Corea.

Manawatu Herald, 2 August 1894, Page 3

Corea.

A little more about Corea is now to hand, having been published in June in the Pall Mall Gatette. The writer amongst many things says : — Few English travellers have travelled in Corea, and that for a reason at once simple and recondite. As there is no system of tiansporfc, you nave to employ porters to carry your baggage. As there is no system of credit, you have to carry with you enough money to pay your porters each evening at the rate of a dollar a day. Now, the only coinage in Corea consists of copper discs, called cash, and a dollar's worth of these is just as much as an able bodied Corean can carry. Consequently the traveller stews in his own juice, so to speak. He can take with him no luggage, only just as much money as each man can carry. This not only renders porters a superfluous extravagance, but makes it impossible to travel more than half a day's journey from any point. Tbe climate is fairly intemperate. However, it is good enough to grow rice, wheat, millet, rye, tobacco, ootton, hemp and genseng in. It would also grow potatoes but for the faot that this vice is strictly prohibited by Government — whether as tending to the preservation of life in times of famine or simply as impious, we cannot say. You would have thought that potatoes were at least not unholier than genseng. Corea is rich in minerals; gold, silver, copper and coal are all common. The Government shows itself thoroughly alive to this fact ; gold miuing is etriotly prohibited, the permission to work silver mines has been revoked, the copper mines are neglected, and the use of coal is con fin 3d to a few districts. There are a good many cattle, horses, dogs, |Tg8 H sheep, and goats. The sheep arid goats are a royal monopoly, and "*are only used for sacrifice ; the people eat the dogs. The religion is Confucian, relieved - with a firm trust in devils and great veneration of snakes. Women, we read with despair, hold a low position in Corean estimation, and count for little in sight of the law. As, however, they are not held personally responsible for any of their actions, they presumably miss the favouring eye of the law less than most. Polygamy is held in abhorrence, but conoubinage is a social duty. The principal moral virtue of the Corean is that he loves his children so dearly that he neither slays nor exposes them. In return, if a son meets his father in the street he makes obeisance, and if his father is imprisoned it ia a sacved duty to hang the whole time about the prison door. Thus to have one's father imprisoned for life must be a severe disability in Corea to a young man who has to make his way by his own exertions. There is no division of labour to speak of. Each peasant makes everything he wants. Paper is the one manufacture. The national shoe is made of straw, with an aperture for the great toe to peep out of. The national hat is so made of bamboo and hair clothes so as to let in the rain in winter and the sun in summer. The upper classes always wear overcoats ; the poor only do so by way of evening dress.