Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/57

in the middle of the thoroughfare; their use for vile purposes is not so much in evidence as was the case before any of the natives had even a glimmering sense of decency about such matters. In spite of the increased business activity of the city there is not to-day quite the same stream of white-robed saunterers, stately in gait but low in character, to give a semi-holiday aspect to the "Broadways" of Seoul; for electric cars transport the multitudes back and forth in several directions. Besides, there is the neat, attractive Japanese quarter. Here, according to my observation, the Koreans themselves were doing more sight-seeing and more trading than in their own quarters; for here the cheaper products of the new and hitherto unknown world are skilfully displayed. But otherwise and elsewhere in the city, the same unsanitary conditions and indecent habits, in all respects, prevail. The narrow, winding alleys are flanked with shallow, open ditches, that are not only the drains and sewers but the latrines of the dwellers in the low earth-walled houses on either side. Cowardly and lean dogs, naked children, and rows of men squatting and sucking their long pipes or lying flat upon the ground, crowd and obstruct these alleys. And from them the wide-spreading Korean roofs cut off the purifying and enlivening sunlight. Many of the most wretched and unsanitary of these hovels squat under the shadow of the stately city wall. May its stones sometime be used to build a better and healthier city!

There are, however, yet more notable changes and improvements than those already accomplished, which seem destined surely and speedily to follow. A water-supply, for which the surveys and contracts have already been completed and for which, during our visit, the pipes were beginning to be laid, will not only diminish the dangers that lurk in the cans of the professional water-carriers and in the private wells, but will assist the summer rains in their formidable