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Show Peoplo of tho Orient. The Koreans nro said to havo Japanese Japa-nese faces, Chinese customs and manners man-ners of their own. Next to the Eskimos Eski-mos they are the heartiest caters In tho world. The flesh of young dogs Is their favorite delicacy; Japanese beer their favorite beverage. Every Korean house has a collar, called khan, which Is used as a furnace. Its mouth Is some distance dis-tance from the house. On a cold night you will see one or more white-clad figures cramming the khan's mouth as fast as they can with twigs, branches, and other combustible food. ThUB well-fed, well-fed, tho furnace burns for hours and keeps the house warm all night., In Korea, as In China, ancestor worship is the real religion. Fortune tellers, astrologers as-trologers and sorceresses are In great rlrmnrifl. Thfi Tvorf.ins aro a nation of poets and painters. Every fairly educated edu-cated man writes poems and paints pictures. pic-tures. "Gessangs," who correspond to the Japanese geisha girls, are numerous In tho larger towns, and especially abound at Ping Yang, In the northern mining district. The Korean population popula-tion 5s divided Into two classes, the workers and the students and officials. The workers are-oppressed and abused without mercy and are apathetic, Indifferent Indif-ferent and lacking In energy. Careful observers In China notice the gradual decay of Confuslanlsm. Its Bway over the minds of tho Chlneso "literati" is by no means what it was even as recently as twenty or thirty years ago. It is true that there is no marked diminution In the number of ancestral halls, tho existence of which all over the land serves as an Indication of tho vitality of the state religion; yet the more the- country Is permeated with Western knowledge the more are the minds of tho educated class becoming alienated from the teachings to which before unquestioning obedience was accorded. ac-corded. It Is dawning upon the educated educat-ed young men of China that a knowledge knowl-edge of the Confucian classics Is no longer what It was from a commercial point of view. The comprehension of this fact is sufficient to account for tho diminishing Interest that Is being taken in the acquisition of Confucian learning. learn-ing. As the broader and deeper knowledge knowl-edge introduced and inculcated by Western scholars Is being assimilated there Is an Increasing realization of how Inadequate Confucianism is, notwithstanding not-withstanding Its merits, to meet the requirements re-quirements of tho present day. Chicago Chica-go News. |