through which all manner of filth is daily dumped into the open ditch.
Microbes! If there be any such things — and the doctors say there are — well, I should say that they could thrive in these ditches. As to the number and variety of germs and microbes that live in these ditches, I shall leave for some one else to tell; but as for the smells and fumes that rise from these open sewers, every Westerner who has passed this way can testify. However, we should always remember that the matter of smell depends entirely on one's education. A Korean gentleman on his first visit to New York was asked by a friend how he liked the great city, whereupon he replied: "O, very well; but the smells are so bad!" This, too, reminds me of an incident that took place in our home. One day as we were having our dinner a woman from one of the country churches came in to call on us. Mrs. Moose prepared some food and sent it in to her. Among other things there was some beef hash which we considered very nice, it being flavored with black pepper and sage. It so happened in a few days that this same woman called again and we had the same sort of hash. Mrs. Moose was preparing another tray of food for the woman when the servant remarked: "You need not give her any hash. She did not eat that you gave her the other day. She said it smelled bad."
Well, if everything the doctors tell us about microbes and germs were strictly true, the inhabitants of Seoul would have disappeared from the face of the earth long before this good day. Perhaps what saves them
