APPENDIX.
The following Notes refer to passages marked by asterisks in the foregoing pages.
[ Page 3.]
The father, or the head of the family, usually names the children, but some friend or patron may be asked to do it. As, until recently, the name given a child in infancy was not the one that he was expected to bear through life, the choice of a name was not a matter of as much importance as it is with us. In some families the boys are called by names indicating their position in the family, the words Taro, "Big one," Jiro, "Second one," Saburo, "Third one," Shiro, "Fourth one," Goro, "Fifth one," etc., being used alone, or placed after adjectives indicating some quality that it is hoped the child may possess. Such combinations are, Eitaro, "Glorious big one," Seijiro, "Pure second one," Tomisaburo, "Rich third one," and so on.
[ Page 4.]
To speak with greater exactness, the miya mairi of a boy is on the thirty-first day of his life,—of a girl, on the thirty-third.
[ Page 8.]
Tōkyō just now shows a tendency to change this national custom. Gayly painted wicker baby carriages with cotton awnings are seen in large quantities in the shops, and one meets mothers and little sisters of the lower classes, propelling the baby in a little four-wheeled wagon instead of wearing it on the back, as formerly. These carriages are, of course, the exception, and may prove to be but a passing Tōkyō fashion, but they seem to me to mark another step in the modernizing of Japan, and may prove of value in the physical development of the common people.