Page:Korea (1904).djvu/87

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SHOPS
35

keepers upon either side of the little passages to push their wares prominently into the roadway. The business of butchering is in Korea the most degraded of all trades. It is beyond even the acceptance and recognition of the most humble orders of the community. The meat shops are unpleasantly near the main drains.

A SIDE ALLEY

There are innumerable palaces in the capital, but as His Majesty very frequently enlarges his properties, there is the prospect of other buildings being adapted to his Imperial use. The precincts of the Palace always afford opportunities for foreigners to become familiar with the features of the many Ministers of State. In their anxiety to advise their sovereign, they wrangle among themselves, or plot and counterplot, and fight for the cards in their own hands, irrespective of the fate which their jealousies may bring down upon their country. At all hours processions