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KKW KOREAN
(Copyright, 1909, by Frank O. Carpenter.)
EOUI-, Korea, 1909. (Special Cor-
S respondont of The Bee.) I want
I to tell you what the Japanese
are doing in Korea. They nave
taken the hermit kingdom by
the nerk. and are shaking it
dry bone Into action. They are establish
ing courta, abolishing iqjeeilng and reor
ganizing the finances. They propose to
build roads, to reforest the mountains to
open the mines and to turn this half-barren
country Into a gnrden. All these things"
are in their beginnings, but a start hng
been made and signs of prort;ss are every
where to be aeen.
The IVeir Vttr ot Seonl.
The capital, Seoul, Is fast becoming a new
city. When I came hero twenty years ago
the trip from the seaport, Chempulo, took
over twelve hours, and I had to have a
pony and eight men to bring myself and
wife to the walls. I redo the pony and the
mad-ime came In a chair, borne on tho
shoulders of four coolies, with a relay of
four others to help them. Toward the end
of the Journey we had to push on for fear
we might not get to Seoul before the gates
closed. The city la surrounded by a mas
sive wall nine miles In length and thirty
feet high. At that time this wall was en
tered only by gates, and these were closed
at night by heavy doors plated with Iron,
which were not opened again until the
next day. We got In Jjst In time to see the
gates close. There was no hotel, and we
bad to be met by the soldiers of our lega
tion, a.nd were quartered there during our
tay.
The city still has lta walls, but the gates
now stand open day and night, and an
electrlo street car line runs through two
of them and on out Into the country. An
electrlo light globe prevents the closing of
one which we entered, and another gate
has proved too small to accommodate the
traffic and has been cut put by the Jap
anese, wide roads being made through tho
walla on each side. The gate Itself, which
Is a temple-like structure with a doublo
roof of heavy tiles, has been faced with
atone; and it is now proposed to put a
commercial museum In the soldiers' guard
room above It. In that old gate all the In
dustries of the naw Corea will be shown
side by side with those of other nations,
ami the people will thus be taught the va
rious methods of manufacture and sale.
Signal Flrraiitalnst Electricity.
As we came Into Seoul that night we
could see the Blgnal fires blazing on the
mountains which surround the" city, and
were told that they were the last of the
long series of watch fires built upon the
hills of the other parts of Korea to notify
the king that the country was quiet and
all was at peace. Today there are watch
fires no longer, but in their place Korea
has Its wireless telegraph stations and the
capital is covered with telephone wires.
One of the oldest buildings of the palace,
In which the emperor now lives, has been
turned Into a telephone booth, and Japan
ese hello girls sit there and take messages
from all parts of the city. There are tele
graph wires to every large village, with
more than 1,000 miles of line open, and
cables across to Japan.
Electrlo LlBhtTTd Street Cars.
The old Seoul was pitch dark at night
The law were that the ordinary man
should not go about after dark, only offi
cials and foreigners and their servants
being permitted to do so. Women were
never seen on the streets in the daytime
and the night was supposed to be their
time for calling. When we went out we
took the keso of the legation to carry our
lantern, and this consisted of a framework,
holding a candle with a red. white and
blue gauze cloth thrown over It. The Seoul
of today Is fairly well lighted. Many of
the stores keep open during the evening
and most of the houses have an oil lamp
or an electric tight globe at their front
gate. Looking down the wide main streets
of the oily makes one think of one of the
larger towns of our country, for the lights
alone are to be seen, and the low one
story buildings are lost In the darkness.
Seoul has now an electric car line run by
Americans. It was put In long before the
Japanese took hold of the government, and
about half of the stock belongs to the re
tired emperor, who has refused to sell out
to the Japanese capitalists. The Koreans
are now patronizing the road. At first
they said It was magic, and a mob de
stroyed some of the cars. Their theory
was that the line would prevent the spirits
giving them tain. They said the car were
boats, and that the gods, looking down
from the skies, seeing them swimming to
and fro through the streets, would say:
"These people need no rain, for their city
is swimming In water."
