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Show Qualities of Typical Korean. ! The two chief qualities of the t pl. ;j Korea are laziness and superstition ,r 1, far as the male sex i concerned. Th. n,. 7 almot-t all the work. The men lie about il. n!(.', smoking their pipes, and that mean- m, sounds, for a native pipe consists of a of bamboo, with a larg.' metal -bowl. An,. K, who professes to be a gentleman will nrvT. n,,.j, 1 any circumstances, do anything himself i'. can possibly have done for him. It' ;, K,, nobleman walks abroad a man walks on n),.-v and supports him by .lacing a hand uiid-r arm. If he rides a servant leads his her-.- If j ' smokes someone mu-t light his pipe f.r j'.-hq j'.-hq plays a game of chess a servant mut m.,;,. moves which he indicates. During the first moon of every new y..;i;. ,;( Koreans throw off temporarily their Iaziin--. f,,,. during that period it is permitted by ia-.v everyone and anyone may lighf in the puhlb- ,:-,, :, or anywhere else, and opportunity is talo n -j, license to settle all manner of quarrels wli.'n !h;,v have been seething for a twelvemonth. The j itor who cant collect his bill waylay- hi- .!.!,,.,. and takes it out of his hide: family -quabil.-s fought in the public view, and for foiirt- .n .ia,-. - a general pandemonium reigns. Seoul, the capital, is a dirty, tlat town. rounded by twenty-foot walls. There, js ii t , . . Korean cities, under the old law, a great b,H j. t ii: - -V at sunset and all the gates in the city wall vvl closed, to remain loeked until morning, and n..t -., be opened under any conditions, save one. It immemorial custom that all funerals .-hall t;,:v, place at night, and for their passage beyond ti,.-city ti,.-city walls there is a special exit called the -C;.-, of the Dead.'' Another ancient native rule is that after ;. set no male shall go abroad in the streets of the o i . . . From sunset to sunrise the. streets are sue red t., the use of the women, who go about paying vi-iu . and making calls on their friend.-. I'ntil the foreign for-eign influence became strong in Seoul it wa- tin-law tin-law that any man or boy caught on the street, at'ier sunset should be beheaded, but that has now been done away with. Most of the houses in Seoul have mud wall-. Tn winter they are heated bv a system of riuv underneath un-derneath the stone floors, which are covered v. i'h mats. American influence has always been extremely strong in Korea. For years .General Greathouse ,( California was the trusted adviser of the king. .1. Sloat Fassett of Xew York and Leigh Hunt of Seattle, "Wash., secured several years ago a concession con-cession from the emperor which gave them absolute abso-lute control of a territory as large as Khode I.-land and full of gold. They have, erected several modem mod-em stamping mills, and two years ago they em- v ployed sixty expert American miners and iimiv than 4,000 native Koreans, who receive wag'-s of 25 cents a day and are glad to get ir. The railroad rail-road from the seaport of Chemulpo, twenty mil.? back to Seoul, the capital, was built by the" American Amer-ican firm of Collbran 6c Eostwick, the concession for the building having been secured by James 11. Morse of Xew York. Just before the road was openea u was son to the Japanese, who have since been operating it. , Messrs. Collbran dc Bostwick haw sine- buih an electric trolley line in Scoui, and. the Koreans being so lazy, the patronage has been extremely large. Seoul is also Jit with electric lights, md the 1 electric light and power plant there is .said to be k quite the largest in all Asia. Other American have V large business interests in Korea. |