The Passing of Korea

대한제국멸망사

Homer B. Hulbert

New York 1906

PREFACE

MANY excellent books have been written about Korea, each of them approaching the subject from a slightly different angle. In the present volume I have attempted to handle the theme from a more intimate standpoint than that of the casual tourist.

Much that is contained in this present volume is matter that has come under the writer's personal observation or has been derived directly from Koreans or from Korean works. Some of this matter has already appeared in The Korea Review and elsewhere. The historical survey is a condensation from the writer's " History of Korea. "

This book is a labour of love, undertaken in the days of Korea's distress, with the purpose of interesting the reading public in a country and a people that have been frequently maligned and sel- dom appreciated. They are overshadowed by China on the one hand in respect of numbers, and by Japan on the other in respect of wit. They are neither good merchants like the one nor good fighters like the other, and yet they are far more like Anglo-Saxons in temperament than either, and they are by far the pleasantest people in the Far East to live amongst. Their failings are such as follow in the wake of ignorance everywhere, and the bettering of their opportunities will bring swift betterment to their condition.

For aid in the compilation of this book my thanks are mainly due to a host of kindly Koreans from every class in society, from the silk-clad yangban to the fettered criminal in prison, from the men who go up the mountains to monasteries to those who go down to the sea in ships.

H. B. H.

NEW YORK, 1906.

INTRODUCTORY

THE PROBLEM

There is a peculiar pathos in the extinction of a nation. Especially is this true when the nation is one whose history stretches back into the dim cen- turies until it becomes lost in a labyrinth of myth and legend ; a nation which has played an important part in the moulding of other nations and which is filled with monuments of past achievements. Kija, the founder of Korean civilisation, flourished before the reign of David in Jerusalem. In the fifth century after Christ, Korea enjoyed a high degree of civilisa- tion, and was the repository from which the half-savage tribes of Japan drew their first impetus toward culture. As time went on Japan was so fortunate as to become split up into numerous semi-independent baronies, each under the control of a so-called Daimyo or feudal baron. This resulted, as feudalism every- where has done, in the development of an intense personal loyalty to an overlord, which is impossible in a large state. If one were to examine the condition of European states to-day, he would find that they are enlightened just in proportion as the feudal idea was worked out to its ultimate issues, and wherever, as in southern Europe, the centrifugal power of feudalism was checked by the centripetal power of ecclesiasticism one finds a lower grade of enlightenment, education and genuine liberty. In other words, the feudal system is a chrysalis state from which a people are prepared to leap into the full light of free self- government. Neither China nor Korea has enjoyed that state, and it is therefore manifestly impossible for them to effect any such startling change as that which transformed Japan in a single decade from a cruel and bigoted exclusiveness to an open and enthusiastic world-life. Instead of bursting forth full- winged from a cocoon, both China and Korea must be incu- bated like an egg.

It is worth while asking whether the ultimate results of a slow and laborious process. like this may not in the end bring forth a product superior in essential respects to that which fol- lows the almost magical rise of modern Japan; or, to carry out the metaphor, whether the product of an egg is not likely to be of greater value than that of a cocoon. In order to a clear understanding of the situation it will be necessary to fol- low out this question to a definite answer. The world has been held entranced by the splendid military and naval achievements of Japan, and it is only natural that her signal capacity in war should have argued a like capacity along all lines. This has led to various forms of exaggeration, and it becomes the Ameri- can citizen to ask the question just what part Japan is likely to play in the development of the Far East. One must study the factors of the problem in a judicial spirit if he would arrive at the correct answer. The bearing which this has upon Korea will appear in due course.

When in 1868 the power of the Mikado or Emperor of Japan had been vindicated in a sanguinary war against many of the feudal barons, the Shogunate was done away with once for all, and the act of centralising the government of Japan was complete. But in order to guard against insurrection it was deemed wise to compel all the barons to take up their resi- dence in Tokyo, where they could be watched. This necessi- tated the disbanding of the samurai or retainers of the barons. These samurai were at once the soldiers and the scholars of Japan. In one hand they held the sword and in the other a book; not as in medieval Europe, where the knights could but rarely read and write and where literature was almost wholly confined to the monasteries. This concentration of physical and intellectual power in the single class called samurai gave them far greater prestige among the people at large than was ever enjoyed by any set of men in any other land, and it conse- quently caused a wider gulf between the upper and lower classes than elsewhere, for the samurai shared with no one the fear and the admiration of the common people. The lower classes cringed before them as they passed, and a samurai could wantonly kill a man of low degree almost without fear of consequences.

When the barons were called up to Tokyo, the samurai were disbanded and were forbidden to wear the two swords which had always been their badge of office. This brought them face to face with the danger of falling to the ranks of the lower people, a fate that was all the more terrible because of the absurd height to which in their pride they had elevated themselves.

At this precise juncture they were given a glimpse of the West, with its higher civilisation and its more carefully articu- lated system of political and social life. With the very genius of despair they grasped the fact that if Japan should adopt the system of the West all government positions, whether diplo- matic, consular, constabulary, financial, educational or judicial, whether military or civil, would naturally fall to them, and thus they would be saved from falling to the plane of the common people. Here, stripped of all its glamour of romance, is the vital underlying cause of Japan's wonderful metamorphosis. With a very few significant exceptions it was a purely selfish movement, conceived in the interests of caste distinction and propagated in anything but an altruistic spirit. The central government gladly seconded this proposition, for it immediately obviated the danger of constant disaffection and rebellion and welded the state together as nothing else could have done. The personal fealty which the samurai had reposed in his overlord was transferred, almost intact, to the central government, and to-day constitutes a species of national pride which, in the absence of the finer quality, constitutes the Japanese form of patriotism.

From that day to this the wide distinction between the upper and lower classes in Japan has been maintained. In spite of the fact of so-called popular or representative government, there can be no doubt that class distinctions are more vitally active in Japan than in China, and there is a wider social gap between them than anywhere else in the Far East, with the exception of India, where Brahmanism has accentuated caste. The reason for this lies deep in the Japanese character. When he adopted Western methods, it was in a purely utilitarian spirit. He gave no thought to the principles on which our civilisation is based. It was the finished product he was after and not the process. He judged, and rightly, that energy and determination were sufficient to the donning of the habiliments of the West, and he paid no attention to the forces by which those habiliments were shaped and fitted. The position of woman has experienced no change at all commensurate with Japan's material transforma- tion. Religion in the broadest sense is less in evidence than before the change, for, although the intellectual stimulus of the West has freed the upper classes from the inanities of the Buddhistic cult, comparatively few of them have consented to accept the substitute. Christianity has made smaller advances in Japan than in Korea herself, and everything goes to prove that Japan, instead of digging until she struck the spring of Western culture, merely built a cistern in which she stored up some of its more obvious and tangible results. This is shown in the impatience with which many of the best Japanese regard the present failure to amalgamate the borrowed product with the real underlying genius of Japanese life. It is one constant and growing incongruity. And, indeed, if we look at it ration- ally, would it not be a doubtful compliment to Western culture if a nation like Japan could absorb its intrinsic worth and enjoy its essential quality without passing through the long-centuried struggle through which we ourselves have attained to it? No more can we enter into the subtleties of an Oriental cult by a quick though intense study of its tenets. The self-conscious babblings of a Madam Blavatsky can be no less ludicrous to an Oriental Pundit than are the efforts of Japan to vindicate her claim to Western culture without passing through the fur- nace which made that culture sterling.

The highest praise must be accorded to the earnestness and devotion of Christian missionaries in Japan, but it is a fact deeply to be regretted that the results of their work are so closely con- fined to the upper classes. This fact throws light upon the state- ment that there is a great gap between the upper and lower classes there. Even as we are writing, word comes from a keenly observ- ant traveller in Japan that everywhere the Buddhist temples are undergoing repairs.

It is difficult to foresee what the resultant civilisation of Japan will be. There is nothing final as yet, nor have the con- flicting forces indicated along what definite lines the intense nationalism of the Japanese will develop.

But let us look at the other side of the picture. Here is China, and with her Korea, for they are essentially one in gen- eral temper. They cling with intense loyalty to the past They are thoroughly conservative. Now, how will you explain it? Some would say that it is pure obstinacy, a wilful blindness, an intellectual coma, a moral obsession. This is the easiest, and superficially the most logical, explanation. It saves time and trouble; and, after all, what does it matter? It matters much every way. It does not become us to push the momentous question aside because those people are contemptible. Four hundred millions are saved from contempt by their very num- bers. There is an explanation, and a rational one.

One must not forget that these people are possessed of a social system that has been worked out through long cen- turies, and to such fine issues that every individual has his set place and value. The system is comprehensive, consistent and homogeneous. It differs widely from ours, but has suf- ficed to hold those peoples together and give them a national life of wonderful tenacity. There must be something in the system fundamentally good, or else it would not have held together for all these centuries with comparatively so little modification.

We have seen how the Japanese were shaken out of their long-centuried sleep by a happy combination of circumstances. There are doubtless possible combinations which might similarly affect China and Korea, but the difference in temperament between them and the Japanese renders it highly improbable that we shall ever see anything so spectacular as that which occurred in Japan. No two cults were ever more dissimilar than Con- fucianism and Buddhism; and if we were to condense into a single sentence the reason why China and Korea can never follow Japan's example it would be this : that the Chinese and Korean temperament followed the materialistic bent of Confucianism, while the Japanese followed the idealistic bent of Buddhism.

Now, what if the West, instead of merely lending its super- ficial integuments to China and Korea, should leave all the harmless and inconsequential customs of those lands intact, and should attempt instead to reach down to some underlying moral and fundamental principle and begin a transformation from within, working outward ; if, instead of carrying on campaigns against pinched feet and infanticide, we should strike straight at the root of the matter, and by giving them the secret of Western culture make it possible for them to evolve a new civ- ilisation embodying all the culture of the West, but expressed in terms of Oriental life and habit? Here would be an achieve- ment to be proud of, for it would prove that our culture is fundamental, and that it does not depend for its vindication upon the mere vestments of Western life.

And herein lies the pathos of Korea's position; for, lying as she does in the grip of Japan, she cannot gain from that power more than that power is capable of giving — nothing more than the garments of the West. She may learn science and industrial arts, but she will use them only as a parrot uses human speech. There are American gentlemen in Korea who could lead you to country villages in that land where the fetich shrines have been swept away, where schools and churches have been built, and where the transforming power of Christianity has done a fundamental work without touching a single one of the time-honoured customs of the land; where hard-handed farmers have begun in the only genuine way to develop the culture of the West. That culture evinces itself in its ultimate forms of honesty, sympathy, unselfishness, and not in the use of a swallow-tail coat and a silk hat. Which, think you, is the proper way to go about the rehabilitation of the East? The only yellow peril possible lies in the arming of the Orient with the thunder-bolts of the West, without at the same time giving her the moral forces which will restrain her in their use.

The American public has been persistently told that the Korean people are a degenerate and contemptible nation, in- capable of better things, intellectually inferior, and better off under Japanese rule than independent. The following pages may in some measure answer these charges, which have been put forth for a specific purpose, — a purpose that came to full fruition on the night of November 17, 1905, when, at the point of the sword, Korea was forced to acquiesce " voluntarily " in the virtual destruction of her independence once for all. The reader will here find a narrative of the course of events which led up to this crisis, and the part that different powers, including the United States, played in the tragedy.

CHAPTER

1. WHERE AND WHAT KOREA IS ABOVE AND BELOW GROUND

NEAR the eastern coast of Asia, at the forty-fourth parallel of latitude, we find a whorl of mountains culminating in a peak which Koreans call White Head Mountain. From this centre mountain ranges radiate in three directions, one of them going southward and forming the backbone of the Korean peninsula. The water- shed is near the eastern coast, and as the range runs southward it gradually diminishes in height until at last.it is lost in the sea, and there, with its base in the water, it lifts its myriad heads to the surface, and confers upon the ruler of Korea the deserved title of " King of Ten Thousand Islands." A very large part of the arable land of Korea lies on its western side; all the long and navigable rivers are there or in the south; almost all the harbours are on the Yellow Sea. For this reason we may say that topographically Korea lies with her face toward China and her back toward Japan. This has had much to do in determining the history of the country. Through all the centuries she has set her face toward the west, and never once, though under the lash of foreign invasion and threatened ex- tinction, has she ever swerved from her allegiance to her Chinese ideal. Lacordaire said of Ireland that she has remained " free by the soul." So it may be said of Korea, that, although forced into Japan's arms, she has remained " Chinese by the soul."