A somewhat similar feeling prevailed as
to the magic In the telephone and telegraph
systems. Many of the Korean women,
knowing that speech went over the wires,
thought the poles must contain spirits ami
that the sound buzzing on the wires was
their voices Indeed, some said their pray
er to the telephone poles at the time.
rhlai-ti-Kal.
Have you ever heard of Chln-Qo-Kal?
It is a section of S oul which contains
10,000 Jspanese people. It has big official
buildings, many two-story houses and long
streets of stores, w hich would be a' credit
to Toklo. 8onie of the stores have plate
glass windows, and nearly all carry Urge
stocks of goods. Here Everything is clean.
The roadways are swept, and most uf them
are as smooth as a floor. The'e are banks,
brick school buildings, a postofflce and ail
sorts of business establishments.
At one side of tht s ct'on is a g eat
frame office structure devoted to the resi
dent general, who governs Korea, with the
emperor a the nominal bead, and back of
It is the home of this high official, with a
thousand acre or more of Nam-8an inoun
Uiu xLoin It. The oU mountain bad lain
Are Taking Place
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SUPREME COURT BUILDING.
there a wilderness for thousands of years.
It had seen the wall built more than 500
years ago. and had watched the generations
rise and fall from then until now. It re
mained for the Japanese to make It a
beautiful park. They have cut road
through the pines and have built many
pavilions, until now It Is one of nature'
most beautiful gardens.
I had the good fortune to be Invited to a
garden party given there by the resident
general the other day. Mere than 2.000 of
the high class Koreans and Japanese offi
cials were present. His excellency received
us out in the open, and there were lunch
rooms and tea houses throughout the
grounds whose waiters were beautiful
Japanese maidens. At the close we had
dinner In a great tent, covering tables suf
ficient to seat the 2.000 guests, and the
Japanese military band sang a song com
posed by Viscount Sone In honor of the
occasion.
Mod. v, Brick.
Twenty-five years ago there was not a
brick In Korea. The houses were all made
of mud, of wood or of stones piled up one
on Up of the other and covered with roofs
of heavy black tiles, or straw thatch, held
down with straw ropes. When I vljlted
Developments
Honaecleanlus; hy Electricity.
VEN the time-honored methods
of sweeping and dusting have
been vanquished and banished
by electricity and In a few years
m re, so they predict, the house
wife, clad in apron and dust-
cap and carrying broom and dustpan will
exist in pictures only.
No longer Is It necessary to sprinkle
down the floors before sweeping so that a
larger percentage of the dust can be kept
In the dirt heap and not go flying about
the house to settle on the furniture, pict
ures and woodwork. Nor do the ma'e mem
bers of the family fear to return home m
the evening lest they have to take the
rugs out and beat them. The sweeping
and dusting can now be done by electricity,
eliminating most of the 'work, nearly all
the dust and a large amount ot the trouble.
It would make almost any housewife
angry to tell her the house wasn't clean.
She would be Inillgnant might even
threaten you with her broom which Is said
to be such a handy weapon for domestic
defense as well as offense. And yet It has
been fully demonstrated that no woman
can clean a house with mop, brodm and
dustcloth bait as well as electricity can
do It. For the electric cleaner sweeps and
dust with the aid of a vacuum, produced
by a small motor-driven centrifugal fan,
Which sucks up every particle of dirt and
dust. , Take the room that ha been pol
ished until It fairly glistens and go over
it with the vacuum cleaner and you will
get twice as much dirt as the housewife
did. Out of the cracks, crevices and cor
ners she missed, the electric house cleaner
will suck up whole handful of dirt The
urface of the carpets, rugs and draperies
look clean, but the vacuum cleaner will
uck the dust and dirt from beneath the
rugs, cleaning .the very fabric of the ma
terial. You can beat carpets and rjgs all
day and still they will not be clean,
What the housewife really does la to
chase the dirt from the floor to the furni
ture and back again. Clean, to the house
wife, means that there is not dust and dirt
enough left after she gets through to alter
her standard of what she designates dS
"clean." The most destructive element In
the home is the continual wear and tear
of trying to keep things clean.
