In Korea with Marquis Ito/Chapter 12

by George Trumbull Ladd

CHAPTER XII RULERS AND PEOPLE

A just appreciation of the mental and moral characteristics of alien races is a delicate and difficult task to achieve, even for the experienced student of such subjects. From others it is scarcely fair, no matter how favorable the opportunities for observation may have been, to expect any large measure of real success in the accomplishment of this task. The more important reasons for the failure of most attempts in race psychology may be resolved into the following two: a limitation of the observer's own experiences, which prevents sympathy and, therefore, breadth of interpretation; and the inability to rise above the more strictly personal point of view. In both these respects, women are on the whole decidedly inferior to men; accordingly, their account of the ethnic peculiarities of the ideas, motives, and morals of foreign peoples is customarily less trustworthy. The inquirer after a judicial estimate of the native character will find this fact amply illustrated in Korea. But what is more weighty in its influence as bearing upon such a problem as that now under discussion is this: all the inherent difficulties are enhanced when it is required to understand and appreciate an Oriental race by a member of a distinctively Western civilization. It is without doubt true that all men, of whatever race or degree of civilization, are essentially alike; they constitute what certain authorities in anthropology have fitly called "a spiritual unity." But for the individual who cannot expect to find within himself whatever is necessary to understand and interpret this unity, and especially for the observer who does not care even to detect and recognize the existence of such a unity, the difference between Orient and Occident is a puzzle—perpetually baffling and seemingly insoluble.

Now in some not wholly unimportant aspects of Korean character and Korean civilization, these difficulties exist in an exaggerated form. Korea is old in its enforced ignorance, sloth, and corruption; but Korea is new to rawness, in its response to the stimulus of foreign and Western ideas, and in its exposure to the observation, either careless and casual or patient and studious, of visitors and residents from abroad. Korea has not yet been awakened to any definite form of intelligent, national self-consciousness. At the same time, neither its material resources, nor its physical character- istics, nor its history and antiquities, nor its educational possibilities, nor the distinctive spirit of its people, have ever been at all thoroughly investigated by others. No wonder, then, that the views expressed by the "oldest residents" in Korea regarding the characteristics of its rulers and its people—Emperor, late Queen, Yang-bans, pedlers, and peasants (for there is almost no middle class)—are strangely conflicting. Diverse and even contradictory traits of character are, with equal confidence and on the basis of an equally long and intimate acquaintance, ascribed by different persons to all these classes.

The true and satisfactory account of these differences of opinion is not, however, to be found by wholly denying the justness of either of the opposite points of view. Contradic- tions are inherent in that very type of character of which the Koreans afford so many striking examples. Indeed, all peoples, when at a certain stage of race-culture, and the multitudes in all civilizations, are just that bundles of confused and conflicting ideas, impulses, and practices, which have never been unified into a consistent "character." The average Korean is not only liable to be called, he is liable actually to be, kindly and yet cruel, generous and yet intensely avaricious, with a certain sense of honor and yet hopelessly corrupt in his official relations. Accordingly, as one puts emphasis on this virtue to the exclusion or suppression of that vice, or turns the eye upon the dark and disgusting side of the picture and shuts out the side that might afford pleasure and hope, will one's estimate be made of the actual condition and future prospects of the nation.

But let us begin our brief description with the man who has been for more than a generation the chief ruler of Korea, the now ex-Emperor. He is a typical Korean especially in respect of his characteristic weakness of character, his taste for and adeptness at intrigue, his readiness to deceive and corrupt others, and himself to be deceived and corrupted. For all this no specially occult reasons need to be assigned. With a weak nature, his youth spent under the pernicious influence of eunuchs and court concubines and hangers-on, his manhood dominated by an unceasing and bloody feud between his wife and his father, his brief period of "independence" one orgy of misrule, and his latest years controlled by sorceresses, soothsayers, low-born and high-born intriguers, and selfish and unwise foreign advisers: what but incurably unsound character, uncontrollable instability of conduct, and a destiny fated to be full of disaster, could be expected from such a man so placed?

The father of the ex-Emperor was Yi Ha-eung, Prince of Heung Song, who was long the so-called "Regent" or "Prince-Parent," and is best known in history as the "Tai Won Kun." It has been said of him that "he was the grandson of a great and unfortunate crown prince, the great-grandson of a famous king, the nephew of another king, and the father of still another king." The lineal ancestor of the Tai Won Kim was Yong-jong, who reigned from 1724 to 1776. This sovereign quarrelled with his own son and had him put to death as insane; but other issue failing, the crown descended through the murdered crown prince, and from him through three lines of monarchs. Until his son was chosen to occupy the throne, the Tai Won Kun, although he had married into the powerful Min family, does not seem to have exercised much influence in politics. But in 1804, on the death of the king, without male issue the Dowager Queen Cho, by what is reported to have been a not altogether legitimate procedure, proclaimed the second son of the Tai Won Kun, then a boy of only twelve years, as the successor to the throne.