The climate of Korea may be briefly described as the same as that of the eastern part of the United States between Maine and South Carolina, with this one difference, that the prevail- ing southeast summer wind in Korea brings the moisture from the warm ocean current that strikes Japan from the south, and precipitates it over almost the whole of Korea; so that there is a distinct " rainy season " during most of the months of July and August. This rainy season also has played an important part in determining Korean history. Unfortunately for navi- gation, the western side of the peninsula, where most of the good harbours are found, is visited by very high tides, and the rapid currents which sweep among the islands make this the most dangerous portion of the Yellow Sea. On the eastern coast a cold current flows down from the north, and makes both summer and winter cooler than on the western side.

Though the surface of Korea is essentially mountainous, it resembles Japan very little, for the peninsula lies outside the line of volcanoes which are so characteristic of the island empire. Many of the Korean mountains are evidently extinct volcanoes, especially White Head Mountain, in whose extinct crater now lies a lake. Nor does Korea suffer at all from earthquakes. The only remnants of volcanic action that survive are the occa- sional hot springs. The peninsula is built for the most part on a granite foundation, and the bare hill-tops, which appear everywhere, and are such an unwelcome contrast to the foliage- smothered hills of Japan, are due to the disintegration of the granite and the erosion of the water during the rainy season. But there is much besides granite in Korea. There are large sections where slate prevails, and it is in these sections that the coal deposits are found, both anthracite and bituminous. It is affirmed by the Korean people that gold is found in every one of the three hundred and sixty-five prefectures of the country. This doubtless is an exaggeration, but it is near enough the truth to indicate that Korea is essentially a granite formation, for gold is found, of course, only in connection with such for- mation. Remarkably beautiful sandstones, marbles and other building stones are met with among the mountains; and one town in the south is celebrated for its production of rock crystal, which is used extensively in making spectacle lenses. The scenery of Korea as witnessed from the deck of a steamer is very uninviting, and . it is this which has sent so many travellers home to assert that this country is a barren, treeless waste. There is no doubt that the scarcity of timber along most of the beaten highways of Korea is a certain blemish, though there are trees in moderate number everywhere ; but this very absence of extensive forests gives to the scenery a grandeur and repose which is not to be found in Japanese scenery. The lofty crags that lift their heads three thousand feet into the air and almost overhang the city of Seoul are alpine in their grandeur. There is always distance, openness, sweep to a Korean view which is quite in contrast to the pic- turesque coziness of almost all Japanese scenery. This, together with the crystal atmosphere, make Korea, even after only a few years' residence, a delightful reminiscence. No people surpass the Koreans in love for and appreciation of beautiful scenery. Their literature is full of it. Their nature poems are gems in their way. Volumes have been written describing the beauties of special scenes, and Korea possesses a geography, nearly five hundred years old, in which the beauties of each separate pre- fecture are described in minute detail, so that it constitutes a complete historical and scenic guide-book of the entire country.

The vegetable life of Korea is like that of other parts of the temperate zone, but there is a striking preponderance of a certain kind of pine, the most graceful of its tribe. It forms a conspicuous element in every scene. The founder of the dynasty preceding the present one called his capital Song-do, or Pine Tree Capital. It is a constant theme in Korean art, and plays an important part in legend and folk-lore in general. Being an evergreen, it symbolises eternal existence. There are ten things which Koreans call the chang sang pul sa, or " long- lived and deathless." They are the pine-tree, tortoise, rock, stag, cloud, sun, moon, stork, water and a certain moss or lichen named " the ageless plant." Pine is practically the only wood used in building either houses, boats, bridges or any other structure. In poetry and imaginative prose it corresponds to the oak of Western literature. Next in importance is the bamboo, which, though growing only in the southern provinces, is used throughout the land and in almost every conceivable way. The domestic life of the Korean would be thrown into dire confu- sion were the bamboo to disappear. Hats are commonly made of it, and it enters largely, if not exclusively, into the con- struction of fans, screens, pens, pipes, tub-hoops, flutes, lanterns, kites, bows and a hundred other articles of daily use. Take the bamboo out of Korean pictorial art and half the pictures in the land would be ruined. From its shape it is the symbol of grace, and from its straightness and the regular occurrence of its nodes it is the symbol of faithfulness. The willow is one of the most conspicuous trees, for it usually grows in the vicinity of towns, where it has been planted by the hand of man. Thus it becomes the synonym of peace and contentment. The mighty row of willows near Pyeng-yang in the north is believed to have been planted by the great sage and coloniser Kija in 1 122 B. c., his purpose being to influence the semi-savage people by this object-lesson. From that time to this Pyeng-yang has been known in song and story as " The Willow Capital." As the pine is the symbol of manly vigour and strength, so the willow is the synonym of womanly beauty and grace. Willow wood, because of its lightness, is used largely in making the clumsy wooden shoes which are worn exclusively in wet weather ; and chests are made of it when lightness is desirable. The willow sprays are used in making baskets of all kinds, so that . this tree is, in many ways, quite indispensable. Another useful wood is called the paktal. It has been erroneously called the sandal-wood, which it resembles in no particular. It is very like the iron-wood of America, and is used in making the laundering clubs, tool handles, and other utensils which require great hardness and durability. It was under a paktal-tree that the fabled sage Tangun was found seated some twenty-three hundred years before Christ; so it holds a peculiar place in Korean esteem. As the pine was the dynastic symbol of Koryu, 918-1392, so the plum-tree is the symbol of this present dynasty. It was chosen because the Chinese character for plum is the same as that of the family name of the reigning house. It was for this cogent reason that the last king of the Koryu dynasty planted plum-trees on the prophetic site of the present capital, and then destroyed them all, hoping thereby to blight the prospects of the Yi family, who, prophecy declared, would become masters of the land.

There are many hard woods in Korea that are used in the arts and industries of the people. Oak, ginko, elm, beech and other species are found in considerable numbers, but the best cabinet woods are imported from China. An important tree, found mostly in the southern provinces, is the paper-mulberry, broussonetai papyrifcra, the inner bark of which is used exclu- sively in making the tough paper used by Koreans in almost every branch of life. It is celebrated beyond the borders of the peninsula, and for centuries formed an important item in the annual tribute to China and in the official exchange of goods with Japan. It is intrinsically the same as the superb Japanese paper, though of late years the Japanese have far surpassed the Koreans in its manufacture. The cedar is not uncommon in the country, but its wood is used almost exclusively for incense in the Buddhist monasteries. Box-wood is used for making seals and in the finer processes of the xylographic art, but for this latter purpose pear-wood is most commonly substituted.

Korea is richly endowed with fruits of almost every kind common to the temperate zone, with the exception of the apple. Persimmons take a leading place, for this is the one fruit that grows to greater perfection in this country than in any other place. They grow to the size of an ordinary apple, and after the frost has touched them they are a delicacy that might be sought for in vain on the tables of royalty in the West. The apricot, while of good flavour, is smaller than the European or American product. The peaches are of a deep red colour throughout and are of good size, but are not of superior quality. Plums are plentiful and of fair quality. A sort of bush cherry is one of the commonest of Korean fruits, but it is not grown by grafting and is inferior in every way. Jujubes, pomegran- ates, crab-apples, pears and grapes are common, but are gen- erally insipid to Western taste. Foreign apples, grapes, pears, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants and other garden fruits grow to perfection in this soil. As for nuts, the principal kinds are the so-called English walnuts, chestnuts and pine nuts. We find also ginko and other nuts, but they amount to very little.

The question of cereals is, of course, of prime importance. The Korean people passed immediately from a savage con- dition to the status of an agricultural community without the intervention of a pastoral age. They have never known any- thing about the uses of milk or any of its important products, excepting as medicine. Even the primitive legends do not ante- date the institution of agriculture in the peninsula. Rice was first introduced from China in 1122 u. c., but millet had already been grown here for many centuries. Rice forms the staple article of food of the vast majority of the Korean people. In the northern and eastern provinces the proportion of other grains is more considerable, and in some few places rice is hardly eaten at all; but the fact remains that, with the excep- tion of certain mountainous districts where the construction of paddy-fields is out of the question, rice is the main article of food of the whole nation. The history of the introduction and popularisation of this cereal and the stories and poems that have been written about it would make a respectable volume. The Korean language has almost as many synonyms for it as the Arabic has for horse. It means more to him than roast beef does to an Englishman, macaroni to an Italian, or potatoes to an Irishman. There are three kinds of rice in Korea. One is grown in the water, another in ordinary fields, and another still on the sides of hills. The last is a smaller and harder variety, and is much used in stocking military granaries, for it will last eight or ten years without spoiling. The great enemies of rice are drought, flood, worms, locusts, blight and wind. The extreme difficulty of keeping paddy-fields in order in such a hilly country, the absolute necessity of having rains at a par- ticular time and of not having it at others, the great labour of transplanting and constant cultivation, — all these things con- spire to make the production of rice an incubus upon the Korean people. Ask a Louisiana rice-planter how he would like to cultivate the cereal in West Virginia, and you will discover what it means in Korea. But in spite of all the difficulties, the Korean clings to his favourite dish, and out of a hundred men who have saved up a little money ninety-nine will buy rice-fields as being the safest investment. Korean poetry teems with allusions to this seemingly prosaic cereal. The following is a free translation of a poem referring to the different species of rice:

The earth, the fresh warm earth, by heaven's decree,

Was measured out, mile beyond mile afar;

The smiling face which Chosun first upturned

Toward the o'er-arching sky is dimpled still

With that same smile ; and nature's kindly law,

In its unchangeability, rebukes

The fickle fashions of the thing called Man.

The mountain grain retains its ancient shape,

Long-waisted, hard and firm  ; the rock-ribbed hills,

On which it grows, both form and fibre yield.

The lowland grain still sucks the fatness up

From the rich fen, and delves for gold wherewith

To deck itself for Autumn's carnival.

Alas for that rude swain who nothing recks

Of nature's law, and casts his seedling grain

Or here or there regardless of its kind.

For him the teeming furrow gapes in vain

And dowers his granaries with emptiness.

To north and south the furrowed mountains stretch,

A wolf gigantic, crouching to his rest.

To east and west the streams, like serpents lithe,

Glide down to seek a home beneath the sea.

The South — warm mother of the race — pours out

Her wealth in billowy floods of grain. The North —

Stern foster-mother — yields her scanty store

By hard compulsion ; makes her children pay

For bread by mintage of their brawn and blood.

Millet is the most ancient form of food known in Korea, and it still forms the staple in most places where rice will not grow. There are many varieties of millet, all of which flourish luxuriantly in every province. It is a supplementary crop, in that it takes the place of rice when there is a shortage in that cereal owing to drought or other cause. Barley is of great importance, because it matures the earliest in the season, and so helps the people tide over a period of scarcity. A dozen vari- eties of beans are produced, some of which are eaten in con- nection with rice, and others are fed to the cattle. Beans form one of the most important exports of the country. Wheat is produced in considerable quantities in the northern provinces. Sesamum, sorghum, oats, buckwheat, linseed, corn and a few other grains are found, but in comparatively small quantities.

As rice is the national dish, we naturally expect to find various condiments to go with it. Red-peppers are grown everywhere, and a heavy kind of lettuce is used in making the favourite sauerkraut, or kimchi, whose proximity is detected •without the aid of the eye. Turnips are eaten raw or pickled. A kind of water-cress called minari plays a secondary part among the- side dishes. In the summer the people revel in melons and canteloupes, which they eat entire or imperfectly peeled, and even the presence of cholera hardly calls a halt to this dangerous indulgence. Potatoes have long been known to the Koreans, and in a few mountain sections they form the staple article of diet. They are of good quality, and are largely eaten by foreign residents in the peninsula. Onions and garlic abound, and among the well-to-do mushrooms of several vari- eties are eaten. Dandelions, spinach and a great variety of salads help the rice to " go down."

Korea is celebrated throughout the East for its medicinal plants, among which ginseng, of course, takes the leading place. The Chinese consider the Korean ginseng far superior to any other. It is of two kinds, — the mountain ginseng, which is so rare and precious that the finding of a single root once in three seasons suffices the finder for a livelihood; and the ordi- nary cultivated variety, which differs little from that found in the woods in America. The difference is that in Korea it is carefully cultivated for six or seven years, and then after being gathered it is put through a steaming process which gives it a reddish tinge. This makes it more valuable in Chinese esteem, and it sells readily at high prices. It is a government monopoly, and nets something like three hundred thousand yen a year. Liquorice root, castor beans and scores of other plants that figure in the Western pharmacopoeia are produced, together with many that the Westerner would eschew.