The electric house cleaner operates on the
centrifugal power exhaust principle. It cre
ates a very strong suction or "draw." The
machine is compact and can be easily re
moved from room lu room or from floor
to floor. A small but powerful General
Electrlo motor, drive the centrifugal fan
which supplies the vacuum. This motor
can be attached to the electric lighting
socket, In place of a lamp, by a long flexi
ble cord. The metal parts of the device
are entirely ot aluminum, which makes It
light snd portable.
At the bottom and front of the machine
is a rotary brush which revolves rapidly,
driven by belt from the motor. As the
machine Is moved over the surface to be
cleaned the brush loosens all the clinging
dirt and a strong current of air worklnj
up around this brush sucks up all the
dirt and dust thai Is In or under the car
pet, depositing all accumulations In the
collector. In addition to this method there
are hose connections, so that every nook
and cranny can be cleaned. This hose is
equipped with a tool which sucks up the
dual and dirt from rugs, curta.ns, mould
ing and everything about the house. The
dirt sucked up in Uils way Is deposited In
the accumulator, wnlch is e-aally detacha
ble. The main point about sweeping with
electric power with the vacuum cleaner Is
that there Is no flying dust.
The electric cleaner reaches every crack,
corner and crevice of the room; the cracks
in the alls, the celling 4 and moulding
and all that dust which shows when you
draw your fingers across the waiipaper or
woodwork. It remove the dust lrum pic
ture frames, ( statuary, bric-a-brac; It
cleans carpets, upholstery, curtains, tapes
tries, shades and blinds, without remov
ing them from their fixings. It cleans and
-renovates bedding, comforters, blankets,
mattressua and pillows; the cracks and
crevices in wooden or iron beds and even
reach and cleans' such Inaccessible place
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the city twenty year ago outside the
homes of the missionaries and the palaces
of the king there was not a two-story
structure to be seen anywhere. The place
contained 200,000 or 800,000 people, the most
of whom lived In mud huts with roofs of
straw thatch. The 'huts wre all made In
the shape of 1, horseshoe with quarters at
the back for the women. There were larger
houses roofed with tile which formed tho
home of the n&bles, and these were shut
off from tho street by low stable like
structures, in which the servants and re
tainers were quartered. The houses were
all heated by flues which ran under the
floorc and emptied their smoke into the
streets through openings cut at about the
height of one' waist from the ground. At
meal times, and more especially mornings
and evenings, these holes poured forth
volumes, making one think of a irreat
forest fire. The air was so thick th;vt one
could almost cut it and the passerby bad
to cough.
Today Seoul has thousands of slmllni
houses. Of the 200.000 and odd which make
up the native population 99 per cent live
In such quarters. They have no seweri
and the slop run out Into open ditchci
which have been cut through thi streets
in the Ever Widening- Field of Electrical
as trunks, linen closets, desks, tiles, pigeon
holes, radiators and registers.
Electrlo Lighting Industry.
During the last six months 195 new
electrlo lighting companies have been
formed In the United States and twenty In
Canada and Mexico. The present total for
the United States Is 6,264 companies and
6,740 including Canada, Mexico and the
West Indies. These figures show a total
gain of 276 plants for the corresponding
figures of a year ago.
Of the total 6,740 plants included, no
fewer then 3,193 carry electrical supplies,
which Implies the handling In the aggre
gate a very large quantity ot electrical ma
terial. As many as 4.1&4 of the plants have
alternating current while apparently 1,669
are direct The spread cf alternating
methods Is shown to be astonishing. Of
the plants enumerated, 126 report them
selves as pure transmissions, while 694
others are either lighting and transmission,
or else Include railway work as well.
Illinois has, still the largest number ot
plants, C98, though outside of Chicago few
of them are of considerable magnitude.
New York has 368 and Pennsylvania 3t!,
the lant state gaining fourteen In six
months, which is rather remarkable for so
settled a commonwealth. Ohio has 183,
Michigan 263, and Texas the large number
of surpassing Indiana with 213 and
Iowa with 207. Oklahoma has already 76
Gossip and
Lew Wallace and Abdnl Hamld.
