WOMEN WHO ARE 'NAMELESS.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 March 1924, Page 4

WOMEN WHO ARE 'NAMELESS.

STRANGE KOREAN CUSTOM. .>

LONDON, Feh. v. (“Wandering in China” is just-sucii ajolly book as might have been expected from,-Alii Harry A. Franck, whose. “Vagabond” travel stories of South America aro so much enjoyed. In Korea, where lie' started forNorthern China, “tho ways of life, the, very architecture, were strangely -reminiscent of lands inhabited by Negroes.” A Korean woman is not- given a flame until she lias borne a son. Before that, apparently, die answers to some such kindly-summons ns would bo equivalent to our' Hi! You! Koreans of the masses never seem to- sleep, or to eat, . all at once. The children have- no fixed hours of going to bed, nor beds to go to for that matter,, so they grow up-able to doze off anywhere at any’ time. Less than two decades ago .no Korean woman of the better class, appeared on the streets even of Seoul 'in. the daytime. After ten 1 at night no men were expected to he abroad,, for then the woman, usually in '.sedijai chairs, with lijntern-bearers and followers, came but to pay their calls.

Chang Tso-lin, the - War Lord of, Manchuria, keeps tffe keys to the legirons of (‘serious” criminals in his own possession, “so that they could not buy off in the time-honoured Chinese' fashion.” .Afen are executediy. )>>' - the score together. ' As .condemned men/-roVr , the bridge to the exeCuticni.-grnu.id at (Mukden , they are- politely’ asked '.vljethcr thty, ■wish W.takb morphine, t The rifle bfjrrel- fs placed behind the,ear of each victim in prompt succession, the, other kneeling men' gazing up, the line to see when their turn is coming, sometimes . .even laughing at a bad .shptt: y The foreign coiK-essiqns;, as at Tientsin, swarm with Chinese crooks who have retired, gorged with loot, from official posts,. ‘-‘Magnificent es'tablislinieiits” -'arc- maintained by such rogues in these safety, tones created by ior•cign jurisdiction-. • . Yet the gaunt human horses toil past thoiu tugging at .heavy carts get. barely tU'eents (3d), a day-in our monciy, which they wolf in scanty, unwholesome .food, copper by-copper, as fast ,a.s fh-nr tally-sticks amount to. one.

In Holy Urg i “every first son .d>e-' comet a lama.” Air Franck r ?hdiets these priests as filthy and slothful—“notorious libertine's, moralless .; pan-, Meters.’.' ' ‘ • The higher ranks are ill theory celibates, but no.such rule, actually-,cramps their personal desires, and the; '“Living Buddha” himself has led anything but a life of lonely bachelorhood.. Big black man-eating dogs “dot the landscape everywhere ill and about Urga.” Urga is full of stories of the inability of i.heso ugly beasts to await the natural end of their predestined victims. A man making his way late at night across the noisome marketplace outside our wondows had been dragged down and eaten during the past winter. A Buriat woman was pulled off her horse and devoured one; cold winter day before those looking on could come to her rescue. The Emperor of China lias chosen to be called “Henry,” and “bis English speech is described as slow but correct, with a strong British accent.”