The Koreans are great lovers of flowers, though compara- tively few have the means to indulge this taste. In the spring the hills blush red with rhododendrons and azaleas, and the ground in many places is covered with a thick mat of violets. The latter are called the " savage flower," for the lobe is sup- posed to resemble the Manchu queue, and to the Korean every Alanchu is a savage. The wayside bushes are festooned with clematis and honeysuckle, the alternate white and yellow blossoms of the latter giving it the name " gold and silver flower." The lily-of-the-valley grows riotously in the mountain dells, and daffodils and anemones abound. The commonest garden flower is the purple iris, and many official compounds have ponds in which the lotus grows. The people admire branches of peach, plum, apricot or crab-apple as yet leafless but cov- ered with pink and white flowers. The pomegranate, snow- ball, rose, hydrangea, chrysanthemum and many varieties of lily figure largely among the favourites. It is pathetic to see in the cramped and unutterably filthy quarters of the very poor an effort being made to keep at least one plant alive. There is hardly a hut in Seoul where no flower is found.

As for animal life, Korea has a generous share. The mag- nificent bullocks which carry the heavy loads, draw the carts and pull the ploughs are the most conspicuous. It is singular that the Koreans have never used milk or any of its products, though the cow has existed in the peninsula for at least thirty-five hundred years. This is one of the proofs that the Koreans have never been a nomadic people. Without his bullock the farmer would be all at sea. No other animal would be able to drag a plough through the adhesive mud of a paddy-field. Great mortality among cattle, due to pleuro-pneumonia, not infre- quently becomes the main cause of a famine. There are no oxen in Korea. Most of the work is done with bullocks, which are governed by a ring through the nose and are seldom obstreperous. Every road in Korea is rendered picturesque by long lines of bullocks carrying on their backs huge loads of fuel in the shape of grass, fagots of wood or else fat bags of rice and barley. As might be expected, cowhides are an important article of export.

The Korean pony is unique, at least in Eastern Asia. It is a little larger than the Shetland pony, but is less heavily built. Two thousand years ago, it is said, men could ride these animals under the branches of the fruit trees without lowering the head. They differ widely from the Manchu or Japanese horse, and appear to be indigenous — unless we may believe the legend that when the three sages arose from a fissure in the ground in the island of Quelpart three thousand years ago, each of them found a chest floating in from the south and containing a colt, a calf, a pig, a dog and a wife. The pony is not used in ploughing or drawing a cart, for it is not heavy enough for such work, but it is used under the pack and under the saddle, frequently under both, for often the traveller packs a huge bundle on the pony and then seats himself on top, so that the animal forms but a vulgar fraction of the whole ensemble. Foreigners of good stature frequently have to raise the feet from the stirrup when riding along stony roads. Yet these insignificant beasts are tough and long-suffering, and will carry more than half their own weight thirty-five miles a day, week in and week out.

As in all Eastern countries, the pig is a ubiquitous social factor. We use the word " social " advisedly, for in country vil- lages at least this animal is always visible, and frequently under foot. It is a small black breed, and is so poorly fed as to have practically no lateral development, but resembles the " razor- backs " of the mountain districts of Tennessee. Its attenuated shape is typical of the concentrated character of its porcine obstinacy, as evidenced in the fact that the shrewd Korean farmer prefers to tie up his pig and carry it to market on his own back rather than drive it on foot.

Korea produces no sheep. The entire absence of this animal, except as imported for sacrificial purposes, confirms the suppo- sition that the Koreans have never been a pastoral people. Foreigners have often wondered why they do not keep sheep and let them graze on the uncultivable hillsides which form such a large portion of the area of the country. The answer is manifold. Tigers, wolves and bears would decimate the flocks. All arable land is used for growing grain, and what grass is cut is all consumed as fuel. It would therefore be impossible to winter the sheep. Furthermore, an expert sheep man, after examining the grasses common on the Korean hill- sides, told the writer that sheep could not eat them. The turf about grave sites and a few other localities would make good grazing for sheep, but it would be quite insufficient to feed any considerable number even in summer.

The donkey is a luxury in Korea, being used only by well- to-do countrymen in travelling. Its bray is out of all propor- tion to its size, and one really wonders how its frame survives the wrench of that fearful blast.

Reputable language is hardly adequate to the description of the Korean dog. No family would be complete without one; but its bravery varies inversely as the square of its vermin, which is calculable in no known terms. This dog is a wolfish breed, but thoroughly domesticated. Almost every house has a hole in the front door for his accommodation. He will lie just inside, with his head protruding from the orifice and his eyes rolling from side to side in the most truculent manner. If he happens to be outside and you point your finger at him, he rushes for this hole, and bolts through it at a pace which seems calculated to tear off all the hair from his prominent angles. Among certain of the poorer classes the flesh of the dog is eaten, and we have in mind a certain shop in Seoul where the purveying of this delicacy is a specialty. We once shot a dog which entertained peculiar notions about the privacy of our back yard. The gateman disposed of the remains in a mysterious manner and then retired on the sick-list for a few days. When he reappeared at last, with a weak smile on his face he placed his hand on his stomach and affirmed with evi- dent conviction that some dogs are too old for any use. But, on the whole, the Korean dog is cleared of the charge of use- lessness by the fact that he acts as scavenger in general, and really does much to keep the city from becoming actually uninhabitable.

The cat is almost exclusively of the back-fence variety, and is an incorrigible thief. It is the natural prey of the ubiquitous dog and the small boy. Our observation leads us to the sad but necessary conclusion that old age stands at the very bottom of the list of causes of feline mortality.

So much for domestic animals. Of wild beasts the tiger takes the lead. The general notion that this animal is found only in tropical or semi-tropical countries is a mistake. The colder it is and the deeper the snow, the more he will be in evi- dence in Korea. Country villages frequently have a tiger trap of logs at each end of the main street, and in the winter time these are baited with a live animal, — pig for choice. The tiger attains a good size, and its hair is thick and long. We have seen skins eleven and a half feet long, with hair two inches and more in length. This ugly beast will pass through the streets of a village at night in the dead of winter, and the people are fortu- nate if he does not break in a door and carry away a child. No record is kept of the mortality from this cause, but it is probable that a score or more of people perish annually in this way. Legend and story are full of the ravages of the tiger. He is supposed to be able to imitate the human voice, and thus lure people out of their houses at night. Koreans account for the fierceness of his nature by saying that in the very beginning of things the Divine Being offered a bear and a tiger the opportunity of becoming men if they would endure certain tests. The bear passed the examination with flying colours, but the tiger suc- cumbed to the trial of patience, and so went forth the greatest enemy of man.

Deer are common throughout the land, and at the proper season they are eagerly sought for because of their soft horns, which are considered of great medicinal value. Wealthy Koreans who are ailing often go among the mountains with the hope of being in at the death of a young buck, and securing a long draught of the warm blood, which they look upon as nearly equivalent to the fountain of eternal youth. The exercise required for this is in itself enough to make an ill man well, so the fiction about the blood is not only innocent but valuable.

The bear is found occasionally, but is of a small breed and does comparatively little damage. The wild boar is a formidable animal, and is considered fully as dangerous to meet as the tiger, because it will charge a supposed enemy at sight. We have seen specimens weighing well toward four hundred pounds and with formidable tushes. The fox is found in every town and district in the country. It is the most detested of all things. It is the epitome of treachery, meanness and sin. The land is full of stories of evil people who turned out to be foxes in the disguise of human form. And of all foxes the white one is the worst, but it is doubtful whether such has ever been seen in Korea. Tra- dition has no more opprobrious epithet than " fox." Even the tiger is less dangerous, because less crafty. The wolf is com- paratively little known, but occasionally news comes from some distant town that a child has been snatched away by a wolf. The leopard is another supposedly tropical animal that flour- ishes in this country. Its skin is more largely used than that of the tiger, but only officials of high rank are allowed the luxury.

Among lesser animals are found the badger, hedgehog, squirrel, wildcat, otter, weasel and sable. The last is highly prized for its skin, but it is of poorer quality than that of the Siberian sable. At the same time many handsome specimens have been picked up here. The Koreans value most highly the small spot of yellow or saffron that is found under the throat of the sable. We have seen whole garments made of an almost countless number of such pieces. Naturally it takes a small for- tune to acquire one of them.

For its bird life, especially game birds, Korea is deservedly famous. First comes the huge bustard, which stands about four feet high and weighs, when dressed, from twenty to thirty pounds. It is much like the wild turkey, but is larger and gamier. The beautiful Mongolian pheasant is found everywhere in the country, and in winter it is so common in the market that it brings only half the price of a hen. Within an hour of Seoul one can find excellent pheasant shooting at the proper season. Ducks of a dozen varieties, geese, swan and other aquatic birds abound in such numbers that one feels as if he were taxing the credulity of the reader in describing them. In the winter of 1891 the ducks migrated apparently in one immense flock. Their approach sounded like the coming of a cyclone, and as they passed, the sky was completely shut out from view. It would have been impossible to get a rifle bullet between them. They do not often migrate this way, but flocks of them can be seen in all directions at almost any time of day during the season. Even as we write, information comes that a party of three men returned from two days' shooting with five hundred and sixty pounds of birds. Quail, snipe and other small birds are found in large quantities, but the hunter scorns them in view of the larger game. Various kinds of storks, cranes and herons find abundance of food in the flooded paddy-fields, where no one thinks of disturbing them. One of the sights of Seoul is its airy scavengers, the hawks, who may be seen sometimes by the score sailing about over the town. Now and again one of them will sweep down and seize a piece of meat from a bowl that a woman is carrying home on her head. It is not uncommon to see small boys throwing dead mice into the air to see the hawks swoop down and seize them before they reach the ground.

Korea contains plenty of snakes, but none of them are spe- cially venomous, although there are some whose bite will cause considerable irritation. Many snakes live among the tiles of the roofs, where they subsist on the sparrows that make their nests under the eaves. These snakes are harmless fellows, and when you see one hanging down over your front door in the dusk of evening it should cause no alarm. The people say, and believe it too, that if a snake lives a thousand years it assumes a short and thick shape and acquires wings, with which it flies about with inconceivable rapidity, and is deadly not only because of its bite, but if a person even feels the wind caused by its light- ning flash as it speeds by he will instantly die. Formerly, according to Korean tradition, there were no snakes in Korea; but when the wicked ruler Prince Yunsan (1495-1506) had worn himself out with a life of excesses, he desired to try the effect of keeping a nest of snakes under his bed, for he had heard that this would restore lost vitality. So he sent a boat to India, and secured a cargo of selected ophidians, and had them brought to Korea. The cargo was unloaded at Asan; but it appears that the stevedores had not been accustomed to handle this kind of freight, and so a part of the reptiles made their escape into the woods. From that time; so goes the tale, snakes have existed here as elsewhere. Unfortunately no one has ever made a study of serpent worship in Korea, but there appears to be some reason to believe that there was once such a cult. The Koreans still speak of the op-kuregi, or " Good Fortune Serpent " ; and as most of the natives have little other religion than that of praying to all kinds of spirits for good luck, it can hardly be doubted that the worship of the serpent in some form has existed in Korea.

Though there are no deadly snakes in the country, there are insects that annually cause considerable loss of life. The centi- pede attains a growth of six or seven inches, and a bite from one of them may prove fatal, if not attended to at once. The Koreans cut up centipedes and make a deadly drink, which they use, as hemlock was used in Greece, for executing criminals. This has now gone out of practice, however, thanks to the enlightening contact with Westerners, who simply choke a man to death with a rope ! Among the mountains it is said that a poisonous spider is found ; but until this is verified we dare not vouch for it.

The tortoise plays an important part in Korean legend and story. He represents to the Korean mind the principle of healthy conservatism. He is never in a hurry, and perhaps this is why the Koreans look upon him with such respect, if not affection. All animals in Korea are classed as good or bad. We have already said that the fox is the worst. The tiger, boar, frog and mouse follow. These are all bad ; but the bear, deer, tortoise, cow and rabbit are all good animals.

More important than all these, except cattle, are the fish of Korea. The waters about the peninsula swarm with fish of a hundred kinds. They are all eaten by the people, even the sharks and the octopi. The commonest is the ling, which is caught in enormous numbers off the east coast, and sent all over the country in the dried form. Various kinds of clams, oysters and shrimps are common. Whales are so numerous off the eastern coast that a flourishing Japanese company has been employed in catching them of late years. Pearl oysters are found in large numbers along the southern coast, and the pearls would be of considerable value if the Koreans knew how to abstract them from the shells in a proper manner.

But fish and pearls are not the only sea-products that the Korean utilises. Enormous quantities of edible seaweed are gathered, and the sea-slug, or beche-de-mer, is a particular deli- cacy. The Koreans make no use of those bizarre dishes for which the Chinese are so noted, such as birds' nests and the like. Their only prandial eccentricity is boiled dog, and that is strictly confined to the lowest classes.

2. THE PEOPLE

study of the origin and the ethnological affinities of the Korean people is yet in its infancy. Not until a close and exhaustive investigation has been made of the monuments, the folk-lore, the language and all the other sources of information can anything be said defi- nitely upon this question. It will be in place, therefore, to give here the tentative results already arrived at, but without dogmatising.

