Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-02-06
AMERICAN ASYLUMS
Our Twenty Posts in the
Troubled Orient.
NEAR STORM CEN TER
OUR LEGATION BUILDINGS ARE 4
DISGRACE.
The Coming Shake-Up of Eastern Con
sular Posts Not
Sinecures

Copyright, 1904, by John Elfreth Watkins, Jrl
Written for The Evening star
chain of twenty Yankee posts-consular
and diplomatic-is stretched about the
storm center of the orient. The two new
links, NIunkden and Antung. have not yet
been welded in and may not be until after
the rainbow of peace shall have arched
the far eastern sky. Ever since the first
riffs of war cloud peeped above Cathays
northern horizon men. women and children
with any manner of claim to American citi-
zenship or protection have lowered close
to these asylums. Within this score of
refugees there has been for weeks past an
unusual activity among men beset with
anxiety and apprehension, for the hideous
echo of the Boxer eruption yet rings about
the walls of legations and consuiates in the
far east All Mongolia has been a net
work of mines set to explode at the least
rub.
Seoul the Vortex
Seoul has been looked upon as the proba-
BILE storm center this fortnight past; and
from among It's tiled roofs the funnel cloud
has been expected to rise at almost any
moment. Horace n Allen. the United
States minister. who will guard our inter
estS against Korean outldwTy, must not
only be haunted day and night by spectral
asSassinS. but must he tightly boxed IN
in an unhealthy bungalow. 50 shallow as to
ceiling that he cannot elevate within doors
his full six feet two of manly stature
without missing his hair. sorry plight,
indeed. and one lately complained of in an
official ministerial note dispatched TO Wash
ingtOn.
A battalion of Yankee marines from the
ViCksburg. with the magazines OF their
Krag-JoTGenSens all loaded; with Colt au-
l. oil .I,V, 70
such grievances. But next is threatened
invasion of Methodist missionaries re-
called to Seoul by the directing episcOpacy
and intruSted to the ministerial care. More
over, Minister Allen must eschew the com
forts of a suburban home which he built
for himself. and at his own expense, after
struggling three months with the dread
malaria and barely escaping death. An
insanitary shack. this frail pile of mud and
tile. with low, damp chambers built upon
the ground Two ENJOYS of our glorious
republic have already succumbed to ma
larial diseases contracted within their very
bed rooms and an official of our foreign
office was lately stricken down by the same
gnawing fever after reposng but ten nights
within these walls, Nor are the hygiene
and the ceiling height of this sacred domi-
Gle the sum total of its deficiencies. Its
architecture is truly eccentric, for, like the
proverbial Irishman's shanty. 1t stands
rear side foremost, the kitchen being in
front. an embarrassing arrangement for
NAISilILttN envoy tNiI dbi tl!iidiN, WHO must
rub elbows with European diplomacy swag-
gering in gold lace and sneeringly hypo-
critical
Legation a Disgrace.
Our legation compound at Seoul, so lately
converted into a camp of marines is a
plot of over three acres. 1t adjoins the
grounds of the very imperial palace itself.
where Emperor Heui VI. fearing assassina-
ton by day. plies his sceptre between mid
night and dawn in the glare of the Ameri-
can electric light. The entire legation prop
erly belongs to our government, as does
that IN nearly all oriental countries. Its