Show f taft pap paper COREAN REFORMS copyrighted by frank G carpenter 1896 1895 HAVE JUST received letters from S seoul e 0 u I 1 stating that the japanese have inaus u r a t e d their reforms and f that hat the v corean govern ment mentis is rapidly changing lines of railroad have been planned and the greedy and barbarous officials are being deprived of their offices salaries are to be fixed by law and rank is to a certain OL extent to be done away with the queens family which embraces the worst ot of the nobility is being driven into 1 the background and the king is taking all matters into his own hands it is an open secret in seoul that for years the king hasteen has been a henpecked husband and I 1 heard many stories of the queens jealous disposition his majesty had a number of beautiful lul dancing girls who were vare now and then as is the custom called in to dance before the court the king who is a rather lively man of about forty odd has now and then singled out one of these and paid her special attention much to the disgust of the queen he has also carried on some inari intrigues g u es of this kind unknown to her i majesty n aj e s t Y and the quarrels between the two on this account have been frequent just before I 1 left seoul one ot of the high officials connected with the court was daught caught by the queen carrying notes from the king to one of his favorites and she at once sent him on a long mission to southern corea he was connected with important public works and all of these had to stop on an this account the latest news is th that at the king has cut entirely loose from his cifes apron strings and that he is now going to establish a harem in the palace as was wa s the custom in corea in the past and as is the custom still in nearly all eastern countries the emperor of china has hundreds of beautiful women and he tas lias the right to any of the noble tartar girls over twelve years of age he takes the pick of the country between the ages of twelve and eighteen and he replenishes his stock every three years the king of siam has the most wives perhaps of any asiatic monarch though the queen is is his own half sister lie he also has the me right to any and all of the girls of the kingdom though the laws pr provide 0 that he cannot marry his mother or his mother in law the emperor of japan has a number of noble ladies inside of his palace grounds and he has a sort of a harem though the japanese try to keep the matter secret and no A gossip concerning it ever gets into the newspapers it is the same with other asiatic and indian rulers and the action of the king of corea is not surprising especially as almost all of the corean nobles have their concubines NEW COREAN LAWS AS TO MARRIAGE the kings intended reforms include a number of new laws regarding marriage and this in the favoron favor favo of the women one provision is that men shall not be married under twenty and girls under sixteen heretofore boys could be married at fourteen arid I 1 saw boys who were under this wearing the hats which are the badges ot cg matrimony girls are now married at thirteen and are often engaged at seven the custom ot of the country is such that widows cannot marry again and pretty widows are carefully watched and if there is i s anything forward or bad in their actions they are sometimes by the officials and held as concubines the new laws which are now proposed will take away this restriction and all marriages whether of maids or widows are to be left to the volition of the par ties concerned they also provide that there shall be no more buying and sell ing of human bein beings gsand and fathers will not be able to sell their daughters the customs of mourning are to be modified and other changes which tend to the leveling of the classes are to be enacted in the meantime there is a decided op position to all reform and a great many of the people think the country is going straight to ruin there is a woeful lack of confidence in the japanese and the pro chinese feeling is strong THE EAST COAST OP OF CORNA I 1 want to tell you something about the east coast of corea this is but little known and most travelers have confined their visits to the ports nearest china the peninsula is in the neighborhood of miles wide and in crossing it I 1 traveled northwest through the mountains and came out at broughton bay or the harbor of bensan this is a magnificent harbor and it is much coveted by the russians because it is opened all the year round their harbor on the pacific is that of on the lower edge of siberia which I 1 visited after leaving corea and of which I 1 will write ilmy in my next letter is frozen up for about six months of the year and the russians want a winter outlet to the sea they are watching bensan and the trans siberian railroad will probably have a branch running down to it the russian trading houses have agents at bensan and both the russian and the japanese ships stop there en route to siberia there is is alread already lu a thrifty japanese city there 1 of severah several thousand people and these are engaged in shipping and trading their houses are of wood with heavy tiled roofs and their town is clean and well kept the corean town is perhaps twice as large but it is a dirty settlement made up of little one story thatched huts the