Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1897 — A Pretty Custom. [ARTICLE]

A Pretty Custom.

Japanese children are rarely allowed to keep caged pets; and there is a pretty custom that teaches them that the gods have a tender care of the lower orders of creation. Old women with imprisoned birds stand at the entrances of the temples, and by giving a “sen”—a small coper coin—to one of them a child, on his way to recite his pray era, is at liberty to ransom a feathered captive. The little ones take infinite pleasure in watching the pretty creature in its aerial flight to liberty, and this snyill act of benevolence is supposed to incline the god favorably towards the child.