Korean criminals make Americans grow more vigilant despite Joseon curfew in 1885
A large group of Koreans in the market became the prey of Lowell's camera and have forever been immortalized. Image by Percival Lowell in 1884. Robert Neff CollectionBy Robert NeffWhen Percival Lowell, an American, wrote about his stay in Seoul in the winter of 1883-84, he frequently mentioned the curfew that was imposed at night and how it contributed to the safety of the city's residents. One night at midnight, while sitting alone in his room, he poetically described nocturnal Seoul:“Of a sudden, across the deathlike stillness comes the boom of the great bell. It cannot startle anything so dead; it only intensifies a silence it is powerless to dispel. There is something weird in it, as it finds me the only one to hearken to its sound. It marks, I know, the middle of the night; and then it is lost again in the universal hush. At intervals, as the hours come round, I can hear for a moment the tinkle of the watchman's bell, and the clank of his chains as he paces his beat within the courtyards; and then all is once more quiet, and the city seems its own vast tomb.”Al
