floating mines: and the mimic battleships were made
to drag for these, with lines of thread. The pictures in the Japanese
papers had doubtless helped the children to imagine the events of the
war with tolerable accuracy.

Naval caps for children have become, of course, more in vogue than
ever before. Some of the caps bear, in Chinese characters of burnished
metal, the name of a battleship, or the words _Nippon Teikoku_
(Empire of Japan),--disposed like the characters upon the cap of a
blue-jacket. On some caps, however, the ship's name appears in English
letters,--Yashima, Fuji, etc.

* * * * *

The play-impulse, I had almost forgotten to say, is shared by the
soldiers themselves,--though most of those called to the front do not
expect to return in the body. They ask only to be remembered at the
Spirit-Invoking Shrine (_Sh[=o]konsha_), where the shades of all
who die for Emperor and country are believed to gather. The men of
the regiments temporarily quartered in our suburb, on their way to
the war, found time to play at mimic war with the small folk of
the neighborhood. (At all times Japanese soldiers are very kind
to children; and the children here march with them, join in their
military songs, and correctly salute their officers, feeling sure
that the gravest officer will return the salute of a little child.)
When the last regiment went away, the men distributed toys among
the children assembled at the station to give them a parting
cheer,--hairpins, with military symbols for ornament, to the girls;
wooden infantry and tin cavalry to the boys. The oddest present was
a small clay model of a Russian soldier's head, presented with the
jocose promise: "If we come back, we shall bring you some real ones."
In the top of the head there is a small wire loop, to which a rubber
string can be attached. At the time of the war with China, little clay
models of Chinese heads, with very long queues, were favorite toys.

* * * * *

The war has also suggested a variety of new designs for that charming
object, the _toko-niwa_. Few of my readers know what a _toko-niwa_, or
"alcove-garden," is. It is a miniature garden--perhaps less than two
feet square--contrived within an ornamental shallow basin of porcelain
or other material, and placed in the alcove of a guest-room by way
of decoration. You may see there a tiny pond; a streamlet crossed by
humped bridges of Chines