HEX General Lew Wallace was
W a rl appointed minister to Turkey in
I 1M1. relates the Indianapolis
. L rr r. , lie VY txo iuuunaic ciiuueit
to make a good impression on
Abdul Hamld and to win his
personal friendship. The latter was no
great honor, but as a mere matter of busi
ness it was good diplomacy on General
Wallace's part. At his first Interview with
the sultan, when he presented his creden
tial as minister. General Wallace sur
prised his imperial majesty and other of
ficials present by shaking hands with him.
The proposition wua unheard of and almost
Inconceivable. The Turks do not shake
hands even with one another, and for a
Christian, even though an accredited min
ister, to propose Uktng his majesty's sa
cred hand In his own was a startling In
cident. But the Interpreter (Mr. Garglulo,
who Is still attached to the American em
bassy in Constantinople) conveyed the wish
and it was granted, putting Wallace on an
unusual tooting with the sultan.
Iater on the sultan gave several evi
dences of his liking for General Wallace
In December, W1, he conferred on the
general the first-class of the Order of Im
perial Medjledla. The general was obliged
to decline the order, but In return sent
the saltan a handsomely bound copy of
"Ben llur," with a laudatory Inscription.
When the sultan found, after tho elec
tion of Mr. Cleveland, In 14. that there
would probably be a change of, ministers,
he offered to write to the president-elect
asking that General Wallace be retained,
but the latter gave him to understand that
would not do. He then Invited Wallace
to remain In Turkey and take service un
der thai government, adding: "I will make
you ambassador to Paris or London.',' Thl
offer also the general declined with thanks.
After General Wullace received his recall
as minister the sultan again offered him
the imperial decoration of the Medjiedle,
and, being no longer in office, the general
accepted It. He also gave the general a
costly souvenir ot gold - and diamonds.
Finally, after his return to the United
Slates, the general, In 1S90, received
through the Turkish minister at Wash
ington, an offer from the su'.tan ot a high
salaried position In the palace or in the
arsenal, at bis option. This offer also was
declined, on the ground that the general
was growing old and Intended devoting the
rest of his life to literary work.
Talents sf Marlon Crawford.
Mr. Crawford as a young man was the
ovy of most of bis circle ot intimate
THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE: MAY 23.
in Seoul
KOREAN CABINET MINISTERS.
The Japanese have covered some of these
ditches and they are now putting in drains.
As to the buildings, a new class of struc
ture I rapidly rising and the people stand
and gaze at them In open-mouthed wonder.
The Young Men's Christian association ha
Just completed a brick horns of two stories,
which is heated by steam. It la a wonder
of wenders to the average Korean, who
cannot tell whence come the heat.
The bricks for that building are being
made outside the city. Yards have been
there constructed, which are now turning
out bricks by the millions. The clay Is
excellent and a large part of the new Sooul
will be built ot these bricks. There are
other brickyards at Yong San, the military
city on the edgo of Seoul, and there U no
lack of fine building material.
The New Government Dnlldlnsn.
Among the large buildings are many
which are going up for the government.
These are nominally Korean, but are really
Japanese. The cabinet minister act as
the nominal advisers" to the emperor, but
under them are Japanese vice ministers
who really control and whose clerk are
almost all Japanese.
Not far from where I am living In the
foreign section of Seoul is the new finance
department. This Is a fine two-story brick
and New Mexico 16. The largest gain In
the half-year is In New York, with 17,
which compares with the 14 in Pennsyl
vania, and would Indicate that to the new
comer, public service commissions may not
be so terrible after all. As a matter of
fact, the gains are distributed all over the
country, few states being without some
new enterprise of this kind reported.
A Trackless Trolley.
At Fberswalde, Germany, In 1901; there
was an experimental trackless trolley sys
tem installed by a Berlin engineer, but
after being in operation a little more than
five months It was withdrawn. There la
a trackless trolley line In operation be
tween Plotzlelnsdorf and Snlmannsdorf.
suburbs of Vienna, about 1.37 miles In
length. It passes through an unusually
small and narrow street with many sharp
turns, broken by steep grades and sudden
declines. It Is necessary for the omni
buses along the route to climb many
long stretches having a grade of V to 10.
