One of the characteristic sights in Cho-sen is a private fight.  The natives, as a rule, are quiet and gentle, but when their temper is roused they seem never to have enough of fighting.  They often-times disport themselves in witnessing prize-fights among the champions of different towns, or of different wards in the same town, and on these occasions large crowds assemble to view the performance.  The combatants generally fight with their fists, but, like the French, are much given to use their knees and feet as well in the contest.  Much betting, also, goes on amongst the excited spectators, and it is not seldom that a private contest of this kind degenerates into a free fight.

The lower classes in the towns thoroughly enjoy this kind of sport, and the slightest provocation is sufficient to make them come to blows.  The curious point about their fighting is that during the first moon of the new year all rows can be settled in this rough and ready manner, without committing any breach of the law.  Hence it is that during that moon, one sees hardly anything but people quarrelling and fighting.  All the anger of the past year is preserved until the New Year festivities are over, but then free play is straightway given to the bottled-up passions.  Were a man even to kill his antagonist during a fight at this legalised season, I doubt whether he would be imprisoned or punished; very likely not.

For about fifteen days, in truth, things are simply dreadful in the streets.  Go in one direction, and you see people quarrelling; go in another, and you see them fighting.  The original causa movens of all this is generally cash!

When a deadly fight takes place in the streets, you may at once set it down as having arisen over, say, a farthing!  Debts ought always to be paid before the old year is over; and, occasionally, grace is allowed for the first fifteen days in the first moon; after that, the defaulting debtors get summary justice administered to them.  Creditors go about the town in search of their debtors, and should they come face to face, generally a few unparliamentary remarks are passed, followed by a challenge.  Hats are immediately removed, and given for safe keeping to some one or other of the spectators, a crowd of whom has, of course, at once assembled; and then the creditor, as is customary under such circumstances in all countries, makes a dash for his debtor.  The main feature about these fights, so far as I could judge, was the attempt of each antagonist to seize hold of the other by his top-knot.  Should this feat be successfully accomplished, a violent process of head-shaking would ensue, followed by a shower of blows and scratches from the free hand, the lower extremities meanwhile being kept busy distributing kicks, really meant for the antagonist, but, occasionally, in fact often, delivered to some innocent passer-by, owing to the streets of Cho-senese towns not being as a rule over-wide.