Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/26

 floral arrangement in the Sono, football in the Nambu and Asukai, poetry in the Raisai and the Karasumaru, sword-making in the Shijo, heraldry in the Yamashina and the Takakura, wrestling in the Gojo, and divination in the Yoshida. The families thus distinguished numbered one hundred and thirty,—a relic of the days when Kyoto was the centre of all social refinement, and when the nobles residing within the shadow of the Throne possessed ample fortunes and were able to maintain the state attaching to their functions. Under the feudal system their condition was very different. The total annual appropriation for the maintenance of the Imperial Court was only some £30,000, which the Shōgun supplemented by allowances varying from £35,000 to £45,000, and by extraordinary grants on special occasions. As for the income of the Court nobles, they aggregated only £70,000, the wealthiest—the Konoye—having but £2,800. It resulted that these Kuge had to struggle constantly against straitened circumstances which contrasted sharply with the pomp and luxury of their lives in ante-feudal days. Many of them were obliged to eke out their scanty incomes by practising some domestic industry, such as the making of pictorial playing cards, of umbrellas, of toothpicks, or of chopsticks.

Even the expenditure of the trifling sums allotted to the Kyōtō Court was managed in accordance with a system which virtually sub-