This Is a double line, arranged so that
the cars going back and forth can pass
each other without interruptl'm. From sta
tistics furnished by the director of the
street car system of Vienna, the total
cost of the construction of the plant, ex
clusive of alteration of roads which may
be rendered necessary and which the road
officials would be obliged to provide for,
Stories About Noted People
friends and acquaintances; tall, straight,
formed In perfect physical proportion, he
was extremely handsome; and In addition
he had a brain which could grasp giant
tasks with cae tasks which for the rest
of us were either Impossible or only at
tainable after months or years of effort.
He had a special facility for acquiring
languages, writes George P. Brett in Out
ing, and he is the only man that I have
ever known who has been taken for a
Frenchman in France, for a native of Italy
by the Italians and for a German In Berlin.
I remember that he was on one occas on
thinking of spending a winter In one of the
countries of central Burope whose language
was unknown to him In order to obtain
local color and atmosphere for one cf his
novels, and that In the short space of
eight weeks he had acquired by constant
study a mastery of the language, so that
he was easily able to make himself under
stood when he afterward went there.
The same facility which he had for ac
quiring languages also extended to other
things. He mastered, I remember, the
difficult art of navigation In the course
of a short winter season In New York, In
spite of the calls of his regular literary
work and his many social engagements,
so that he was not only enabled to navi
gate his own yacht an old New York
pilot boat, partially rebuilt under his dl
ruction across the pcean himself, but he
worked out a voyage that I made with him
afterward the sights day by day Independ
ently of the officers and afterward com
pared them with the ship's records, and
the officers came to talk over with him
matters of navigation as with one of them
selves, so Impressed were they by his
mastery of their craft.
Almost a Croesus.
Champ Clark, democratic leader In the
house, came nearer to being a multi-millionaire
than anybody now In sight. Instead
he went to Missouri and became a politi
cian; lator he became a congressman, and
finally he has become a statesman.
When he was 23 years old, relates the
Washington Times, Clark was president of
a West Virginia collbg. and he was a
good one, too. At the end of two pr three
years he had saved IM. and a friend con
fided to him that it was enough to make a
fortune.
"Let mutake that money you've got in
the bunk." said his friend, "snd buy you
some of this coil lund around here. It
can be had tor So cunts an acre, and it'll
be worth thousands In a tew years."
Clafk thought about It, but be had long
lpnp.
Under Japanese Goverment
structure covered with stucco. It la built
on sin elevation, overlooking the palace in
which the retired emperor Uvea, so that
the clerks can see all that goes on Inside
the palace grounds. This I very offensive
to hi majesty, who has always objected
to anyone looking over his walls, and has
bought several foreign structure because
they commanded such a view. Ho paid
$300,000 for the French legation for this
very reason, and he has, I am told, several
times tried to buy the American consulate
whloh is on a hill, lower down. Soma men
have even bought lots and started buildings
In order to make bis majesty buy them at
high prices.
Another fine government building Is that
of the supreme court. This is acme what
similar to the structure of the finance de
partment. It is situated on the main street,
which runs between the east and west
gates, and not far from a big two-story
brick which Is being built for a native
Korean bank.
How the Officials Raised Money.
That bank, by the way, marks one of
the most wonderful changes which is go
ing on here. Until lately no Korean was
supposed to have any right to money that
the king was bound to respect. Every
official squeezed the man below him, and
amounts to $44,253. The same authority
estimates the annual running expenses
of the line at J9.S73, and the receipts from
passengers at (6,394, 'a loss of J.1.8J-9. The
particular system of motor used is known
as the Stoll or Mercedes system.
Electricity on Railroads.
The railroads claim that substitution of
electricity for steam out on main lines
would involve prohibitive losses by making
Junk of millions of dollars' worth of steam
locomotives. This, however, is misleading
and far from true, says Popular Mechan
ics, for during the several years neces
sarily consumed In changing over, say, 1,000
miles of trunk line, the future would be
taken Into consideration. As fast as' the
steam locomotives on one division were re
leased they would be transferred to other
divisions to take the place of worn-outs
there, and at last there would be branch
lines of their own, and smaller roads which
would absorb a great part of what motive
power remained at the finish. There
would be some direct loss and some Indi
rect, such as placing on branch lines heav
ier and faster locomotives than the busi
ness required; but the loss from this item
would be only a fraction of the whole.
