512 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 
Transfer of -Property . — Property of this kind, the title to which 
depends on the possession of a very loosely drawn deed executed by 
the last vendor, appears to pass very readily, upon purchase, from 
hand to hand, without any formality beyond the exchange of the 
property with the deeds for a certain amount of cash down. 
Title Deeds . — These deeds, which are, of course, executed in 
Chinese script, seem to be usually drawn up in accordance with some 
customary form. They are very brief, merely specifying roughly the 
size, charact er, and position of the property, together with the date of 
the sale and the name in full of the vendor, who also signs the docu- 
ment. The name of the purchaser does not appear customarily to 
enter into the deed, nor are witnesses to the transaction mentioned, 
unless it be the “ house-slave” of the vendor, the property being 
described as “the house in which So-and-so is the house-slave,’* and 
the vendor styled “ the master of the slave.” Deeds representing the 
earlier conveyances by which the property has descended to the present 
owner usually accompany, to the number of two or three, the new 
deed effected on the purchase of the property. And in some cases 
these older deeds are stated to be very numerous, aud to go back for 
a considerable number of } r ears. 
Division of Freeholds . — In not a few cases in Soul large house 
properties have been obviously broken up into a number of smaller 
tenements, and the land on which the house stands into a correspond- 
ing number of (apparently) freeholds. 
Arable Land . — Arable property consists of either non ( i.e paddy- 
fields) or pat (i.e., other fields). We once bought a pat in the 
neighbourhood of Soul, but the method of tenure and transfer 
appeared in no way to differ from that in vogue in dealing with house 
property. The only peculiarity lay, to the best of my recollection, in 
the different scale of measurement employed for the two classes of 
property. Property which contains buildings is measured by the 
Jean or square of 8 feet — so many kan of house, and so many Jean of 
garden or vacant ground. The field, on the other hand, was vaguely 
described as being “so much as an ox could plough in half a day,” 
a standard of measurement which, if inexact, has the merit of being 
picturesque, and which also, if I mistake not, is one in common use 
among communities in a primitive stage of civilisation throughout the 
world. 
Absentee Landlords . — The prevalent fashion brings as many as 
possible of those who can lay claim to gentle birth to live within the 
capital. An inquiry as to the source of the livelihood of any of the 
more opulent among these gentry generally produces the reply that he 
possesses non (paddy-fields) in the country. If this be so, the country 
must consist largely of the property of absentee landlords, but I am 
unable to say anything of the terms upon which they leave, or other- 
wise arrange for, the farming and general management of their 
country estates. * 
Corporate Property . — The “corporate” possession of property 
appears to exist, at least in the case of some of the more wealthy 
Buddhist communities. At a point on the lowlands near the east 
coast, at the foot of the Keum Kang Sail Range (about 100 miles to 
the south of Wonsan), I came across large non 9 with farm buildings 
