8. At the time of _hatsu-nobori_, the grandparents may present a _yari_ (spear), and at the time of _hatsu-bina_ a _kami-bina_ (paper doll), or _tsuchi-ningyo_ (earthen doll). "Accompanying these specific regulations, made with careful reference to each man's station in life, there were also general rules to meet unspecified contingencies. For example, only in case of absolute necessity could an umbrella be used by the ordinary laborer. He must usually content himself with the protection of a straw raincoat. Another provision related to costly articles which a family might happen to have. Special permission was necessary to make use of them, and no articles of luxury were to be used if on hand."[117] =The Care of Children.= The birth of a child among the Japanese was a cause of rejoicing, a boy being somewhat more welcome than a girl. At the birth of a child, a special messenger was sent to notify relatives and intimate friends, who must soon visit the baby and take it presents, and especially so if it was the first in the family. Yet infanticide was not uncommon, for poverty sometimes decided against the infant, and this also might be true of a child born maimed or deformed. "In old days, when the new-born child was laid at the father's feet, the father could refuse to take it, and the child was then exposed to die in a bamboo-grove. The custom exists no longer; I doubt whether it ever prevailed to any very great extent, but it has left behind it a very picturesque reminder. If parents have lost a child by death, they often, not perhaps unnaturally, look upon their loss as the visitation of an angry Heaven, which must need be propitiated by the free-will offering up of the next born child. So when the next child is born it is taken to the bamboo-grove and left by its parents. The exposure is, however, nothing very serious; a friend of the family is waiting round the corner for the weeping parents to abandon their infant, and a few minutes afterwards he comes in, quite as if it were by accident, and tells the bereaved couple that he has just picked up a fine, handsome baby boy (or girl), which he hopes they will take and rear. Thus the anger of Heaven has been, figuratively at least, averted, and the baby is known in after life by the word sute ('abandoned') prefixed to his personal name. He is known as _sutejiro_ or _sutesaburo_, as the case may be ('the abandoned second son' or 'the abandoned third')."[118]