The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-23

i that the gods, looking down from the l skies, seeing them swimming to and fro
 through the streets, would say: "These 1 people need no rain, for their city is swimming in water"
 somewhat similar feeling prevailed as to the magic in the telephone and 1 telegraph systems. Many of the Corean i women, knowing that speech went over
 the wires, thought the poles must con-
 tain spirits and that the sound buzzing
 on the wires was their voices. Indeed
 some said their prayers to the telephone
 poles at the time.
 Chln-Go-kai.
 Have you ever heard of Chin Kai?
 It Is a section of Seoul which contains
 20,OOO Japanese people. It has big official
 buildings, many two-story houses and
 long streets of stores, which would be
 credit to Tokio. Some of the stores
 have plate glass windows, and nearly all
 carry large stocks of goods. Here every
 thing is clean. The roadways are swept,
 and most of them are smooth as
 floor. There are banks brick school
 buildings a postoffice and all sorts of
 business establishments.
 At one side of this section is a great
 frame office structure devoted to the res
 ident general, who governs Corea with
 the Emperor as the nominal head; end
 back of it is the home of this high off
 cial, with thousand acres or more of
 Nam-San mountain about it. The old
 mountain had lain there a wilderness for thousands of years. It has seen the wall built more than 300 years ago, and had watched the generations rise and fall from then until now. It remained for the Japanese to make it a beautiful park They have cut roads through the pines
 and have built many pavilions, until now
 1t is one of natures most beautiful gar dens.
 Iad laa ! garden party given there by the resi-
 dent general the other day. More than
 2000 of the high-class Coreans and Japan
 csc officials were present
 His excellency received us out in the open, and there were lunchrooms and tea houses throughout the grounds whose walters were beautiful Japanese maidens. At the close we had dinner in a great | tent, covering tables sufficient to seat | the 2000 guests, and the Japanese military
 band sang a song composed by Viscount | Some in honor of the occasion.
 Mud vs. Brick.
 | Twenty-Five years ago there was not
 brick in Corea. The houses were all 1 made of mud, of wood or of stones piled
 up one on top of the other and covered with roofs of heavy black tiles, or straw 1 thatch, held down with straw ropes. 1 When I visited the city 20 years ago, out l side the homes of the missionaries and | the palaces or the King there was not | a two-story structure to be seen any
 where. The place contained two or three l hundred thousand people, the most of l whom lived in mud huts with roofs of | straw thatch. The huts were all made
 in the shape of horseshoe, with quar- ters at the back for the women. There 1 were larger houses roofed with tiles | which formed the homes of the nobles | and these were shut off from the streets | by low stable-like structures, in which 1 the servants and retainers were quar- | tered The houses were all heated by | fues which ran under the floors and 1 emptied their smoke into the streets , through openings cut at about the height l of ones waist from the ground. At | meal times, and more especially morn | ings and evenings. these holes poured | forth volumes, making one think of a | great forest fire. The air was so thick 1 that one could almost cut it and the 1 passerby had to cough.
 l Today Seoul has thousands of similar l houses. Of the two hundred thousand l and odd which make up the native popu- | lation 99 per cent live in such quarters 1 out into the open ditches which have 1 been cut through the streets The Japan | csc have covered some of these ditches | and they are now putting in drains | As to the buildings a new class of structure is rapidly rising and the people l stand and gaze at them in open -mouthed | wonder The Young Mems Christian as- I sociation has just completed a brick home 1 of two stories, which Is heated by steam ! It is wonder of wonders to the avera ge \ Corean, who cannot tell whence comes the heat
 \ The bricks for that building are being