It was as late as 1888 that the mob, excited by the report that the Americans and Europeans were engaged in the business, for profit, of killing Korean babies and of cutting off the breasts of Korean women to use in the manufacture of condensed milk, were scarcely repressed from wholesale arson and murder.[1]
The anti-Japanese natives and foreigners have with more or less good reason complained that an increase of sexual impurity and of licensed vice has resulted from the Japanese Protectorate over Korea. Without entering upon the discussion of the difficult problem involved in these charges, it is enough to say that "corruption of the Koreans" in this regard is scarcely a proper claim to bring forward, under any circumstances. It is of no particular significance to determine whether the statement of a recent writer that the exposure of their breasts on the streets is characteristic of Korean women generally, is a libel, or not. It is true, indeed, that the foreign lady who has done much to encourage among the natives of her own sex in Seoul a certain regard for the decencies of civilization, was accustomed, not many years ago, to provide herself with safety-pins and accompany their use upon the garments of the lower classes (women of the higher classes do not appear upon the streets) with a moral lecture. But to one acquainted with the unimportant influence of such exposure upon really vicious conduct among peoples of a certain grade of race-culture, the charge, whether true or not, is comparatively petty. Much more determinative is it to learn from their friendly historians that only one in ten of their songs could with decency be published; that almost all their stories are of a salacious character and, "however discreditable it may be, they are a true picture of the morals of Korea to-day"; and that among the lower classes "the utmost
- ↑ See the account of the "Baby War" and "Breast Hunters," The History of Korea, II. , p. 245.