There would be other millions of dollars,
now Invested In locomotive repair shops,
thrown out of use. but this would bring Its
own compensation, for ths electric loco-
been of the opinion that the bounding west
was the place where fortune smiled most
amiably. He wanted to go there.
"I guess not," he decided. "I'll go to
Missouri."
He did. The 1,000 acres of land that his
(S00 would have bought is now worth mil
lions; If he had bought It and stayed In
West Virginia he would have been one of
the first of the long row of men who have
made tens of millions in the development
of the natural resources of that newer
Pennsylvania.
"But anyhow." sighed Mr. Clark, as he
turned to his desk and signed a contract
for a summer lecture course at $0 a night.
"I did never care much about money."
Coqnelin Had Uood Memory.
"How many parts do you know well
enough to play tonight If need be?" some
body asked Coquelin. He took a sheet of
paper and wrote down the names of fifty
three plays of his repertory. His friends
laughed.
"You are boosting," said the Viscomte do
Lovenjoul.
"You have every one of these plays In
your library," said Coquelin quietly. "Get
them all out and put them on the table."
The Viscomte did so. "Now," said Coque
lin, "let anybody select a cue from any
one of these plays at haphazard and give
it to me."
They tried him with sixteen play out of
the fifty-three and he did not make one
mistake.
Looking; (or His Fifteenth Wife.
The careless failure of an Emporia, Kan.,
woman to get a legal separation from her
husband has Just cheated Owen Reeves, 77
years old, also of that city and for years a
resident of Duquoln, III., of his fifteenth
wife. Although several of his fourteen
unions have ended Ingloiiously, Reeves still
.regards marriage as a blissful succesa H
is now in the field for another wife.
"When a man decides he likes a woman
he should pop the question right away,"
said Reeves recently. "Never once did T
spark a woman more than five times, and
as to the sparking It should never be done
In the dark and in secrecy, but straight
forward and open. I have proposed several
times right In comistny.
"Every man needs the companionship of
a good woman, and I am going to have an
other one as soon as I csn get her. I
wedded tot the first time In Calhoun
county. Illinois, when I was 11 years old.
Preachers have married me th most times,
but I hsve been married a few times by
squires and justices of th peace. " I
FINANCE! DEPARTMENT
If ha -did not give up a share of his goods
upon demand had him whipped or tor
tured in some way or other until he did
so. The most common persuader was a
flexible paddle about as wide as the palm
of your hand and ten or twelve feet in
length. The man to be squeezed was
stripped to the skin and laid face down
ward on the ground and held there by
men, or he was tied to a bench so that It
was Impossible for him to move. Then
the paddlers would strike htm so many
blows on the thighs. The second or third
always brought blood, ana an hundred
was supposed to mean death. Burning
and bone crushing were other methods of
torture, and men were kept for years In
prison on falsa charges as means ot ex
tortion. Under such conditions the man
who showed he had money was sure of
persecution and all loans were secretly
made. The Japanese have done away with
this squeezing, and the thousands of of
ficials who lived upon It have now gone to
the wall.
The money Is changed. During that
trip across country to Seoul I had to have
an extra man to carry tn money to pay
the coolies at the end of the trip, and for
my expenses In the capital I got an order
upon a merchant In Seoul. The coins
were of copper with a square hole In the
center, and It took one thousand of them
to equal the value of an American dollar.
They were Btrung upon strings of one
Experiment
motive goes to the shop only two or three
times a year, where the steam locomotive
must be overhauled constantly. Moreover,
the cost of repairs of the electric machine
is Insignificant compared to the cost of
maintenance of the steam locomotive.
Electric Water Heater.
Germany has produced the first effective
water heater for the bath room. It is six
inches in diameter and two feet high.
