
at lawn tennis. others dropping just in
front of your nose on battledore which
SHE'D it back again. No horses would
have stood it.
This game is supposed to give the
youthful japanese belle matchless oppor-
tunities for showing off beauty, figure
and dress, and strictly speaking, the
victor may, if she chooses, disfgure the
conquered beauty's face with ink.
The boys were having top-fghts (komf
asobe). If it had been windy enough
for their favorite kites it wouldn't have
been calm enough for battledore. Thes,
tops we're made of hardwood with al
iron ring around them, and were wounc
up aud thrown. The first thrower threw
his to spin; the second threw his to strike
the spinning top.
As we drove back the wind had risen,
and on the roof of every two story house
paterfamilias was assisting his boys in
flying kites, pastime in which the
Japanese are particularly adept.
''You go drill grounds" asked Tsro
eldest SOM, my Riklsha boy, observing
the interest took in their skill; plenty
kite, good kite, drill ground nod
ded, and we drove just past our hotel to
the wind-swept drill ground lying be-
tween the cavalry barracks, the Roku-
meikwan (Tokio club and the school Of
the mobiles Here was young Japan in all
its glory, with kites flying fabulous
heights in the air, which, when they
came down, proved to be counterfeits of
the great brown hawks which wheel and
wheel over every street of Japanese
city, or rectangles of tough paper,
stretched on light split bamboo frames
of about a couple of feet square or more,
adorned in rainbow hues with the figures
of great heroes or beautiful women or
Chinese dragons. Some of them have
RUNNERS made Of strips of whalebone /;
others have ten or twenty feet of their
string at the kite end dipped in mix
ture Of gum and pounded glass for kite
fights. If this is drawn sharply across
the string of a rival kite it cuts and
brings it to the ground. Sir Edwin Ar
nold was very fond Of giving kite parties.
The girls meanwhile had given up
battledorc and were having mntchea NJ