Oppert was the first to note that in Korea there are two types of face, — the one distinctly Mongolian, and the other lacking many of the Mongolian features and tending rather to the Malay type. To the new-comer all Koreans look alike; but long resi- dence among them brings out the individual peculiarities, and one comes to recognise that there are as many kinds of face here as in the West. Dr. Baelz, one of the closest students of Far Eastern physiognomy, recognises the dual nature of the Korean type, and finds in it a remarkable resemblance to a similar feature of the Japanese, among whom we learn that there is a certain class, probably descendants of the ancient Yamato race, which has preserved to a great extent the same non-Mongolian cast of features. This seems to have been overlaid at some later time by a Polynesian stock. The ethnological relation between the non-Mongolian type in Korea and the similar type in Japan is one of the most interesting racial problems of the Far East. I feel sure that it is the infusion of this type into Korea and Japan that has differentiated these peoples so thoroughly from the Chinese.

Five centuries before Christ, northern Korea and southern Korea were very clearly separated. The Kija dynasty in the north had consolidated the people into a more or less homo- geneous state, but this kingdom never extended south further than the Han River. At this time the southern coast of the peninsula was peopled by a race differing in essential particulars from those of the north. Their language, social system, govern- ment, customs, money, ornaments, traditions and religion were all quite distinct from those of the north. Everything points to the belief that they were maritime settlers or colonists, and that they had come to the shores of Korea from the south.

The French missionaries in Korea were the first to note a curious similarity between the Korean language and the lan- guages of the Dravidian peoples of southern India. It is well established that India was formerly inhabited by a race closely allied to the Turanian peoples, and that when the Aryan con- querors swept over India the earlier tribes were either driven in flight across into Burmah and the Malay Peninsula, or were forced to find safety among the mountains in the Deccan. From the Malay Peninsula we may imagine them spreading in various directions. Some went north along the coast, others into the Philippine Islands, then to Formosa, where Mr. Davidson, the best authority, declares tHat the Malay type prevails. The power- ful " Black Current," the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, naturally swept northward those who were shipwrecked. The Liu-Kiu Islands were occupied, and the last wave of this great dispersion broke on the southern shores of Japan and Korea, leaving there the nucleus of those peoples who resemble each other so that if dressed alike they cannot be distinguished as Japanese or Korean even by an expert. The small amount of work that has been so far done indicates a striking resemblance between these south- ern Koreans and the natives of Formosa, and the careful com- parison of the Korean language with that of the Dravidian peoples of southern India reveals such a remarkable similarity, phonetic, etymologic, and syntactic, that one is forced to recognise in it something more than mere coincidence. The endings of many of the names of the ancient colonies in southern Korea are the exact counterpart of Dravidian words meaning " settlement " or " town." The endings -caster and -coin in English are no more evidently from the Latin than these endings in Korea are from the Dravidian.

The early southern Koreans were wont to tattoo their bodies. The custom has died out, since the more rigorous climate of the peninsula compels the use of clothing covering the whole body. The description of the physiological features of those Dravidian tribes which have suffered the least from intermixture with others coincides in every particular with the features of the Korean. Of course it is impossible to go into the argument in cxtenso here; but the most reasonable conclusion to be arrived at to-day is that the peninsula of Korea is inhabited by two branches of the same original family, a part of which came around China by way of the north, and the other part by way of the south.

As we see in the historical review given elsewhere in these pages, the southern kingdom of Silla was the first to obtain control of the entire peninsula and impose her laws and language, and it is for this reason that the language to-day reflects much more of the southern stock than of the northern.

CHARACTERISTICS

In discussing the temperament and the mental characteristics of the Korean people, it will be necessary to begin with the trite saying that human nature is the same the world over. The new- comer to a strange country like this, where he sees so many curious and, to him, outlandish things, feels that the people are in some way essentially different from himself, that they suffer from some radical lack; but if he were to stay long enough to learn the language, and get behind the mask which hides the genuine Korean from his mental view, he would find that the Korean might say after old Shylock, " I am a Korean. Hath not a Korean eyes? Hath not a Korean hands, organs, dimen- sions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons? subject to the same diseases? healed with the same means  ? warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as the Westerner is  ? If you prick us, do we not bleed  ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh  ? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not be revenged? " In other words, he will find that the differences between the Oriental and the Occidental are wholly superficial, the outcome of training and environment, and not of radical dissimilarity of temperament. But there is this to be said: it is far easier to get close to a Korean and to arrive at his point of view than to get close to a Japanese or a Chinese. Somehow or other there seems to be a greater temperamental difference between the Japanese or Chinese and the Westerner than between the Korean and the Westerner. I believe the reason for this lies in the fact of the different balance of temperamental qualities in these different peoples. The Japanese are a people of sanguine temperament. They are quick, versatile, idealistic, and their temperamental sprightliness approaches the verge of volatility. This quality stood them in good stead when the opportunity came for them to make the great volte face in 1868. It was a happy leap in the dark. In the very same way the Japanese often embarks upon business enterprises, utterly sanguine of success, but without forecasting what he will do in case of disaster. The Chinese, on the other hand, while very superstitious, is comparatively phlegmatic. He sees no rainbows and pursues no ignes fatui. He has none of the martial spirit which impels the Japanese to deeds of patriotic daring. But he is the best business man in the world. He is careful, patient, persevering, and content with small but steady gains. No one knows better than he the ultimate evil results of breaking a contract. Without laying too much emphasis upon these opposite tendencies in the Japanese and Chinese, we may say that the former lean toward the idealistic, while the latter lean toward the utilitarian. The temperament of the Korean lies midway between the two, even as his country lies between Japan and China. This combination of qualities makes the Korean rationally idealistic. Those who have seen the Korean only superficially, and who mark his unthrifty habits, his happy-go-lucky methods, his narrowness of mind, will think my characterisation of him flattering ; but those who have gone to the bottom of the Korean character, and are able to distin- guish the true Korean from some of the caricatures which have been drawn of him, will agree that there is in him a most happy combination of rationality and emotionalism. And more than this, I would submit that it is the same combination that has made the Anglo-Saxon what he is. He is at once cool-headed and hot-headed. He can reason calmly and act at white heat. It is this welding of two different but not contrary characteris- tics that makes the power of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It will be necessary to show, therefore, why it is that Korea has done so little to justify the right to claim such exceptional qualities. But before doing this, I would adduce a few facts to show on what my claim is based.

In the first place, it is the experience of those who have had to do with the various peoples of the Far East that it is easier to understand the Korean and get close to him than it is to understand either the Japanese or the Chinese. He is much more like ourselves. You lose the sense of difference very readily, and forget that he is a Korean and not a member of your own race. This in itself is a strong argument; for it would not be so if there were not some close intellectual, or moral, or tempera- mental bond of sympathy. The second argument is a religious one. The religions of China were forced upon Korea irrespective of her needs or desires. Confucianism, while apparently satis- factory to a man utterly devoid of imagination (a necessary instrument to be used in the work of unifying great masses of population, by anchoring them to the dead bones of their ances- tors), can be nothing less than contemptible to a man possessed of actual humour. Two things have preserved the uniform politi- cal solidarity of the Chinese Empire for the last three thousand years, — the sacred ideograph and the ancestral grave. But Confucianism is no religion ; it is simply patriarchal law. That law, like all other civil codes, received its birth and nutriment from the body politic of China by natural generation. But the Korean belongs to a different intellectual and temperamental species, and thus the law which was bone of China's bone and flesh of her flesh was less than a foster-child to Korea. Its entire lack of the mystical element renders it quite incapable of satisfying the religious cravings of such a people as the Koreans. Buddhism stands at the opposite pole from Confucianism. It is the most mystical of all cults outside the religion of the Nazarene. This is why it has become so strongly intrenched in Japan. While Confucianism leaves nothing to the imagination, Buddhism leaves everything. The idealism of the, Japanese surrendered to it, and we may well believe that when Buddhism is driven to bay it will not be at Lhasa, the home of the Lamas, but at Nara or at Nikko. Here again that rational side of the Korean tempera- ment came in play. While Confucianism contained too little mysticism for him, Buddhism contained too much ; and so, while nominally accepting both, he made neither of them a part of himself.

It is said that when a company of Tartar horsemen capture one of the enemy they bury him to the neck in the earth, pack the dirt firmly about him so that he can move neither hand nor foot, place a bowl of water and a bowl of food just before his face, and leave him to die of hunger, thirst or sunstroke, or to be torn by wolves. This is the way, metaphorically, in which Korea was treated to religions. Both kinds were placed before her very face, but she could partake of neither. The sequel is important. The Christian religion was introduced into Korea by the Roman Catholics about a century ago, and by Protestants two decades ago. The former made considerable advance in spite of terrible persecution, but their rate of advance was slow compared with what has been done by the Protestant missionaries. I make bold to say that the Christian religion, shorn of all trappings and embellishments of man's making, appeals perfectly to the ration- ally emotional temperament of the Korean. And it is to some extent this perfect adaptability which has won for Christianity such a speedy and enthusiastic hearing in this country. Chris- tianity is at once the most rational and the most mystical of reli- gions, and as such is best fitted, humanly speaking, to appeal to this people. This, of course, without derogation from its uni- versal claims. One has but to consult the records of modern missions to see what a wonderful work has been done in this land by men who are presumably no more and no less devoted than those at work in other fields.

Being possessed, then, of a temperament closely allied to that of the Anglo-Saxon, what has caused the present state of intel- lectual and moral stagnation? Why is it that most people look upon the Korean as little better than contemptible? It is because in the sixth and seventh centuries, when Korea was in her forma- tive stage, when she was just ready to enter upon a career of inde- pendent thought and achievement, the ponderous load of Chinese civilisation was laid upon her like an incubus. She knew no better than to accept these Chinese ideals, deeming in her igno- rance that this would be better than to evolve ideals of her own. From that time to this she has been the slave of Chinese thought. She lost all spontaneity and originality. To imitate became her highest ambition, and she lost sight of all beyond this contracted horizon. Intrinsically and potentially the Korean is a man of high intellectual possibilities, but he is, superficially, what he is by virtue of his training and education. Take him out of this environment, and give him a chance to develop independently and naturally, and you would have as good a brain as the Far East has to offer.

Korea is a good illustration of the great influence which environment exerts upon a people's mental and moral character- istics. I am not sure that the conservatism of either the Korean or the Chinese is a natural characteristic. The population of China is so vast and so crowded, social usages have become so stereotyped, the struggle for bare existence is so keen, that the slightest disturbance in the running of the social machine is sure to plunge thousands into immediate destitution and despair. At this point lies the enormous difficulty of reforming that country. It is like a huge machine, indescribably complicated, and so deli- cately adjusted that the variation of a hair's-breadth in any part will bring the whole thing to a standstill. Let me illustrate. There are a great many foreigners in China who are trying to evolve a phonetic system of writing for that country. It is a most laudable undertaking; but the system which has received most approbation is one in which our Roman letters are used to indicate the various sounds of that language. But these letters are made by the use of straight and curved lines, the latter being almost exclusively used in ordinary writing. Now we know that over two thousand years ago the Chinese discarded a system based upon curved lines, because it was found impossible to make them readily with the brush pen, universally used throughout the Far East. The introduction of a system containing a large proportion of curved lines implies, therefore, that the brush pen will be laid aside in favour of a hard pen, either in the form of our Western pen or in some similar form. Note the result. The use of a metal pen and fluid ink will do away with the brush pen, and will affect the industry whereby a million people make an already precarious living. The manufacture of india ink will likewise go to the wall. The paper now used in all forms of writing will be useless, and a very few, if any, of the manufac- turing plants now in operation can be utilised for the manu- facture of the hard, calendered paper which is needed for use with the steel pen. Moreover, the ink-stones, water-cups, writing- tablets, and all the other paraphernalia in use at the present time will have to be thrown away, and all the people engaged in the manufacture of these things will be deprived of their means of support. All this is likely to happen if the system proposed is to become the general rule. Note how far-reaching even such a seemingly small change as this will be. It might be possible if there were any margin upon which all these people could sub- sist during the process of change; but there is none. It is for this reason that the present writer has urged that the Chinese people be invited to adopt the Korean alphabet, which is as simple in structure as any, and capable of the widest phonetic adapta- tion. It is a " square " character, and could therefore be written with the brush pen, as it is to-day by the Korean. The same paper, ink, and other apparatus now in use in China could be retained, and the only work to be done in introducing it is to overcome the sentimental prejudice of the Chinese in favour of the ideograph. It would affect the daily occupation of almost no Chinese workmen at all. This illustration has gone too far; but it will help to show how firmly these customs have sunk their roots in the soil of these nations, and it shows that conservatism has become a necessity of life, however much one might wish to get rid of it. But let us get back to Korea.

