fruit and coins as well as a lantern. These toy
ships have toy sails, and the dead are supposed to sail in them to
oblivion until next year's festival. These toy ships, of course, catch
fire from the lanterns. Not so very many years ago the spectacle of
these little vessels catching fire on some large bay was a very pretty
one. I am afraid this feast has a tendency to die out--a fact which is
greatly to be regretted, as there is behind it much that is poetical
and beautiful.

Wrestling, as most people know, is a favourite amusement of the
Japanese, and wrestling matches excite quite as much interest as
boxing used to do in this country. Of late years English people have
taken much interest in Ju Jitsu. The Japanese style of wrestling is
certainly peculiar, and training does not apparently enter so much
into it as is considered essential in reference to displays of
strength or skill in this country. One sometimes sees very expert
Japanese wrestlers who are not only fat but bloated.

The Japanese have long been celebrated archers, and archery, though it
is largely on the wane, is much more in evidence than is the case in
this country. It is an art in which a great many of the people excel,
and archery grounds still exist in many of the towns.

Marriages and christenings have important parts in the social life of
the people. These ceremonies, however, are not quite so obtrusive as
they are in Western lands. As regards christenings, if I may use such
a term in reference to a non-Christian people, the first, or almost
the first, ceremony in reference to the infant in Japan is, or used to
be, the shaving of its head thirty days after birth, after which it
was taken to the temple to make its first offering, a pecuniary one,
to the gods. This shaving of babies is no doubt diminishing, at any
rate in the large towns. Indeed, everything in regard to the
dressing of and dealing with the hair in Japan is, if I may use the
term, in a state of transition.

[Illustration: STREET SCENE ON NEW YEAR'S DAY
FROM A PRINT BY HIROSHIGE]

Some writers on Japan have been impressed by the fact that the
Japanese appear to be more concerned about the dead than the living.
Ancestor worship plays an important part in the religious economy of
Japanese life, and, as I have shown, the All Souls' Day in Japan is an
important national festival. But the respect that these people have
for their dead is not shown only on one or two or three da