people are poor and shiftless and queer and they are like their kind all over corea THE OLD COREA CORBA the old corea will probably soon pass away and the curious things of which I 1 have written may become a matter of history the whole of the country is so strange that I 1 have only been able to partially describe it on this t trip across the country I 1 saw al all sorts of ot of queer customs our e eggs t remember we bo bought by the s stick tiann and ct iu corea eggs are stacked up like cordwood or rather kindling wood ten eggs are laid end to end and they are then wrapped about with straw so that they stand out straight and stiff and look more like a club than eggs in the stores these sticks of eggs are piled up crosswise and the price is about three cents a stick or about three tenths of a cent per egg chickens are peddled about in crates or baskets made of string and woodald woo wood dand and fish are often eaten raw I 1 saw many black hogs on the trip rip and these were usually tied by strings or ropes rodes of the size of clothes line which rah ran through holes in the tops of their ears the cattle we saw were very fine large animals but they are used almost entirely as beasts of burden they pull rude bullock carts and carry packs on heavy wooden saddles the saddles are badly made and they rub off the skin and my mf heart was sickened again and again by a bull as stately as any worshiped in india with two great raw spots as big as your hand on each side of his back A VISIT TO A DOG BUTCHER there are dogs all over corea they are of a snowy white variety and are always snarling and barking at foreigners the poorer classes sometimes eat dog meat as food and during the hot days I 1 was told that the flesh was a preventive against ague malaria and other sickness at this time thousands of dogs are killed so general pak told me all over corea in ordinary times only the poorest of the poor eat the flesh of dogs I 1 visited a dog butcher one day in the corean capital and watched him kill and dress one of the curs for the market he caught him ashe ran through the door of the house by throwing a slip noose about his neck the dog was rather a nice animal of about the size of an irish setter and his fur was as gray as that of the wolf he seemed to be aware of the danger and he tugged at the rope which soon tightened on his throat and then the bare armed butcher swung him off of his bis feet and whirled him about in the street at the end of the string till life was extinct he next laid the dog down on the ground and stabbed him as we stick a pig he then hung him on the wall of his hut and cut him up into dog steaks soup meats and roasts he asked me 9 f 1 I did not want a tenderloin and dished up a bowl from a pot of dog soup which was cooking outside his hut but and asked me to taste it it did not look at all appetizing and I 1 thanked him and left HOW CORRAN CORKAN WOMEN IRON CLOTHES among many queer corean customs there is none stranger than that of ironing there are no better dressed people in the world than the comeans Co reans they wear immaculate gowns and the prevailing custom is white the common dress of the men is made up of a long full cotton gown full white pantaloons and wadded white stockings these are as clean as the best work of a chinese laundry and alter they are washed in cold water and ironed w th a cold club the women do all the washing and ironing of the land they wrap the frament round a stick which is is laid on the floor and then one or two women squat down beside it and pound on the cloth with round smooth wooden clubs till every iber fiber has the polish and gloss of our best laundries this does not seem to hurt the cloth and the clothes have a wonderful whiteness it takes a long time to iron a garment and the rat tat tat of these clubs is to be heard all over corea you hear it morning noon and evening and at nearly all the hours of the night and it may be called the national song of corea or the corean song of the shirt the women tap tai out a tune as they play and the most of their time is taken up in washing 9 ironing i i and sewing QUEER COREAN ARTICLES all things in corea are strange to foreigners the thim thimbles blei used are of 0 cloth and paper beautifully embroidered there are no buttons nor pins and the garments are tied on with ribbons soap is sold in the form of a powder and the only matches are shavings tipped with sulphur these have to be put into the fire to light them and the flint is used to strike ight the markets of corea are full ot of strange things there are regular market days over the country and the dif different lerent towns of a district have markets in in rotation and the people for miles around come to buy and sell the markets of seoul are very good and all kinds of fish vegetables and meats are peddled led out by these queer people game is is aplenty and both the beef and venison are good the deop e are early risers and the best time to market in seoul is between band 6 a m two hours later the stands are all cleared away and you have to rely on the retail stores or little shops scattered all over the city the market scenes are interesting you vou see pompous swells in long gowns and high hats poor women by hundreds with green areen cloaks over their heads and boys aby y scores carrying all