Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/401

 m^y^^mss^ CENSUS. 371 hamlets ; large villages being uncommon, nor are the large cities numerous. From the above Census, it is as difficult to compute the true population as from the same basis to infer the exact population of China. In China a hoo supplies a ding, or perhaps two, who may become a soldier ; but a certain number (10 ding) furnish one soldier; the nine being supposed to be able to support an actual fighting man and his family, besides their own families; which is very nearly the proportion in which the Israelites were to support the Levites, though for other than fighting purposes. But Corea averages 1 J hoo to a ding; the proportion changing in each province. It is unnecessary to say that not a fifth of those called soldiers are actually drilled in Corea, and that scarcely a hundredth portion have firearms. In China there are more families than there are hoo. The hoo is a military term, — ^arbitrarily dividing the country into so many acres to an efficient soldier, — ^for China has never known what perfect peace means. The Corean arrangement is borrowed, like so much else, from the Chinese ; and, to estimate a hoo at six members, would, from the peculiar family life in both countries, be certainly too small, while ten would, we think, be too much. The average might be taken as a proximately correct estimate; and that would give to Corea a population of about fourteen to fifteen millions. And as we know the country is swarming with population, this is probably not an excessive estimate.