The Korean is highly conservative. One of his proverbs is that " If you try to shorten the road by going across lots, you will fall in with highwaymen." This is a strong plea for stay- ing in the old ruts. His face is always turned back toward the past. He sees no statesmen, warriors, scholars or artists to-day that are in any way comparable with those of the olden times; nor does he even believe that the present is capable of evolving men who are up to the standard of those of former times.

But in spite of all this, he can be moved out of his conservatism by an appeal to his self-interest. The introduction of friction matches will illustrate this point. The Korean was confined to the use of flint and steel until about thirty years ago ; but when matches entered the country in the wake of foreign treaties, he saw almost at once that they were cheaper and better in every way than his old method, and he adopted them without the least remonstrance. There were a few fossils who clung to the flint and steel out of pure hatred of the new article, but they were laughed at by the overwhelming majority. The same is true of the introduction of petroleum, sewing-needles, thread, soap and a thousand other articles of daily use. The same is true in China. There is no conservatism that will stand out against self-interest.

And here we touch a second characteristic of the Korean. It cannot be truthfully said that the Korean is niggardly. It has been the opinion of most who have had intimate dealings with him that he is comparatively generous. He is generally lavish with his money when he has any, and when he has none he is quite willing to be lavish with some one else's money. Most foreigners have had a wider acquaintance with the latter than with the former. He is no miser. He considers that money is made to circulate, and he does his best to keep it from stagna- tion. He thinks that it is not worth getting unless it can be gotten easily. I doubt whether there is any land where the average citizen has seen greater ups and downs of pecuniary fortune. Having a handsome competence, he invests it all in some wild venture at the advice of a friend, and loses it all. He grumbles a little, but laughs it off, and saunters along the street with as much unconcern as before. It went easily — he will get some more as easily. And, to tell the truth, he generally does. It is simply because there are plenty more as careless as himself. He is undeniably improvident; but there is in it all a dash of generosity and a certain scorn of money which make us admire him for it, after all. I have seen Koreans despoiled of their wealth by hideous official indirection which, in the Anglo-Saxon, would call for mob law instantly ; but they carried it off with a shrug of the shoulders and an insouciance of manner which would have done credit to the most hardened denizen of Wall Street. I am speaking here of the average Korean, but there are wide variations in both directions. There are those who hoard and scrimp and whine for more, and there are those who are not only generous but prodigal. Foreigners are unfavourably impressed by the willingness with which the Korean when in poor circumstances will live on his friends ; but this is to a large extent offset by the willingness with which he lets others live on him when he is in flourishing circumstances. Bare chance plays such a prominent part in the acquisition of a fortune here, that the favoured one is quite willing to pay handsomely for his good luck. And yet the Korean people are not without thrift. If a man has money, he will generally look about for a safe place to invest it. It is because the very safest places are still so unsafe that fortune has so much to do with the matter. He risks his money with his eyes wide open. He stands to win largely or lose all. An investment that does not bring in forty per cent a year is hardly satisfactory, nor should it be satisfactory, since the chances of loss are so great that the average of gain among a score of men will probably be no more than in our own lands. Why the chances of loss are so great will be discussed in its proper place.

Another striking characteristic of the Korean is his hospi- tality. This is a natural sequence of his general open-handedness. The guest is treated with cordial courtesy, whatever differences of opinion there may be or may have been between them. For the time being he is a guest, and nothing more. If he happens to be present at the time for the morning or afternoon meal, it is de rigeur to ask him to have a table of food ; and many a man is impoverished by the heavy demands which are made upon his hospitality. Not that others have knowingly taken undue advantage of his good nature, but because his position or his business and social connections have made it necessary to keep open house, as it were. A Korean gentleman of my acquaint- ance, who can live well on twenty dollars a month in the country, recently refused a salary of twice that sum in Seoul on the plea that he had so many friends that he could not live on that amount. Seoul is very ill-supplied with inns ; in fact, it has very little use for them. Everyone that comes up from the country has a friend with whom he will lodge. It must be confessed that there are a considerable number of young men who come up to Seoul and stay a few days with each of their acquaintances in succes- sion ; and if they have a long enough calling list, they can man- age to stay two or three years in the capital free of board and lodgings. Such a man finally becomes a public nuisance, and his friends reluctantly snub him. He always takes this hint and retires to his country home. I say that they reluctantly snub him, for the Korean is mortally afraid of being called stingy. You may call him a liar or a libertine, and he will laugh it off; but call him mean, and you flick him on the raw. Hospitality toward relatives is specially obligatory, and the abuse of it forms one of the most distressing things about Korea. The moment a man obtains distinction and wealth he becomes, as it were, the social head of his clan, and his relatives feel at liberty to visit him in shoals and stay indefinitely. They form a sort of social body-guard, — a background against which his distinction can be well displayed. If he walks out, they are at his elbow to help him across the ditches; if he has any financial transactions to arrange, they take the onerous duty off his hands. Meanwhile every hand is in his rice-bag, and every dollar spent pays toll to their hungry purses. It amounts to a sort of feudal communism, in which every successful man has to divide the profits with his relatives.

Another marked characteristic of the Korean is his pride. There are no people who will make more desperate attempts to keep up appearances. Take the case of one of our own nouveaux riches trying in every way to insinuate himself into good society, and you will have a good picture of a countless multitude of Koreans. In spite of the lamentable lack of effort to better their intellectual status or to broaden their mental horizon, there is a passionate desire to ascend a step on the social ladder. Put the average Korean in charge of a few dollars, even though they be not his own, or give him the supervision of the labour of a few men, — anything that will put him over somebody either physi- cally or financially, and he will swell almost to bursting. Any accession of importance or prestige goes to his head like new wine, and is liable to make him very offensive. This unfortunate tendency forms one of the greatest dangers that has to be faced in using Koreans, whether in business, educational or religious lines. There are brilliant exceptions to this rule, and with better education and environment there is no reason to suppose that even the average Korean would preserve so sedulously this un- . pleasant quality. It is true of Korea as of most countries, that offensive pride shows itself less among those who have cause for pride than among those who are trying to establish a claim to it. It is the impecunious gentleman — the man of good extraction but indifferent fortune — that tries your patience to the point of breaking. I was once acquainted with such a person, and he applied to me for work on the plea of extreme poverty. He was a gentleman, and would do no work of a merely manual nature, so I set him to work colouring maps with a brush pen. This is work that any gentleman can do without shame. But he would come to my house and bury himself in an obscure corner to do the work, and would invent all sorts of tricks to prevent his acquaintances from discovering that he was working. I paid him in advance for his work, but he soon began to shirk it and still apply for more money. When I refused to pay more till he had earned what he had already received, he left in high dudgeon, established himself in a neighbouring house, and sent letter after letter, telling me that he was starving. I replied that he might starve if he wished; that there was money for him if he would work, and not otherwise. The last note I received announced that he was about to die, and that he should use all his influence on the other side of the grave to make me regret that I had used him so shabbily. I think he did die ; but as that was fifteen years ago, and I have not yet begun to regret my action, I fear he is as shiftless in the land of shades as he was here. This is an extreme but actual case, and could doubtless be duplicated by most foreigners living in Korea. The other side of the picture is more encouraging. There is the best of evidence that a large number of well-born people die annually of starvation because they are too proud to beg or even to borrow. This trait is embalmed in almost countless stories telling of how poor but worthy people, on the verge of starvation, were rescued from that cruel fate by some happy turn of fortune. In the city of Seoul there is one whole quarter almost wholly given up to residences of gentlemen to whom fortune has given the cold shoulder. It lies under the slopes of South Mountain, and you need only say of a man that he is a " South Ward Gentleman " to tell the whole story. Ordinarily the destitute gentleman does not hesitate to borrow. The changes of for- tune are so sudden and frequent that he always has a plausible excuse and can make voluble promises of repayment. To his credit be it said that if the happy change should come he would be ready to fulfil his obligations. It has to be recorded, how- ever, that only a very small proportion of those who borrow from foreigners ever experience that happy change. There are several ways to deal with such people: the first is to lend them what they want; the second is to refuse entirely; and the third is to do as one foreigner did, — when the Korean asked for the loan of ten dollars, he took out five and gave them to him, saying, " I will give this money to you rather than lend you ten. By so doing I have saved five dollars, and you have gotten that much without having to burden your memory with the debt." To the ordinary Korean borrower this would seem like making him a beggar, and he never would apply to the same source for another loan.

In the matter of truthfulness the Korean measures well up to the best standards of the Orient, which at best are none too high. The Chinese are good business men, but their honesty is of the kind that is based upon policy and not on morals. Among the common people of that land truthfulness is at a sad discount. It is largely so in all Far Eastern countries, but there are different kinds of untruthfulness. Some people lie out of pure malicious- ness and for the mere fun of the thing. The Koreans do not belong to this class ; but if they get into trouble, or are faced by some sudden emergency, or if the success of some plan depends upon a little twisting of the truth, they do not hesitate to enter upon the field of fiction. The difference between the Korean and the Westerner is illustrated by the different ways they will act if given the direct lie. If you call a Westerner a liar, it is best to prepare for emergencies ; but in Korea it is as common to use the expression " You are a liar ! " as it is to say " You don't say ! " " Is it possible! " or " What, really? " in the West. A Korean sees about as much moral turpitude in a lie as we see in a mixed metaphor or a split infinitive.

As for morality in its narrower sense, the Koreans allow themselves great latitude. There is no word for home in their language, and much of the meaning which that word connotes is lost to them. So far as I can judge, the condition of Korea to-day as regards the relations of the sexes is much like that of ancient Greece in the days of Pericles. There is much similarity between the kisang (dancing-girl) of Korea and the hctairai of Greece. But besides this degraded class, Korea is also afflicted with other and, if possible, still lower grades of humanity, from which not even the most enlightened countries are free. The comparative ease with which a Korean can obtain the necessities of life makes him subject to those temptations which follow in the steps of leisure and luxury, and the stinging rebuke which a Japanese envoy administered at a banquet in Seoul in 1591, when the dancing-girls indulged in a disgraceful scramble for some oranges that were thrown to them, was not wholly undeserved. To-day there is little, if anything, to choose between Korea and Japan in this matter of private morals, the geisha of Japan being the exact counterpart of the kisang of Korea, while the other and still less reputable members of the demi monde are too low the world over to require classification. This much must be said in favour of the Koreans, that this depraved class is not recog- nised by law and advertised by segregation. But on this point, of course, publicists differ.

Every people has its own special way of fighting. The English and French are as thoroughly differentiated in this as are the Japanese and Koreans. Street quarrels are extremely common, but they seldom result in any great damage. Two stout coolies, the worse for wine, will begin disputing over some trivial matter, and indulge in very loud and very bad language, which, in spite of their close proximity to each other, is delivered at the very top of their voices and with an energy quite volcanic. Our Western oaths, though more heinous on account of the intro- duction of the name of the Deity, are in other respects mild compared with the flood of filth which pours from the lips of an angry Korean. Not only are these epithets entirely unquotable, but even their nature and subject-matter could not be mentioned with propriety. The very fact that people are allowed to use such language in public without being immediately arrested and lodged in jail is a sufficient commentary on the sad lack not only of delicacy but of common decency among the lowest classes in Korea.

After the vocabulary of abuse has been exhausted the two contestants clinch with each other, each attempting to grasp the other by the top-knot, which forms a most convenient handle. To clench the fist and strike a blow is almost unknown. Each man having secured his hold, they begin pulling each other down, all the time wasting their breath in mad invective. They kick at each other's abdomens with their heavy hobnailed shoes ; and when one of them goes down, he is likely to be kicked to death by the other unless the onlookers -intervene, which is usually the case. The Koreans are great peacemakers, and it is seldom that a quarrel between two individuals results in a free fight. The crowd does not take sides readily, but one of the friends of each of the fighters comes up behind him and throws his arms about him and attempts to drag him away; or the peacemaker will get between the two contestants and push with all his might, expostulating as hard as he can. It is really amusing to see two men roused to a point of absolute frenzy attempting to get at each other across the shoulders of two men who are pushing them apart as hard as ever they can. The angry man will never offer violence to the one who is acting as peacemaker, but he is like a bulldog held in leash, while his antagonist is yapping at him frantically but futilely from the other side of the ring. When genuinely angry, the Korean may be said to be insane. He is entirely careless of life, and resembles nothing so much as a fanged beast. A fine froth gathers about his mouth and adds much to the illusion. It is my impression that there is com- paratively little quarrelling unless more or less wine has been consumed. In his cups he is more Gaelic than Gallic. Unfor- tunately this ecstasy of anger does not fall upon the male sex alone, and when it takes possession of a Korean woman she be- comes the impersonation of all the Furies rolled into one. She will stand and scream so loud that the sound finally refuses to come from her throat, and she simply retches. Every time I see a woman indulging in this nerve-racking process I marvel that she escapes a stroke of apoplexy. It seems that the Korean, from his very infancy, makes no attempt to control his temper. The children take the habit from their elders, and if things do not go as they wish they fly into a terrible passion, which either gains its end or gradually wears itself out.