kinds of vegetables and wares there are servants in in livery liver y and coolies with hats bats as big as umbrellas there are bullock carts and porters merchants and slaves all pushing and fighting over the things they are buying the market is near the big south gate of the city and there are thousands here every market ma morning aning among the curious articles w which I 1 noted found a ready sale was corean g ginseng aaeng the root of which is good for or all kinds ot of diseases red pepper which was sold in paper parcels about the size of a cigarette for about one cent a apiece p bece and tobacco which was dried and ge peddled d d led out by bv the leaf the grain market was equally queer and the chicken and bird markets were full ol of interest COREAN MACHINERY here and there over the country I 1 saw rude machinery of one kind and another there were waters mills for the pounding out of rice and the crushing of grain along many of the streams the mills were all on the principle of the old seesaw or teeter board A long beam 0 wood was swung on a pivot and on on one end of this was a heavy hammer or mallet this tell fell into a mortar in in which the rice or grain was placed at the other end of the beam was a square box holding perhaps a barrel of water and this box hung right under a pipe which was ted led by the stream As soon as the box was lull full the water end of the beam sank down the water rushed out and the mallet which had been raised high in the air tell on the grain this is the patent roller process mill of corea I 1 saw other mills and those in seoul were like the ones of the scripture and were turned by band I 1 saw some millstones one on the top of ano another which were turned by mules which went about like a horse in a tannery the most of the millers in the capital were and they were by no means polite the brass works which made the cooking utensils for these comeans are of the rudest nature the furnaces are rude ovens of clay and little crucibles cruci bles about the size of a tin cup are used the brass is first cast and then polished by means of a lathe which the workman manipulate with his feet sitting in the end of a trench as he does so the brass shines like gold and it takes on a beautiful polish I 1 bought a dinner set and it cost MIF me 5 it consisted of about a dozen brass bowls from the size of a wash basin down to that of an egg cup the silversmiths work the same way and some of their work is very artistic in the past the comeans were in fact the greatest artists of the far east and japanese art is said to have had its birth in corea within the past half dozen centuries however the comeans have been going backward and tha japanese have greatly improved in every way over their corean instructors THE FUTURE OF COREA the indications now are that corea will steadily improve and fortunes will certain certainly lv oe be made by some of the foreigners who get in at the right time and who have the proper influence the asiatic market is one of the biggest in the world and corea has many natural resources which will command a ready sale all over the east the matter of of coal is a most important one the chinese have plenty but the most of their mines are in the interior and they are undeveloped the temper of the chinese is such that foreigners cannot get at them and today the chief coal merchants of the western pacific are the japanese they have mines of vast extent andin the western part of japan there are greit mines which have fifty miles of tunnels running right out into and under the sea these are at nagasaki and the mining must be very expensive the mines about Pin yang corea lie right on the surface and the coal can be dug out with a pick the river is at hand for carrying the coal to the sea and a great industry ought to spring up here the gold mines are I 1 am told fabulously rich I 1 was told there were great mines on the east coast and gold is to be found all over corea these mines will be 0 opened with the settlement ot of this war the railroad accessions will be extremely valuable and this country will surely form the outlet for the trans siberian road this is already begun at kladivo stock and is being built at different points between that point and europe A branch line running down through corea will bring it within a days sale of japan in addition to these things there are other valuable concessions and enterprises which will spring up the situ aaion is such that the king has to have money and he can get it only by bor rowing from outsiders he owes both china and japan large sums of money and a foreign loan ian is is an immediate and absolute necessity his majesty has no available assets outside ot of his bis mines and concessions and japan will insist upon an immediate settlement of his chinese obligations or that he be freed in some way entirely from china the result is that the country will be e explored and it will probably have a a boom A most interesting scientific expedition could now be organized to to so go through it and its geology its flora and its other natural resources will pay investigation vesti gation the king would undoubtedly permit it and the explorer would have some exciting tiger hunts and at the same time might get some valuable 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