Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/104

76 the relations to the mother; the middle finger represents oneself; the ring finger presides over the conjugal relations; and the little finger the relations towards the children. The palm is examined for three lines called the lines of Heaven, man, and earth, corresponding in European chiromancy to the lines of heart, head, and life respectively. Besides the hand, the eye, ear, eye-brow, nose, mouth, teeth, arm and forearm, and moles form each a basis of vaticination. There appears in fact to be no limit to the common credulity in the efficacy of fortune-telling.

Though we have by no means exhausted the subject, we have given enough to show how various are the modes of divination, past and present, practised in Japan; and while it is fair to add that the belief in their efficacy is fast dying out, especially among the better classes, the numerous fortune-tellers’ sign-boards which are still to be seen in the streets of Tokyo attest to the strong hold they continue to retain over the masses. Eki is the most commonly practised of all and the divining blocks and sticks lend an imposing appearance to the diviner’s table. Next to eki, palmistry, physiognomy, horoscopy, and divination by handwriting are most in fashion and often practised by one and the same man. The most skilled or popular professors of these arts live in affluence; they have servants to usher their customers into the divining hall, and put on an air of no little importance. But a majority of fortune-tellers live in courts and back-alleys, and hang out signboards in the front street. There is at least one of these boards in every street. Finding even signboards insufficient to attract customers, these humble professors of divination go out every day to public places to tell fortunes. They are to be seen in public parks, at the approaches to bridges, in the shade of avenues at day-time, or under the eaves of houses at night. Some haunt most frequented resorts, while others take to quiet nooks on the assumption that their customers would more readily unburden themselves in secret places.