studious. When the father dies, the eldest son assumes the reins of the
family, and his brothers look to him as they had before done to their
father. He it is who inherits the family property and nearly all the
money, though it is an understood rule that he is bound either to divide
the inheritance share and share alike with the rest of the family, or
else keep them as the father had done. Thus it is that Corean families
are, for the most part kept together; one might almost say that the
kingdom is divided into so many clans, each family with the various
relations making, so to speak, one of them. Family ties are much regarded
in the Land of the Morning Calm, and great interest is taken by the
distant relations in anything concerning the happiness and welfare of the
family. What is more, if any member of the clan should find himself in
pecuniary troubles, all the relations are expected to help him out of
them, and what is even more marvellous still, they willingly do it,
without a word of protest. The Corean is hospitable by nature, but with
relations, of course, things go much further. The house belonging to one
practically belongs to the other, and therefore it is not an uncommon
occurrence for a "dear relation" to come to pay a visit of a few years'
duration to some other relation who happens to be better off, without
this latter, however vexed he may be at the expense and trouble caused by
the prolonged stay of his visitor, even daring to politely expel him from
his house; were he to do so, he would commit a breach of the strict rules
of hospitality enjoined by Corean etiquette. Even perfect strangers
occasionally go to settle in houses of rich people, where for months they
are accommodated and fed until it should please them to remove their
quarters to the house of some other rich man where better food and better
accommodation might be expected. There is nothing that a Corean fears so
much as that people should speak ill of him, and especially this is the
bugbear under which the nobleman of Cho-sen is constantly labouring, and
upon which these black-mailers and "spongers" work. High officials, whose