The callousness which the Koreans exhibit in the presence of suffering, especially the suffering of animals, is a trait which they share with all Orientals. Most dumb animals have no way of showing that they are suffering unless the pain be extreme, and the Koreans seem to have argued from this that these ani- mals do not suffer; at any rate, they show an utter unconcern even when the merest novice could see that the beast was suffer- ing horribly. If a sick cat or a lame dog or a wounded bird is seen upon the street, the children, young and old, arm themselves with sticks and stones and amuse themselves with the thing until life is extinct. They take great pleasure in catching insects, pull- ing their legs or wings off, and watching their ludicrous motions. Dragon-flies and beetles are secured by a string about the body, and allowed to fly or jump as far as the string will permit, after which they are dragged back to the hand. Young sparrows that have fallen from the nests beneath the eaves are passed from hand to hand, their half-grown plumage is coloured with different tints, and at last, of course, they die of exhaustion. When an unfortunate dog is dragged down the street with a rope around its neck to the dog-meat shop, it will be followed by a jubilant crowd of children, who enjoy a lively anticipation of seeing the poor thing struggle in the mortal throes of strangulation.

There is one economic fact which goes far to explain the com- parative lack of thrift in Korea. The ratio of population to arable area is far smaller than in Japan or China, and conse- quently, so long as Korea was closed to outsiders, the average of common comfort among the people was higher than in either of the two contiguous countries. Mendicancy was almost un- known; rice was frequently so common that the records say people could travel without cost. In other words, it required far less work to secure a comfortable living than elsewhere in the Orient. The people were not driven to thrift as an inexorable necessity. From the purely economic standpoint the Taiwunkun was right, and the opening of Korea was the worst thing that could happen ; but from the moral and intellectual standpoint the change was for the best, for it will in time bring out long dor- mant qualities which otherwise would have suffered permanent eclipse.

There are traits of mind and heart in the Korean which the Far East can ill afford to spare; and if Japan should allow the nation to be overrun by, and crushed beneath, the wheels of a selfish policy, she would be guilty of an international mistake of the first magnitude.

3. GOVERMENT

SO far as we can judge from the annals of the land, the form of government which prevails to-day has existed in all its fundamental particulars from the most ancient times. We know very little of how the country was governed previous to the time of the great influx of Chinese ideas in the seventh and eighth centuries, but of this we may be sure, that it was an absolute monarchy. At the first the King was called by the title Kosogan, which was changed to Yisagum and Maripkan. These titles, one or all, prevailed until the over- whelming tide of Chinese influence broke down all indigenous laws and the term Wang came to be applied. But even thus the common people clung to their native term for king in ordinary discourse, and even to this day he calls his sovereign the Ingum. This is a shortened form of the ancient Yisagum.

In one sense the power of the ruler of Korea is absolute ; but as power depends entirely upon the two factors, information and instrument, it is far from true that he can do as he wishes in all things. If there is a divinity that hedges kings about, she has surely done her work thoroughly in Korea. Though no divine honours are done the King (now Emperor) of Korea, yet the sup- posed veneration of his person is so great that he must keep him- self very closely secluded, the result being that all his commands are based upon information provided by his immediate attend- ants and officials. Then again, in the carrying out of these commands, the very same officials must be used who gave the information, and it would be difficult for him to find out whether the spirit as well as the letter of the command had been carried out. Granted, then, that his information be accurate and his instruments loyal, it may be said that Korea is an absolute mon- archy. You will be told that there is a written constitution by which the ruler is himself circumscribed, and it is true that some such book exists ; but it may be taken for granted that unwritten law and precedent have much more to do with curtailing the prerogatives of kinghood than any written law. Time out of mind the kings of Korea have taken the bit in their teeth and gone according to their own inclinations, irrespective of any written or unwritten law; and it is beyond question that no such tradition or law ever stood in the way if there was any strong reason for going counter to it. Of course this could not be done except by the acquiescence of the officials immedi- ately about the King's person.

There have been three phases in the history of Korean gov- ernment. All through the early years, from the opening of our era until the beginning of the present dynasty in 1392, the civil and military branches of the government were so evenly balanced that there was always a contest between them for the favour of the King and the handling of the government. The power of sacerdotalism complicated things during the Koryu dynasty, and by the time Koryu came to its end the condition of things was deplorable. Confucian sympathisers, Buddhist sym- pathisers, and military leaders had carried on a suicidal war with each other, until the people hardly knew who it was that they could look to for government. And in fact during those last years the country governed itself very largely. There was one good result from this, that when Yi T'a-jo took hold of things in 1392 he found no one faction powerful enough to oppose him in his large scheme for a national reform. From that time the civil power came to its rightful place of supremacy and the military dropped behind. This was an immense benefit to the people, for it meant progress in the arts of peace. The first two centuries of the present dynasty afford us the pleasantest picture of all the long years of Korea's life. The old evils had been done away and the new ones had not been born. It was the Golden Age of Korea. In the middle of the sixteenth century arose the various political parties whose continued and san- guinary strife has made the subsequent history of Korea such unpleasant reading. The Japanese invasion also did great harm, for besides depleting the wealth of the country and draining its best and worthiest blood, it left a crowd of men who by their exertions had gained a special claim upon the government, and who pressed their claim to the point of raising up new barriers between the upper and lower classes, which had not existed before. From that time on the goal of the Korean's ambition was to gain a place where, under the protection of the govern- ment, he might first get revenge upon his enemies and, secondly, seize upon their wealth. The law that was written in the statute books, that the King's relatives should not be given important positions under the government, came to be disregarded; the relatives of queens and even concubines were raised to the highest positions in the gift of the King ; and as if this were not enough, eunuchs aspired to secure the virtual control of the mind of the sovereign, and time and again they have dictated important meas- ures of government. The common people constantly went down in the scale and the so-called yangban went up, until a condition of things was reached which formed the limit of the people's endurance. They took things into their own hands, and, without a national assembly or conference, enacted the law that popular riot is the ultimate court of appeal in Korea. Officialdom has come to accept and abide by that law, and if a prefect or gov- ernor is driven out of his place by a popular uprising the government will think twice before attempting to reinstate him.

But we must go on to describe in brief and non-technical terms the elements which compose the Korean government. Im- mediately beneath the King (or Emperor) is the Prime Minister, with the Minister of the Left and Minister of the Right on either hand. They form the ultimate tribunal of all affairs which affect the realm. But there is a special office, that of Censor, which is quite independent, and which ranks with that of Prime Minister. It is his function to scrutinise the acts of the Ministers of State and even of the King himself, and point out mistakes and dangers. As the Controller of the Currency in America has to examine all bills and give his approval before the money is paid, so these Censors have to take a final and dispassionate look at the gov- ernment measures before they go into operation. Below these, again, are the six great offices of state, coresponding to our Cabinet. These until recently comprised the ministries of the Interior, Law, Ceremonies, Finance, War and Industries. After describing their various functions we will explain the changes that have been made in recent years. The Prime Minister and his two colleagues attended to the private business of the King, superintended the appointment of officials, and took the lead in times of sudden calamity or trouble. They stood between the King and all the other officials of the government, and no meas- ures were adopted in any branch which did not come under their eye. The Department of the Interior, or Home Department as it is usually called, had charge of the whole prefectural system throughout the land, and was by far the most important of the ministries. It had much to say in the appointment of officials, for it had the preparation of the lists of nominees for most of the places under the government. It also had charge of the great national examinations, from among the successful competitors in which very many of the officials were chosen. The Law Department attended to the making and the mending of the laws, and closely connected with it was the Bureau of Police, which, although looking after the peace of the capital, carried out the requests of the Law Department in the matter of the detection and apprehension of criminals. The Police Department could do no more than carry on the preliminary examination of sus- pects, but for full trial and conviction it had to turn them over to the Law Department. The Ceremonial Department, as its name indicates, had charge of all government ceremonies, such as royal marriages, funerals and sacrifices. This was by no means a sinecure, for the elaborate ceremonies of former times taxed the ingenuity and patience of those who had them in charge, and mistakes were sure to be detected and punished, since the ceremonies were public spectacles. No one who has seen a royal procession in Seoul will doubt that the Minister of Ceremonies earned his salary. The Department of Finance collected all the taxes of the country, took the census and controlled the gran- aries in which the revenue was stored. In former times much of the revenue was paid in kind, and not only rice but other grain and all sorts of products were sent up to Seoul for the use of the royal household. All these the Finance Department had to receive, examine, approve and store away. The War Depart- ment had charge of the army and navy of Korea, superintended the great military examinations, controlled the broad lands that had been set aside for the use of the army, and collected the taxes thereon. The Industrial Department was the least con- sidered of all the great departments, but it was perhaps the busiest and most useful. It had charge of the preparation of all the " stage properties " of the government. It provided all the fur- nishings for royal functions, repaired the roads, kept the public buildings in order, and did any other odds and ends of work that it was called upon for. There was no Educational Department. The matter of education was joined with that of religion, and both were controlled by the Confucian School. This was directly responsible to the supreme head of the government through the Prime Minister. The foreign relations of Korea were so few and far between that no Foreign Office was established, but a little bureau of secondary rank attended to such affairs. The sending of the annual embassy to China was in the hands of the Ceremonial Department.

This is the merest skeleton of the governmental body of Korea. There are almost countless bureaus and offices whose nature and duties form such a complicated mosaic that the expli- cation of them would only tire the reader. It should, however, be particularly noted that great changes have been introduced since the opening of the country to foreign intercourse. In the first place, the Foreign Department has taken its place among the leading instruments of government ; an Educational Department has been established, co-ordinate in grade with the other great departments; the Ceremonial Department has been relegated to a secondary place, and the Police Bureau has advanced to a position of comparative prominence.

We have seen that from the middle of the sixteenth century the barriers between the upper and lower classes were built higher and stronger, and the common people gradually got out of touch with the governing body. This was the cause of much of the subsequent trouble. Men of common extraction, however gifted, could not hope to reach distinction, and blueness of blood became the test of eligibility to office rather than genuine merit. The factional spirit added to this difficulty by making it certain that however good a statesman a man might be the other side would try to get his head removed -from his shoulders at the first opportunity, and the more distinguished he became the greater would this desire be. From that time to this, almost all the really great men of Korea have met a violent death. But as all offices were filled with men who belonged to a sort of real nobility, the pride of place and the fear of having their honour brought in question did much to save the common people from the worst forms of oppression. The officials were arbi- trary and often cruel, but their meannesses were of a large order, such as yangbans could engage in without derogation from their good repute in the eyes of their peers. But this state of things began to show signs of disintegration early in the nineteenth century. The power of money in politics began to make itself felt, and the size of the purse came to figure more prominently in the question of eligibility for office; the former exclusiveness of the yangban gradually gave way, and the line of demarcation between the upper and lower classes was little by little obliterated, until at the end of the century there were men of low extraction who held important government offices. This worked evil every way, for such men knew that it was the power of money alone which raised them to eminence, and the old-time pride which kept indirection within certain bounds gave way to a shameless plundering of the people. Public offices were bought and sold like any other goods. There was a regu- lar schedule of the price of offices, ranging from fifty thousand dollars for a provincial governorship to five hundred dollars for a small magistrate's position. The handsome returns which this brought in to the venial officials at Seoul fed their cupidity, and, in order to increase these felonious profits, the tenure of office was shortened so as to make the payment of these enormous fees more frequent. Of course this was a direct tax upon the people, for each governor or prefect was obliged to tax the people heavily in order to cover the price of office and to feather his own nest during his short tenure of that office. The central government will not interfere with the fleecing policy of a pre- fect so long as he pays into tbe treasury the regular amount of taxation, together with any other special taxes that the gov- ernment may lay upon the people. In return for this non- interference in the prefect's little game the government only demands that if the prefect goes beyond the limit of the people's endurance, and they rise up and kill him or drive him from the place, neither he nor his family will trouble the government to reinstate him or obtain redress of any kind. It has come about, therefore, that the ability of a prefect is measured by the skill he shows in gauging the patience of the people and keeping the finger on the public pulse, like the inquisitors, in order to judge when the torture has reached a point where the endurance of the victim is exhausted. Why should the central government interfere in the man's behalf? The sooner he is driven from his place the sooner someone else will be found to pay for the office again. Of course there are many and bril- liant exceptions, and not infrequently the people of a district will seize the person of their prefect and demand that the gov- ernment continue him in his office for another term. They know a good thing when they see it, and they are willing to run a little risk of arrest and punishment in order to keep a fair-minded prefect. They virtually say, "We want this man for prefect, and if you send any other we will drive him out." The result is that there will be no one else that will care to pay the price of the office, and the government has to obey the command of the people, even though it means the loss of the fee for that time. In former years the prefect was chosen from among the people of the district where he was to govern. He belonged to a local family; and it is easy to see how there would be every inducement to govern with moderation, for indirection would injure not only the prefect's reputation, but would endanger the standing of the whole family. This was all done away with, however, and now the prefect is chosen from among the friends or relatives of some high official in Seoul, and is a sort of administrative free-lance bent upon the exploiting of his unknown constituency. He cares nothing what the people think of him, for as soon as he has squeezed them to the limit he will retire from office, and they will know him no more.