Little is exactly known as to the care or education of the boyish king during his earliest years. It is commonly reported that he was fond of outdoor sports, especially of archery, and disinclined to study. Yet he is reputed to be a fine Chinese penman and to be well acquainted with the Chinese classics. His father was a strict disciplinarian and, although he was never legally in control of affairs during his son's minority, his influence was dominant so long as he kept on good terms with the wily Queen Dowager and the Ministers of her selection. The failure of all foreign attempts to enter into friendly relations with the Koreans, and the persecution and slaughter of foreign Christian priests and of thousands of Korean Christians during this period, are customarily attributed to the influence of the Tai Won Kun.

When thirteen years of age, the new king was married to a girl selected for him from the Min family. But until 1873 his position as ruler was only nominal; on the attainment of his majority, however, the deadly struggle between the wife and the father, the Queen and the Prince Parent, began to be revealed. A word as to the character of the woman is necessary in this place, in order to understand the conduct of the King and, as well, the recent history of Korea. The Queen was, without doubt, an unusually gifted and attractive woman, with the ability to attach others to her, both men and women, in a powerful way. But a more unscrupulous and horribly cruel character has rarely disgraced a throne, whether in ancient or in modern times. Her rivals among the women of the court were tortured and killed at her command; the adherents of the Tai Won Kun were decapitated and their bodies thrown into the streets or their heads used to festoon the gateway. One of the Koreans acquainted with court affairs during her reign informed a friend of the writer that, by careful calculation, he had reckoned the number of 2,867 persons put to death as the victims of her personal hatred and ambition. The number seems incredible, and there is no way to verify it; but no one who knows the history of the Korean Court, even down to very recent years, will assert that it cannot be correct. The tragic death of this woman, not improperly, drew temporarily a veil over these atrocities. But their existence is a part of the proof that, pernicious as was much of the father's influence over the king, the influence of the wife and her family was yet more pernicious.

It was under influences such as these that the royal character of Yi-Hy-eung, now ex-Emperor, developed, and that all the earlier part of his reign was concluded. The result was to be expected namely, an amiable and weak nature rendered deceitful, cruel, and corrupt. The impression made by his presence—as already described (see p. 46 f.)—is not one of dignity and strength of character; but the voice is pleasant, the smile is winsome, the willingness to forgive and to do a good turn, if either or both can be done without too much sacrifice or inconvenience, is prompt and motived by kindly feeling. His Majesty is usually ready to listen

The Ex-Emperor and Present Emperor.

without malignant anger or lasting resentment to unwelcome advice and even to stern rebuke. On the other hand, as already said, he is a master of intrigue; and more than once, until very lately, he has succeeded in quite surpassing at their own tricks the wily foreigners who thought to get an advantage over him. On the other hand, his ignorance and credulity haye often rendered him an easy victim to the intrigue of others. As one foreign minister, a stanch friend, said of him: "You may give His Majesty the best advice, the only sensible advice possible under the circumstances; he will assent cordially to all you say, and you leave him confident that your advice will be followed. Then some worthless fellow comes in, tells him something else, and what you have said is all wiped off the slate."

In spite of his natural amiability this ruler has frequently shown a cold-blooded and calculating cruelty, made more conspicuous by ingratitude and treachery; and his reign has been throughout characterized by a callous disregard of the sufferings of the people through the injustice of his own minions. To quote again the estimate of a foreign minister: "His Majesty loves power, but seems color-blind when it comes to the faculty of distinguishing between the true and the false. He would rather have one of the Government Departments pay 20,000 yen in satisfaction of a debt which he owes than pay 5,000 yen out of his own purse.^[1]

And he allows himself to be cheated with the same sense of toleration which he has for those who cheat the Government, provided that the culprit has the saving grace of a pleasing deportment." One of his most able and upright Korean officials once declared: "It is true I am devoted to His Majesty, and I am sure he likes me; but if I were to be executed for some crime of which I was completely innocent, and a friend were to come to His Majesty, while he was at dinner, and implore his intercession, if it meant any danger, even the slightest, to him, he would leave me to my fate and go on eating with a good appetite." During the Boxer troubles in China a plot was devised by the reigning favorite of the Emperor, Yi Yong-ik, to kill all the foreigners in Korea; the plot was exposed, but the favorite did not suffer in his influence over the Emperor. Over and over again, in earlier days, the missionaries have appealed to him in vain to secure their converts against robbery and death at the hands of imperial favorites. It was formerly his custom to have at stated intervals large numbers of persons executed—inconvenient witnesses, political suspects, enemies of men in power. This custom of indiscriminate "jail-cleaning" was, as far as it was safe and allowable under the growing foreign influences, continued down toward the present time.

