may be, money and rank deciding the number of men. There is a strange custom in Seoul that allows high-class women to walk the streets after dark; but even then they are covered with the green veil, which is a sort of long cloak and looks very much like an ordinary rain cloak except in color and material. It is made of green silk, and has sleeves hanging from near the top that are never used. With this veil thrown over the head and pulled closely together only a small portion of the face can be seen; often little more than one eye is visible. It is said that there are many women in the capital who have never seen the streets of the city by daylight. The veil is worn by all respectable women in the capital, even those of the middle class.
The green veil is worn only in and around the capital. In other parts of the country the women sometimes throw an apron over their heads when going out in public. In some places in the north, as in Pyeng-yang, they wear a sort of huge straw hat that would hold five bushels of wheat. This is here called a hat for lack of a better name; but as a matter of fact it is not used as a hat at all, but is thrown over the head and held by both hands of the one using it. It so completely hides the wearer that a man does not know his own wife when he meets her on the street. It is the young women who are compelled to use these many cunningly devised screens and veils to hide their, beauty. After they are old and wrinkled they are at liberty to appear uncovered in public if
