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Page 47
* * * * *
The children of the poorest classes make their own war toys; and I
have been wondering whether those ancient feudal laws (translated
by Professor Wigmore), which fixed the cost and quality of toys to
be given to children, did not help to develop that ingenuity which
the little folk display. Recently I saw a group of children in
our neighborhood playing at the siege of Port Arthur, with fleets
improvised out of scraps of wood and some rusty nails. A tub of water
represented Port Arthur. Battleships were figured by bits of plank,
into which chop-sticks had been fixed to represent masts, and rolls of
paper to represent funnels. Little flags, appropriately colored, were
fastened to the masts with rice paste. Torpedo boats were imaged by
splinters, into each of which a short thick nail had been planted to
indicate a smokestack. Stationary submarine mines were represented
by small squares of wood, each having one long nail driven into it;
and these little things, when dropped into water with the nail-head
downwards, would keep up a curious bobbing motion for a long time.
Other squares of wood, having clusters of short nails driven into
them, represented 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 Chinese pattern; dwarf trees forming a grove, and
shading the model of a Shinto temple; imitations in baked clay of
stone lanterns,--perhaps even the appearance of a hamlet of thatched
cottages. If the _toko-niwa_ be not too small, you may see real fish
swimming in the pond, or a pet tortoise crawling among the rockwork.
Sometimes the miniature garden represents H[=o]rai, and the palace of
the Dragon-King.
Two new varieties have come into fashion. One is a model of Port
Arthur, showing the harbor and the forts; and with the materials for
the display there is sold a little map, showing how to place certain
tiny battle-ships, representing the imprisoned and the investing
fleets. The other _toko-niwa_ represents a Korean or Chinese
landscape, with hill ranges and rivers and woods; and the appearance
of a battle is created by masses of toy soldiers--cavalry, infantry,
and artillery--in all positions of attack and defense. Minute forts of
baked clay, bristling with cannon about the size of small pins, occupy
elevated positions. When properly arranged the effect is panoramic.
The soldiers in the foreground are about an inch long; those a little
farther away about half as long; and those upon the hills are no
larger than flies.
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