If this were all that could be said of the country prefect, we should conclude that government is next to impossible in Korea, but the fact is that the power of the prefect is curtailed and modified in a very effective manner by means of his under officials, through whom he has to do his work. These men are called ajuns, and they act as the right-hand man and factotum of the prefect. Comparatively low though the position of the ajun may be, it can truthfully be said that he is the most important man in the administration of the Korean govern- ment. He deserves special mention. The word ajun has ex- isted for many centuries in Korea, and is a word of native origin. It originally meant any government officer, and was as applicable to the highest ministers of the state as to the lowest government employee; but when the administration changed to its present form, the selecting of prefects from the districts where they lived was given up and the irresponsible method of the present time was adopted. The old-time pre- fectural families however continued to hold their name of ajun, and the term gradually became narrowed to them alone. The newly appointed prefects, coming into districts that they knew nothing about, had to depend upon local help in order to get the reins of government in hand, and what more natural than that they should call upon the ajuns to help? So it came about that the old ajun class became a sort of hereditary advisorship to the local prefects in each district.

Each prefecture is a miniature of the central government. The prefect becomes, as it were, the king of his little state, and the ajuns are his ministers. So closely is the resemblance carried out that each prefect has his six ministers; namely, of Interior, Finance, Ceremonies, War, Law and Industries. It is through these men that all the business is performed. The emperor can change his cabinet at will, and has thousands from whom to choose, but the prefect has no choice. He must pick his helpers only from the little band of ajuns in his district, of whom there may be anywhere from ten to a hundred. In any case his choice is greatly restricted. Now these ajuns are all from local families, and have not only their reputations to sup- port, but those of their families as well. It is this one thing that held the body politic of Korea together for so many cen- turies, in spite of the oppression and discouragements under which the people live. Foreigners have often wondered how the Koreans have been able to endure it, but they judge mostly from the gruesome tales told of the officials at the capital or of the rapacity of individual prefects. The reason of it all lies with the ajuns, who, like anchors, hold the ship of state to her moorings in spite of tides which periodically sweep back and forth and threaten to carry her upon the rocks.

The general impression is that the ajuns are a pack of wolves, whose business it is to fleece the people, and who lie awake nights concocting new plans for their spoliation. This is a sad exaggeration. The Koreans put the matter in a nutshell when they say that a " big man " will escape censure for great faults and will be lauded to the skies for small acts of merit, while the " little man's " good acts are taken for granted and his slightest mistakes are exaggerated. The ajun is the scapegoat for everyone's sins, the safety-valve which saves the boiler from bursting. It is right to pile metaphors upon him, for everybody uses him as a dumping-ground for their abuse. No doubt there are many bad ajuns, but if they were half as bad as they are painted the people would long ago have exterminated them. They are fixtures in their various districts, and if they once forfeit the good-will of the people they cannot move away to " pastures new," but must suffer the permanent consequences. Their families and local interests are their hostages, and their normal attitude is not that of an oppressor, but that of a buffer between the people and the prefect. They must hold in check the rapacity of the prefect with one hand and appease the exas- peration of the people with the other. Since it is their business to steer between these two, neither of whom can possibly be satisfied, uphold their own prestige with the prefect and at the same time preserve the good-will of the people, is it any wonder that we hear only evil of them?

The ajun is no simple yamen-runner who works with his own hands. He superintends the doing of all official business, but is no mere servant. He is necessarily a man of some degree of education, for he has to do all the clerical work of the office and keep the accounts. Not infrequently the best scholars of the district are found among these semi-officials. It is they who influence most largely the popular taste and feeling, for they come into such close touch with the common people that the latter take the cue from them most readily. They hold in their hands the greatest possibilities for good or evil. If they are good, it will be practically impossible for a bad prefect to oppress the people; and if they are bad, it will be equally impos- sible for a good prefect to govern well. They can keep the prefect well-informed or ill-informed, and thus influence his commands ; and even after the commands are issued they can frustrate them, for the execution of the orders of their superior is entirely in their hands. It is when both ajun and prefect are bad together and connive at the spoliation of the people that serious trouble arises. This is often enough the case ; but, as we have seen, the ajun always has the curb of public opinion upon him, and oppression in any extreme sense is the exception rather than the rule.

The temptations of the ajun are very great. The whole revenue of the district passes through his hands, and it would be surprising if some of it did not stick to them. The prefect wants all that he can get, and watches the ajun as closely as he can ; and at the same time the latter is trying to get as much out of the people as he may, not only for the prefect but for himself as well. He is thus between two fires. The people are ever trying to evade their taxes and jump their revenue bills. It is truly a case of diamond cut diamond. The qualities neces- sary to become a successful ajun make a long and formidable list. He must be tactful in the management of the prefect, exact in his accounts, firm and yet gentle with the people, resourceful in emergencies, masterful in crises, quick to turn to his advantage every circumstance, and in fact an expert in all the tricks of the successful politician. One of his most brilliant attainments is the ability to make excuses. If the people charge him with extortion, he spreads out expostulatory hands and says it is the prefect's order; and if the prefect charges him with short accounts, he bows low and swears that the people are squeezed dry and can give no more.

We have already shown that there is a " dead line," beyond which the people will not let the prefect go in his exactions. For the most part the official is able to gauge the feeling of the populace through the ajuns, but now and then he fails to do so. The people of the north are much quicker to take offence and show their teeth than those in the south. I remember once in 1890 the governor of the city of Pyeng-yang sent some of his ajuns down into the town to collect a special and illegal tax from the merchants of a certain guild. The demand was pre- ferred, and the merchants, without a moment's hesitation, rose up en masse, went to the house of the ajun who brought the message, razed it to the ground and scattered the timbers up and down the street. This was their answer, and the most amusing part of it was that the governor never opened his mouth in protest or tried to coerce them. He had his argument ready. The ajuns should have kept him informed of the state of public opinion; if they failed to do so, and had their houses pulled down about their ears, it was no affair of his. It was a good lesson to the ajuns merely. In another place the prefect came down from Seoul stuffed full of notions about governing with perfect justice and showing the people what enlightened gov- ernment was like. Not a cent was squeezed for two months, and so of course there were no pickings for the ajuns. They looked knowingly at each other, but praised the prefect to his face. Not long after this they came down upon the people with demands that were quite unheard-of, and almost tearfully affirmed that they had no option. They knew the poor people could not stand it, but they must obey the prefect. That night a few hundred of the people armed themselves with clubs and came down the street toward the prefect's quarters breathing slaughter. The good magistrate was told that the wicked peo- ple were up in arms and that flight was his only hope. Well, the bewildered man folded his tents like the Arabs and as silently stole away, leaving the ajuns to chuckle over their easy victory. But it was playing with fire, for in the course of time the people learned that they had been cheated out of an honest prefect, and they made it particularly warm for those wily ajuns.

After making all allowances for the Oriental point of view, it must be confessed that the pursuit of justice is often much like a wild-goose chase. The law exists and the machinery of jus- tice is in some sort of running order, but the product is very meagre. In order to explain this I shall have to suppose a few cases. If a man of the upper class has anything against a man of the lower class, he simply writes out the accusation on a piece of paper and sends it to the Police Bureau. If it is a slight offence that has been committed, he may ask the authorities simply to keep the man in jail for three or four days, adminis- tering a good sound beating once a day. In three cases out of four this will be done without further investigation, but if the gentleman is at all fair-minded he will appear in the course of a day or two and explain how it all came about. The cul- prit may be allowed to tell his side of the story or not, accord- ing as the police official in charge may think best. If the friends of the arrested man have money, they will probably go to the gentleman and say that if a small payment will appease him and cause him to send and get their friend out of prison they will be glad to talk about it. This subject of conversation is seldom uncongenial to the gentleman. If the jailer knows that the prisoner has money, there will be a substantial transaction before he is released. I was once asked to intervene in the case of a Christian convert who had been arrested for an unjust debt. He was confined at the office of the Supreme Court. I found that he had proved his case, and had secured a judgment which made him liable to the payment of only five hundred dollars instead of three times that amount. He had already paid three hundred of it to the court, to be handed to the cred- itor, but the court denied that this had been received. It was a very transparent trick, and I sat down and expressed a deter- mination to stay there till the receipt was forthcoming. They protested that it was all right, but promised to look up the archives over night, and I retired. The next morning there came a nice note saying that they had found the receipt tucked away in the darkest corner of the archives. There had been a change in the staff, and the retiring incumbent had deposited the receipt and had told nothing about it to his successor. Hence the mistake! But for the interference this man would have been compelled to pay the money twice. Another case that came within my own observation was that of a man who bought the franchise for cutting firewood in a certain government pre- serve. The price was four hundred dollars. This sum was paid in at the proper office, and the papers made out and delivered. A few days later the man found out that the same franchise had been sold to another man for the same price, and when he complained at the office he was told that he would have to divide the franchise with the other man. This made the transaction a losing one, and the original purchaser was ruined by it. There was no means of redress short of impeaching one of the strong- est officials under the government. There is no such thing as a lawyer in the country. All that can be done is to have men face each other before the judge and tell their respective stories and adduce witnesses in their own defence. Anyone can ask questions, and there is little of the order which characterises a Western tribunal. The plaintiff and defendant are allowed to scream at each other and use vile epithets, each attempting to outface the other. It must be confessed that the power of money is used very commonly to weigh down the balances of justice. No matter how long one lives in this country, he will never get to understand how a people can possibly drop to such a low estate as to be willing to live without the remotest hope of receiving even-handed justice. Not a week passes but you come in personal contact with cases of injustice and brutality that would mean a riot in any civilised country. You marvel how the people endure it. Not to know at what moment you may be called upon to answer a trumped-up charge at the hands of a man who has the ear of the judge, and who, in spite of your protests and evidence that is prima facie, mulcts you of half your property, and this without the possibility of appeal or redress of any kind, — this, I say, is enough to make life hardly worth living. Within a week of the present moment a little case has occurred just beside my door. I had a vacant house, the better part of which I loaned to a poor gentleman from the country and the poorer part to a common labourer. The gentleman orders the labourer to act as his servant without wages, because he is living in the same compound. The labourer refuses to do so. The gentleman writes to the prefect of police that he has been insulted, and the police seize the labourer and carry him away. I hear about the matter the next day and hurry to the police office and secure the man's release, but not in time to save him from a beating which cripples him for a week and makes it impossible for him to earn his bread. There is probably not a foreigner in Korea who has not been repeatedly asked to lend his influence in the cause of ordinary and self- evident justice.

Wealth and official position are practically synonymous in a country where it is generally recognised that justice is worth its price, and that the verdict will uniformly be given to the side which can show either the largest amount of money or an array of influence that intimidates the judge. I have not space in which to pile up illustrations of the ways by which people are manipulated for gain, but one only will give us a glimpse into the inner precincts of the system. There is a country gentleman living quietly at his home in the provinces. His entire patrimony amounts to, say, ten thousand dollars, and consists of his home and certain rice-fields surrounding it. He is a perfectly law-abiding citizen, and his reputation is without z. flaw, but he has no strong political backing at Seoul or in the prefectural capital. A political trickster, who is on the look- out for some means to " raise the wind," singles out this gentle- man for his victim, after finding all there is to find as to his property and connections. In order to carry out his plan he goes to Seoul and sees the official who has charge of the grant- ing of honorary degrees or offices. He asks how much the title of halyim is worth, and finds that it will cost six thousand dol- lars. He therefore promises to pay down the sum of six thou- sand dollars if the official will make out the papers, inserting the name of the country gentleman as the recipient of the high honour, and affixing thereto the statement that the fee is ten thousand dollars. Some questions are here asked, without doubt, as to the connections of the gentleman and his ability to bring powerful influence to bear upon the situation; but these being satisfactorily answered, the papers are made out, and the pur- chaser pays over the promised money, which he has probably obtained by pawning his own house at a monthly interest of five per cent. Armed with the papers thus obtained, he starts for the country and, upon his arrival at the town where the gentleman lives, announces that the town has all been honoured by having in its midst a man who has obtained the rank of halyim. He goes to the gentleman's house and congratulates him and turns over the papers. The gentleman looks at them aghast and says, " I have never applied for this honour, and I have no money to pay for it. You had better take it back and tell them that I must decline." This seems to shock the bearer of the papers almost beyond the power of speech, but at last he manages to say, " What ! Do you mean to say that you actually refuse to accept this mark of distinction and favour from the government, that you spurn the gracious gift and thus indirectly insult his Majesty? I cannot believe it of you." But the gentleman insists that it will be impossible to pay the fee, and must dismiss the matter from consideration. This causes a burst of righteous indignation on the part of the trickster, and he leaves the house in a rage, vowing that the prefect will hear about the matter. The people, getting wind of how matters stand, may rise up and run the rascal out of town, in which case justice will secure a left-handed triumph ; but the probability is the fellow will go to the prefect, show the papers, and offer to divide the proceeds of the transaction, at the same time intimat- ing in a polite way that in case the prefect does not fall in with the plan there will be danger of serious complications in Seoul, which will involve him. The prefect gives in and summons the gentleman, with the result that his entire property goes to pay for the empty honour, which will neither feed his children nor shelter them. One is tempted to rail at human nature, and to wonder that a man could be found so meek as to put up with this sort of treatment and not seek revenge in murder. This form of oppression cannot be said to be common, but even such extreme cases as this sometimes occur.