Water is admitted at the bottom. Turning
the electrlo switch permit enough water
to enter to fill the ystem of pipes, thus
Insuring them against burning out, and
this Is heated to 140 degrees Fahrenheit In
about forty seconds. The stopcock below
the switch Is then opened, when a steady
stream rises over a series of water tight
surfaces Inclosing the heating colls and
emerges at the overflow quite hot enough
for tha buth. The current can be either
that of twelve slxteen-candle power in
candescent lamps of the ordinary kind or
half as much, the latter giving correspond
ingly slower heating. The cost of the cur
rent necessarily varies, but even at the
high rate of 10 cents an hour the expense
for a hot bath would be small.
Story of the Electrlo Fan.
Of all the hot weather comforts the
electric fan Is easily the first. A bit of
shade brings a little relief from the heat
ot the July sun, a bit of cracked ice
properly applied to certain hot weather
beverage helps to keep the suf
ferer a few degrees below a dangerous
temperature; but It Is the little electrlo fan
which bring the cool breezes of the hills
Into the hottest apartment, Into the swelt
ering city flat or the hot office. No matter
how hot tha sun shines, no matter how
much electricity In tho air, no matter
how striding and stagnant the atmosphere
the touch of a button and the cooling
breezes are at the command of anyone In
any quantity or velocity desired.
Electricity Is the magician which holds
captive th rays of the sun snd lets thein
out after nightfall to drive away the som
ber shades of night; who takes the heat of
the coal and brings it into the house to
cook the foods and heat the rooms; who
takes the power from the falling water
and carries it miles and miles to turn with
the wheels of Industry and transportation.
And, not content with all these wonders,
electricity has stuffed into its wonder bag
the four winds and releases them at your
command.
The electric fan was an American Inven
tion which has been developed within the
last few years until millions of the fans
are in use throughout the world. Back In
the early '80s Dr. 8. S. Wheeler, an elec
trical engineer of New York, was experi
menting with a small electric motor. In
the course of his experiments the doctor
conceived the Idea that steamboats might
be run with electricity If the propellors
could be direct connected to high-speed
electric motors, doing away with all the
gears then in use In stoam propulsion.
With this idea in mind he had a small
screw-propellor constructed and fastened
it to the armature shaft of his small motor.
To his surprise the experiment resulted In
a fine breeze of cooling air which more
tflan delighted the experimenter, for th
day was decidedly hot. It Is needless to
add that the experiments with screw -propellers
ended right there and the engineer
took up the study of the electric fan with
th result that he soon perfected the devics
until It was a commercial succesa
At that time all the fans were run by
batteries. Later they were connected with
the series are lighting circuits, but this
was found to be as dangerous as it was
unsatisfactory. Little advance was made
until 1K88 when a successful attempt was
made to connect them with the new In
candescent lighting circuits, each fan to
take the place of a lamp. Battery current
was too expenslvs for this ventilating de
vics, but as soon as central station current
was available tha fan became popular at
once, and about 1S90 the manufacture of
electric fan began In earnest A couple
of years later the celling fan was Intro
duced and since that time the production of
desk, bracket, celling and oscillating faia
has grown by leaps and bounds and Ameri
can fans are now supplied to every civil
ised country on the map.
BUIL05INO.
hundred each, and whenever I went out
shopping I had to take a servant along to
carry my purse. Such cash were In usn
here when I crossed Korea In l!94, and
they continued for some time after the
Japanese-Chinese war. Then the Korean
nickel was marie; but this was counter
feited both here and 111 Javan t such an
extent that It fell to hnlf Its orU'nnl
value. The Japanese have now Introduced
their own coinage, accepting the Korean
nickel at the market rate; and from now
on the country will be on a g M basis.
Japanese bank notes are everywhere tak
en and Japanese sliver, nickel and n per
coins are In common use. This reorgan
ization of the finances has been one of the
great problems that the JapaneF- h.ivn
had to deal with, but the vice minister of
finance, Mr. Aral, tellB mo that It Is now
practically solved nnri that he anticipated
no further trouble. lie fays the govern
ment has lost money In taking the Korean
nickels at half rate nnd that tho counter
feits they hive hail to accept havo
amounted to millions. They have nlrcndy
exchanged about seven tnlll'nn yen of
them, the average Hcko' Icing worth
something like thiee-fin etliF of lis val'io
Instead of thr twenty-flve-flMeths at
which It Is taken.
