OBSERVANCES AND PASTIMES
dental. The inference is probably erroneous, for any element of simplicity due to the reduced power of the pieces is compensated by their greater number, and by the fact that at a certain stage pieces previously won or lost reappear in a combination. A form of chess to which the term applies only by courtesy—namely, tsume-shogi, or the imprisonment of one freely moving piece by several others of very restricted power—is much played by the lower orders.
Gambling has never been practised in Japan on a scale commensurate with European records. Such an incident as the ruin of an educated man by cards and dice is comparatively rare. The game of hana-awase, spoken of above, might be expected to attain the rank held by whist or piquet in Europe and America, and thus to become a recognised amusement in refined circles. But a certain measure of discredit has always attached to it. Cards are not among the recognised pastimes of polite society, and the card-player is counted a mauvais sujet in a serious sense. "Poem cards" and sugo-roku are, of course, considered perfectly innocent: no betting is connected with them. But players of hana-awase sometimes put up large stakes, and repair to tea-houses and restaurants to carry on the game in secret. These, however, are invariably young folks who have not yet concluded the sowing of their wild oats. A man of mature years who devotes his evenings to such doings recognises
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