The penal code of Korea makes curious reading. Until recent years the method of capital punishment was decapitation. It was in this way that the French priests were killed in 1866. The victim is taken to the place of execution, outside the city walls, in a cart, followed by a jeering, hooting crowd. Placed upon his knees, he leans forward while several executioners circle around him and hack at his neck with half-sharpened swords. The body may then be dismembered and sent about the country in six sections, to be viewed by the people as an object-lesson. And a very effective one it ought to be. Since the Japan-China war this method has been given up, and the criminal is strangled to death in the prison or is compelled to drink poison. Women who are guilty of capital crimes are generally executed by poison. The most terrible kind of poison used is made by boiling a centipede. The sufferings which pre- cede death in this case are very much greater than those which accompany decapitation, but all would prefer to be poisoned, for thus the publicity is avoided. Many are the stories of how men have bravely met death in the poisoned bowl. One official was playing a game of chess with an acquaintance. A very inter- esting point had been reached, and a few moves would decide the contest. At that moment a messenger came from the King with a cup of poison and delivered the gruesome message. The official looked at the messenger and the cup, but waved them aside, saying, " Just wait a moment. You should not disturb a man when he is in the midst of a game of chess. I will drink the poison directly." He then turned to his opponent and said, " It 's your turn to play." He won the game after half-a-dozen moves, and then quietly turned and drank off the poison. Trea- son, murder, grave desecration and highway robbery are the most common causes of the execution of the capital sentence; but there are others that may be so punished at the will of the judge, — striking a parent, for instance, or various forms of Use majeste. Treason always takes the form of an attempt to depose the supreme head of the government and substitute another in his place. The lamentable strife of parties and the consequent bitterness and jealousy are the most to blame for such lapses, and they are by no means uncommon, though usually unsuccessful. Until recent years it was always cus- tomary to follow the execution of a traitor with the razing of his house, the confiscation of all his property, the death of all his sons and other near male relatives, and the enslavement of all the female portion of the family. It has recently been enacted that the relatives should be exempt. To us it seems strange that the innocent should, for so many centuries, have been punished with the guilty, but a very little study pf Korean conditions will solve the difficulty. There has never existed a police force in this country competent to hunt down and apprehend a criminal who has had a few hours' start. When a crime is discovered, it is possible to watch the city gates and seize the man if he attempts to go out without a disguise; but there are fifty ways by which he can evade the officers of the law, and it is always recognised that, once beyond the wall, there is absolutely no use in trying to catch him, unless there is good reason to know that he has gone to some specific place. If his guilt is certain, the law demands that his family produce him, and it will go very hard with them if the fugitive does not come back. But if he is only suspected, the way the police attempt to catch him is by watching his house in Seoul, feeling sure that at some time or other he will come back in secret. From the earliest times it was found necessary to put a check upon crime, of such a nature that even though the criminal himself could not be caught, he would abstain from evil. The only way was to involve his family in the trouble. This made the criminal pause before committing the crime, knowing that his family and relatives must suffer with him. It was preventive merely and not retribu- tive punishment.

The commonest method of punishing officials has always been banishment. No man was ever exiled from the country, for in the days before the country was opened to foreign intercourse this would have seemed far more cruel than death ; but banish- ment means the transportation of the offender to some distant portion of the country, often some island in the archipelago, and keeping him there at government expense and under strict espionage. The distance from the capital and the length of time of banishment are in accord with the heinousness of the offence. At the present time there are some half-dozen men in life banish- ment to distant islands, who were once high officials at the court. In the very worst cases the banished man is enclosed in a thorn hedge, and his food is pushed through a hole to him. It is a living death. For light offences an official may be sent for a month or two to some outlying village or to his native town. If an official has cause to suspect that he is distasteful to the King, or if he has been charged with some dereliction of duty by some other official, he will go outside the gates of Seoul and lodge in the suburbs, sending a message to the King to the effect that he is unworthy to stay in the capital. This is a method of securing a definite vindication from the King or else a release from official duties. It sometimes happens that the King will send a man outside the gates in this way pending an investiga- tion, or as a slight reprimand for some non-observance of court etiquette. In all but the severer cases of banishment the offender is allowed to have his family with him in his distant retreat ; but this is by no means usual. Each prefecture in the country is supposed to have a special building provided for the purpose of housing government officials who have been banished, and the cost of the keeping of such banished men is a charge on the gov- ernment revenues. In the case of political offenders who have a strong following in the capital, it has generally been found advisable to banish them first, and then send and have them exe- cuted at their place of banishment. It gives less occasion for trouble at the capital. Every King who has been deposed has been so treated.

The other forms of punishment in vogue are imprisonment, beating and impressment into the chain-gang. Men that are slightly suspected of seditious ideas are kept under lock and key, so that they may not have an opportunity to spread their dan- gerous notions. Nothing can be proved against them, and they are simply held in detention, awaiting a promised trial which in many cases never comes off. One man has lately been released from prison who remained a guest of the government in this way for six or seven years without trial. He was suspected of too liberal ideas.

The prisons, whether of the capital or the provinces, are mere shelters with earth floors and without fires. Food is supplied by the friends of the victim, or he will probably die of starvation. Every time the thermometer goes down below zero in the winter we hear of a certain number of cases of death from freezing in the prisons. But the sanitary arrangements are such that it remains a moot question whether the freezing cold of winter is not preferable to the heats of summer.

The most degrading form of punishment is that of the chain- gang; for here the offender is constantly being driven about the streets in a dull blue uniform, chained about the neck to three or four other unfortunates, and ever subject to the scorn of the public eye. It can be imagined with what feelings a proud man who has been accustomed to lord it over his fellows will pass through the streets in this guise. These slaves are put to all sorts of dirty work, and their emaciated and anaemic counte- nances peer out from under their broad straw hats with an inso- lence born of complete loss of self-respect.

The penal code is filled with directions for administering beatings. The number of blows is regulated by law, but it hardly need be said that the limitation of the punishment to the legal number is dependent upon several important circumstances. In the dim past there was a government gauge or measure which determined the size of the sticks used for beating criminals ; but this passed away long ago, and now the rods are whatever the minions of the law may select. Much of this work is done with a huge paddle, which falls with crushing force, frequently break- ing the bones of the leg and rendering the victim a cripple for life. If he can afford to pay a handsome sum of money, the blows are partially arrested in mid air and fall with a gentle spat, or in some cases the ground beside the criminal receives the blows. To use the significant abbreviation, " it all depends." Who that is conversant with Korean life has not passed the local yamens in the country and heard lamentable howls, and upon inquiry learned that some poor fellow was being hammered nearly to death? Crowding in to get a sight of the victim, you behold him tied to a bench, and each time the ten-foot oar falls upon him you think it will rend his flesh. He shrieks for mercy between fainting fits, and is at last carried away, more dead than alive, to be thrown into his pen once more, and left without other attendance than that of his family, who are entirely igno- rant of the means for binding up his horrible wounds. Beating seems to be an essential feature in almost all punishment. No criminal is executed until after he has been beaten almost to death. It is understood that before an execution can take place the criminal must confess his crime and acknowledge the justice of his sentence. This is not required in Western lands, and a man may go to his death protesting his innocence ; but not so in the East. He is put on the whipping-bench and beaten until he sub- scribes to his own undoing. He may be never so innocent, but the torture will soon bring him to his senses; and he will see that it is better to be killed by a blow of the axe than to be slowly tortured to death.

This brings us to the question of torture for the purpose of obtaining evidence. It is bad enough to be subpoenaed in America to attend court and witness in a case, but in Korea this is a still more serious matter. The witnesses have, in many cases, to be seized and held as practical prisoners until the trial of the case. Especially is this so in a criminal case. The witness is not looked upon as actually to blame for the crime, but one would think from the treatment that he receives that he was considered at least a particeps criminis. The witness-stand is often the torture block, and the proceedings begin with a twist of the screw in order to make the witness feel that he is " up against the law." In a murder case that was tried in the north, in which an attempt was made to find the perpetrator of this crime upon the person of a British citizen at the gold-mines, one of the witnesses, who was suspected of knowing more about the matter than he would tell, was placed in a sitting posture on the ground and tied to a stout stake. He was bound about the ankles and the knees, and then two sticks were crowded down between his two calves and pried apart like levers so that the bones of the lower leg were slowly bent without breaking. The pain must have been horrible, and men who saw it said that the victim fainted several times, but continued to assert his ignorance of the whole matter. When he was half killed, they gave him up as a bad case and sent him away. As he crawled off to his miserable hovel, he must have carried with him a vivid appreciation of justice. It turned out that he was wholly innocent of any knowledge of the crime, but that did not take away the memory of that excruciating pain that he had endured.

We have said that there are no lawyers in Korea. The result is that a suspected criminal has no one to conduct his defence, and the witnesses have no guarantee that they will be questioned in a fair manner. The judge and his underlings, or some one at his elbow, ask the questions, and these are coloured by the prejudices of the interrogator, so that it is not likely that the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth will be forth- coming. If the witness knows what evidence the judge wishes to bring out, and that the lash will be applied until such evidence is forthcoming, it is ten to one that he will say what is desired, irrespective of the facts. Many witnesses have only in mind to find out as soon as possible what it is the judge wants them to say, and then to say it. Why should they be beaten for nothing? Of course it would be rash to say that in many, per- haps a majority, of cases some sort of rough justice is not done. Society could hardly hold together without some modicum of justice, but it will be fairly safe to say that the amount of even- handed justice that is dispensed in Korea is not much more than is absolutely necessary to hold the fabric of the commonwealth from disintegration. The courts are not the friends of the people in any such sense that they offer a reasonable chance for the proper adjustment of legal difficulties. And yet the commonest thing in Korea is to hear men exclaim " Chapan hapsita," which means " Let us take the thing into court." It may be readily conjectured that it is always said in hot blood, without thinking of the consequences, for there is not more than one chance in ten that the question at issue is worth the trouble, and not more than one in two that it would be fairly adjudi- cated. One of the commonest methods of extortion is that of accusing a man of an offence and demanding pecuniary payment or indemnity. By fixing things beforehand the success of such a venture can be made practically sure. And this evil leads to that of blackmail. The terrible prevalence of this form of indi- rection is something of a gauge of Korean morals. It is prac- tised in all walks of life, but generally against those of lower rank. It is so common that it is frequently anticipated, and regular sums are paid over for the privilege of not being lied about, just as bands of robbers are subsidised in some countries to secure immunity from sudden attack. It is the same in Korea as in China; there is a certain point beyond which it does not pay to go in oppressing those that are weaker than one's self. These people have learned by heart the story of the goose that laid the golden egg; and while they hunt the eggs very early in the morning and with great thoroughness, they do not actually kill the bird. The goose, on the other hand, does all in its power to direct its energies in some other direction than the laying of eggs, and with some success. This we may call the normal con- dition of Korean society, in which the rule is to take as much as can be gotten by any safe means, irrespective of the ethics of the situation, and to conceal so far as possible the possession of anything worth taking. This is the reason why so many people wonder how a few Korean gentlemen were able to offer the government a loan of four million yen a few months ago in order to prevent the Japanese from securing a hold on the customs returns. Many, if not most, foreigners suppose that no Korean's estate will sum up more than a hundred thousand dollars ; but the fact is that there are many millionaires among them, and a few multi-millionaires. Ostentation is not their cue, for know- ledge of their opulence would only stir up envy in the minds of the less fortunate, and ways might be found of unburdening them of some of their surplus wealth. If there are great for- tunes in Korea, it must be confessed that they generally repre- sent the profits of many years of official indirection. There is no law of primogeniture which would tend to keep an immense patrimony in the hands of a single individual. It is sure to be divided up among the family or clan in the second generation.