A character common to Corea and Japan is the singing-girl, who is also a great aid in making life endurable to the better class of Coreans, whose chief business it is to kill time. The singing-girl is the one poem and picture in the street life of the humbler classes, whose poverty can rarely, if ever, allow them to purchase her society or enjoy her charms and accomplishments. Socially, her rank is low, very low. She is herself the child of poverty and toil. Her parents are poor people, who gladly give up their daughter, if of pretty face and form, to a life of doubtful morals, in order that she may thereby earn her own support and assist her parents. She herself gladly leaves the drudgery of the kitchen, and the abject meanness of the hovel, to shine in the palace and the mansion. Her dress is of finest fabric, her luxuriant black hair is bound with skill and grace, her skin is whitened by artificial cosmetics as far as possible, and with powder, paint, and pomatum, she spends much of her life before the looking-glass, studying in youth to increase, and in womanhood to retain, her charms. At home, she practises her music, occasionally enlivening a party of her humble neighbors. As she passes along the street, fresh, clean, bright, and pretty, she may dispense smiles for popularity’s sake, but her errand is to the houses of the wealthy, and especially to the official, who, for his own amusement as he dines alone, or for his friends in social gathering, may employ from two to twenty geishas (as the Japanese call them). Most Corean cities have these geishas, who form themselves into a sort of guild for fixed prices, etc. Often they organize complete bands or choirs, by which music may be had in mass and volume. At a feast they serve the wine, fill and pass the dishes, and preside generally at the table. When eating has fairly begun, they sing (chant), play the guitar, recite in pantomime or vocally, and furnish general amusement. The dancing is usually not of an immoral character. Such a life, however, amid feast and revel, wine and flattery, makes sad wreck of many of them, morally and physically. A large proportion of the most beautiful girls become concubines to wealthy men or officials, or act as ladies of the chamber (brevet wives) to young men and widowers. Not a few join the business of prostitutes with that of musicians. Nevertheless, it is quite possible for a respectable family to enjoy a pleasant and harmless evening by the aid of the lively geishas. Of course, Seoul is the chief headquarters of the fairest and most accomplished geishas, who are, as a class, the best educated of their sex in Corea.