Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/81

 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