A Modern Ilnnklna; System.
Mr. Aral has organized a hanking sys
tem for Korea. The central treasury is
n"W the Dai Ichl Bank, a::d ti.ere nr.- In
nilriltlon, Industrial bnrks which tire loan
ing money against land to th? fanners.
They make long loans nt 12 nnri 15 per
cent a year, which are consiib reil ei c
lally low rates for Korea. Tliese indus
trial banks have savings tl pari incuts c m-nect-d
with them, and there are ill ;:st
office savings bank--, which h iv i.io.'e
than 1,400,000 yen on de;os.i. M.r.iy
Koreans are putting their nioi.e;- .n o
these banks, although tho Interest Is iom
paratively low.
In addition to this the government Is
now organizing a system of sinail c.tpltal
associations. These will have a central
head, with about ono hundred brunches,
and will issue small loans to petty
farmers. The loans will be as low as $23,
and may be secured by crops and chattel
mortgages. All these things will tend to
create thrift among tho Koreans, which
heretofore has been Impossible on account
of the squeezing nnd Insecurity of ail
money.
Indeed, one of the common Korean bink
of the past has been old Mother Earth, and
this espt dally so during the winter. When
a farmer sold his crops and wanted to
keep the money over until spring he wou.d
dig a pit six feet deep and four or more
feet square; and at the first frost he
would put down a layer of cash and
sprinkle earth and water over It. By
morning It would be frozen stiff. The
next night he would put down another
layer of coins with mud on top. This
would freeze and so he would go until he
had a block ot frozen earth as hard us
ice, tilled with these coins at a thuMand
to the dollar. The work wan d ine rn.cn.t y
and the result was such that It would take
day to recover the coins,
lltlih I uterest.
I am urprlscd ut the enormous Interest
which tho Kotcans ure paying. Leans oa
good security arc made at from 2 to 6 per
cent a month, and tho unscrupulous Japa
nese money lenders are getting much more.
It Is only fair to say that the natives rij
likewise. A common way of loaning on
property Is to hand over tho doeil tu the
house or lot In case the loan I not pa d
and a, until now, there have been nu
means of registration, this means tne
transfer of tho propiity. The Japanese
should protect the Kureans as to xucii
transactions. If they do not, all the lands
and house of the country will soon gj
Into the hands of the former. The Kureaiu
are great borrowers aod they cannot re
sist tho money temptation. They du nut
think of pay day until It comes, and as i
result are not able to meet their obli
gation. Nnllou of Children.
Indeid, It lb up to tho Jap .ncse govc. fin-ten
t to protect the Koreans from uiiu
class of Its subjects who are now over
running this country. The Koreans are a
nation of children. They have bei n s
ground down In the past that they hivu
not learned to hustle und to look out for
themselves. They are wonderfully gentle
and trusting, and the shrewd Japanese
can easily take advantage of them. Hi
1 doing so today, notwithstanding the gov
ernment tries to prevent It anl the
authorities should put on thw screws und
punish severely all such offenses. ITInce
Ito has tried to dq this, even to the ex
tent of sending back a lirge number of
the Japanese who have come here, saying
that they were not fit to bo In the coun
try. It Is this clement that knocks the Ko
rean about, cheats him out of his wagex,
and if possible, by mfnns of loans, taket
his houses snd lands. It Is the low clisi
element among the solrilirs scattered In
small bands over the country away froit
their superior officers, which Is leading t
th killing of many Innocent Koreans un
der the name of Insurgents; ami which, If
the government does not pursue u mora
rigid policy, Is likely to lone J a pin Its
reputation as having tho best, the kindest,
the most refined and the most humane sol
diers on earth. Indeed, It. seems to nr
that Japan has In this low class element,
which ha coma to Korea a problem (r
more serious than the peo;le think. It
Prince Ito could transmit to the Japanese
In Korea the same feeling of brotherly
love and charity which he and the better
class Japanese have they would ion make
the Koreans the strong friends nt Japan,
and build them up as sn lndi-i end nt but
powerful element for good In the Jananese
empire. FRANK Q. CAKPIONTlilC
