The morning call., 1895-01-20

|
will soon come in, and the business meth
DDS of the Koreans will be changed. They
are the queerest business men of the world
and their shops and stores are like nothing
else on the face of the globe. spent many
| days in going through them last summer
and in chatting with the merchants. Ihey
are the gaudiest merchants on the planet.
| They keep their horsehair hats on when IN
! their stores, and instead of standing up
behind the counters, they squat cross
legged on the floor and smoke long pipes
while they talk to you about trade and
offer you goods. Often they squat outside
their stores, and both stores and merchants
are so unlike anything in America that 1t
! is hard to describe them. The stores are
| located on the three main business streets
of the city. These are dirt roads about as
wide as Pennsylvania avenue in Washing
| ton. They are lined with mud huts
matched with straw, to the front of which
there is often a framework or boothlike
awning, which juts out over the street, and
in which, on boards, are spread out the
goods they have for sale. Here and there
little tents have been built up in the
streets, and there are hundreds of big
| planked themselves down on the road,
with their goods spread out before them,
and who soberly smoke as they wait for
their customers. There are hundreds of
boys who part their hair in the middle.
and who look like girls in their long
gowns, going about peddling candy and
chestnuts. They have a kind of box
which is swung from their shoulders, and
which re SITS on their chests, and the candy
peddlers carry scissors and cut off their
long strings of taffy into such sticks as you
want These boys yell out that they have
taffy for sale. They are shrewd little fell
| lows, and they ply their business in all
parts of the city.
Seoul is, you know, city of 100000 peo-
pie, and it covers about three square miles.
Right in the center of the city there is a
point where the three business streets come
together, and at this point there is tenn
pie about as big as a good-siZed cowshed,
which hold the great bell, or town clock of
the capital. This bell rings the opening
and closing of the Korean day, and its knell
sounds the beginning and ending of the
days work and business. 1t is rung just at
dusk, and at this time the great gates of
the city are closed. The stores are sup
posed to shut up, and the men to go into
to take moonlight walks unmolested.
About this bell are the biggest business
establishments of Seoul. They are in large
one and two story buildings, which look a
good deal like granaries, and which are cut
up into little bits of closets opening out
upon halls. Each of these buildings is de-
voted to the selling of one kind of goods,
and the leading merchants who deal in
them have each one of these closets, and
they squat on cushions Just outside of them
ready to bring out their goods when their
customers come. Glass is hardly known in
Korea, and there are no windows, and the
closet is as dark as pocket.
There is no display of goods and you ask
for what you want and the merchant brings
it out. One of the buildings will have moth
ing but cottons, and there may be fifty
merchants each owning one of the closet
like stores within it. Another building
will contain nothing but silk and others
will be devoted to the selling of hats and
| paper The merchants of different classes
have guilds, and they fix the prices.
Every yard of silk and every sheet of
paper sold in Seoul has to pass through
the guild and pay its taxes before it
can be sold There are six great guilds,
and each of these guilds pays a good
round sum to the Government for the
controlling of it's branch of trades If re-
tail dealer is found with a piece of goods
which does not bear the stamp of the guild
the guild can fine and punish him without
reference to any other tribunal, and all of
the petty traders throughout Seoul have
to buy through the guilds. The six great
est guilds are those which control the trade
in Chinese silk, cotton goods, hemp cloth,
grass cloth, Korean silk and paper, and it
will be surprising to know that the whole
of Korea is divided up into unions, and
that the porters have their trade unions,
and there are peddlers' unions and all
sorts of working organizations.
The average Korean store is not much
bigger than a dry-goods box, and about
this great bell there are courts surrounded
bv such stores which open out on ledge
or porch about three feet wide, upon which
the merchants sit. A merchant could
hardly turn around in one of these stores,
and if you would take piano packing-box
and Line it with shelves and run a board
along in front of it about two feet from the
ground you would have Korean store.
The chief business is in cloth, as the Ko-
reans probably spend more on clothes in
proportion to their income than any other
people in the world, and the cotton trade
is big one. The common people all wear
cotton, and was told that they like the
American goods much better than the
English, for the reason that they are bet
ter made, and that they are of finer ma
terial. The Korean silk is fairly good, and
they use a good deal of Chinese silk.
remember one furstore which visited. 1t
was not more than five feet square, but it
was full of costly fur garments, which the
richer of these people wear in the winter.
Among the curious articles which it had
for sale were frameworks of wicker, which
these people wear during the summer in
side their garments to keep them away
from their persons and allow thorough
circulation of the air. There were wicker
shirts and wicker cuffs and wicker frames
which fit out over the stomach all so light
that the weight of them would be imper-
ceptible and as fine in their workmanship