Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-07-16

mako nearly everything for themselves There arc 0 few native manufactures, chiefly of cotton goods, mating. matches and very coarse and clumsy handmade wooden implements.
 The government has recently had l, ,000,- 900 mulberry trees planted and has em- ployed Chinese and other experts to look after them and induce the people to i'm prove in the production and management of silk. But, adds the consul, the Koreans arc wretchedly indolent and contented to O discouraging degree. Three dollars per month is the largest income one of them desires, and having secured that he has no further ambition. The country is hilly, and the roads are so bad that transporta- tion doubles or trcblcs the value even of the smallest article in the passage from one province to another. To all this was added a huctuating currency, Mexican dollars and the native money varying as much as S6 per cont between different places or even in the same place at differ ent times. At length Mexican dollars were counterfeited so extensively that the mer chants refused them altogether, and tho Japanese yen has become the standard money. The general summary ofS he con sular reports for the last few years makes rather melancholy reading. What with smuggling on the northwest coast, Tartar robbers on the north, bad roads, indolcnt people, cholera and n fiuctunting currency there would seem to be moro variety than profit in n Korean existence.
 Food and Medicine
 Tho missionaries also tell a rather com plicatcd tale of their experiences. It ap- pears that no intelligent observer has travelled extensively in the interior, but 1t is known that most of the country is com plctely dcnudcd of timber, and the hill- sides arc cleared afrcsh every year by tho people who are hard put to it for fuel They cut down every bush and even tho large weeds and grass and twist them together for their fires in the same way that the Mcnnonites of Dakota and Mani toba manufacturr fuel by twisting the prairie grass. Their houses arc huts of mud and stone built over n sort of furnace, tho top of which is the floor of the dwell ing. In winter time they keep this fur mace so hot with their light and chaffy fuel (for some one Is kept on watch to feed the fire night and day) that the average missionary Is almost suffocatcd in one of their dwellings, and on rcturning to the open mir Is liable to contract a deadly cold. Apparently it does not affect u native. They have abundance of food. consisting chiefly of rice and millet, but it Is cooked with enormous quantities of garlic and pepper and thickcned with kind of
 
 suFed Is tsh or mutton, but which he often suspects to be dog. It is impussfSSS. the preachers add, to induce their most jealous converts to usC western cunvcniCncCs in making or rcpairing their clothes, and the practice of medicine Is of n naturc to mako one shuddcr merely in rcading about 1t.
 To euro any local swelling or irritation redhot needles arc dipped into n native q
 gardlcss of the locality of tho trouble. For levers the head Is shaved and the top thereof burned with n hot iron. When things get to tho worst, a brother or sis ter of tho patient sometimes consents to have Q finger cut of, which is burned to a crisp and powdered for the sick man to swallow. Various reptiles are prepared in this way for medicine. The missionary who sends this information and n great deal moro that Is much moro disgusting adds as a kind of saving clause that in the mountains of Korea, especially in the north, thcre Is q wonderful variety of game, much of 1t of great valuo for fur and all of 1t for sport in hunting. Even in the lowlands tigers, leopards, bcars, wolves, foxes and deer are occasionally seen, while phcasants, geese, ducks and teal are very numerous. He thinks the greatest wealth of the country will even tually be found in the fish along the north cast coast, where all the edible species are very abundant So far as can be learned, the people were originally idolatcrs, but have by slow degrees adopted Buddhism and to a slight extent Confucianism, but there Is no very strong religious instinct, and he thinks that the Roman Catholics were pcrsccutcI simply because they wcrC foreigners and their native converts fui associating with fop,igncrs.
 China's Claim.
 In conclusion the committee on foreign affairs says that our treaty with korca, concluded May 22, 1889. contains mcruly tho usual and formal agreement that in case of trouble with any third nation | each nation shall employ its good offices in behalf of the other, and we stand ready | to do that if called upon. It Is believed, | however, that tho claim of China to suzc | rainty has SO little support that 1t will not be insisted upon, and thnt Japan will | be allowed to pursue her policy in Korea | without danger of breaking the now uni | versal peace Of tho world. It is of some | incidental interest that korcn has cstab | lished n somewhat elaborate tnriff. nll tho | duties being nd valorcm. the highest only | 20 per cent and very fow over 10. In oul | trcaty with her 1t Is specially stipulated | that no merchants trading thcrc shall | serve ns consuls. Taking 1t all in all, oui | statesmen arc of opinion that thcrc is mol | much to cOnccrn ourselves about in tha
 part of the world beyond the general In
 tcrcst which intelligent men take in qucci | and out of the way people.
 J. B. PARKE.