ddle-cakes and eating them. The seller of sugar-jelly exhibits a
devil, taps a drum, and dances for the benefit of his baby-customers.
The seller of nice pastry does the same, with the addition of gymnastics
and skilful tricks with balls of dough. In every Japanese city there are
scores, if not hundreds of men and women who obtain a livelihood by
amusing the children.

[22] _Shoyu_: the origin of the English soy.

[23] _A jumon_: the tenth part of a sen or cent.

Some of the games of Japanese children are of a national character, and
are indulged in by all classes. Others are purely local or exclusive.
Among the former are those which belong to the great festival days,
which in the old calendar (before 1872) enjoyed vastly more importance
than under the new one. Beginning with the first of the year, there are
a number of games and sports peculiar to this time. The girls, dressed
in their best robes and girdles, with their faces powdered and their
lips painted, until they resemble the peculiar colors seen on a beetle's
wings, and their hair arranged in the most attractive coiffure, are out
upon the street playing battledore and shuttlecock. They play not only
in twos and threes, but also in circles. The shuttlecock is a small
seed, often gilded, stuck round with feathers arranged like the petals
of a flower. The battledore is a wooden bat; one side of which is of
bare wood, while the other has the raised effigy of some popular actor,
hero of romance, or singing girl in the most ultra-Japanese style of
beauty. The girls evidently highly appreciate this game, as it gives
abundant opportunity for the display of personal beauty, figure, and
dress. Those who fail in the game often have their faces marked with
ink, or a circle drawn round the eyes. The boys sing a song that the
wind will blow, the girls sing that it may be calm so that their
shuttlecocks may fly straight. The little girls at this time play with a
ball made of cotton cord, covered elaborately with many strands of
bright vari-colored silk.

Inside the house they have games suited not only for the daytime, but
for the evenings. Many foreigners have wondered what the Japanese do at
night, and how the long winter evenings are spent. On fair, and
especially moonlight nights, most of the people are out of doors, and
many of the children with them. Markets and fairs are held regularly at
night in Tokio, and in other large cities. The foreigner living in a
Japanese