That the foregoing account of the character of the man who came to the throne of Korea, as a boy of twelve, in 1864, and abdicated this throne in 1907, is a true picture needs no additional evidence to that now available by the world at large. Strangely inconsistent in some of its features as it may seem to be, the portrait is unmistakably true to life. No wonder then, that, after exhausting all his resources of advice, rebuke, and warning, the Resident-General was regretfully forced to this conclusion: no cure for the temperament and habits of His Majesty of Korea could possibly be found. But this had long been the conclusion of his own Cabinet Ministers and all others among the wiser of the Korean officials. It was finally by these Ministers, without the orders, consent, or even knowledge of the Marquis Ito, that in order to save the country from more serious humiliation and disaster, movements were initiated to secure his abdication of the throne he had disgraced for more than forty years.

As to the Korean ruling classes generally, the Yang-bans so-called, it may be said that for centuries they have been, with few exceptions, of a character to correspond with their monarchs. The latter have also been, with few exceptions, such in character as to represent either the weak side or the corrupt and cruel side, or both, of the ruler just described. This truth of "like king, like nobles," was amply illustrated by the case of Kwang-ha, in the early years of the seventeenth century. When the monk Seung-ji induced this king to build the so-called "Mulberry Palace," thousands of houses were razed, the people oppressed with taxation, and the public offices sold in order to raise the funds. When the same monarch, yielding to the influences of his concubine and her party, committed the infamy of expelling the Queen-Dowager from Seoul, only one prominent courtier, Yi Hang-bok, with eight others, stood out against 930 officials and 170 of the king's relatives who were ready to vote for the shameful deed.^[2]

The proportion of courageous and honest officials connected with the Korean Court had not greatly increased up to the time when Marquis Ito undertook the task of its purification. This fact, in itself, so discouraging to the effort at instituting reforms from above downward on the part of the Koreans themselves, is made obvious in a striking way by the analysis of a brief, confidential description (a sort of official Korean "Who is Who?") of ninety-six persons, prepared by one well acquainted with the men and their history, but favorably disposed toward—even prejudiced in favor of—the side of Korea. The examples given above may serve to describe the one-third of the ninety-six officials characterized by extreme immorality. Of the other one-third, whose services to their country are rendered available only for evil on account of their weakness, the following examples afford a sufficiently accurate description: (i) " Foreign Minister repeatedly; very deficient in intelligence, but says little and looks wise; too feeble to be dishonest, but an easy tool for one who cares to use him." a) "Governor of ———; a weak, abominable man, who has done well at ———, because kept in check by the Japanese; would be a scoundrel if the opportunity offered; a tool of Yi Yong-ik" (a man notorious for his corruption and oppression, on account of which some of the highest officials knelt before the Palace gate during the entire day and night of November 28, 1902, praying for his trial and punishment; but he was saved by the Emperor, who feared him; he was even subsequently brought back from banishment and restored to his post as "Director of the Imperial Estates"). (3) "An old man of remarkable history; has been on all sides of the political fence; is good at times, and apparently a patriot, and then he will turn up on quite the opposite side."

It cannot be supposed that an official class, so constituted and so thoroughly imbued with such unwholesome characteristics, would easily form within itself a party loyal to reform, and brave and strong enough to carry bent upon securing the royal favor and the offices and emoluments that go therewith." In another work of the same author we are told: "From that day onward (middle of the sixteenth century) politics has been a war of factions, struggling for wealth and power, with no scruples against murder or other crime." The Koreans are, indeed, given to the formation of societies and parties of various descriptions; the more improper or nearly impossible are the ends to be reached, and the more clandestine and illicit the means employed, the greater the temporary enthusiasm which they are likely to excite. All these parties have therefore one plank and one plan of action: to get the ear of the king, to seize upon and control the office-making power, and so to put in every lucrative or honorable position their own partisans. It is "the spoils system sublimated"; for there is "absolutely no admixture of any other element."^[3]

On the other hand, this same factional and corrupt spirit among the ruling classes has made 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 this desire would be. From that time (again the middle of the sixteenth century) to this, almost all the really great men of Korea have met a violent death." . . . "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 civilized country."^[4]

As to the public justice when administered by such a ruling class, this has actually been what might have been expected. The one judicial principle universally recognized is that justice is worth its price; the side which can offer the largest bribe of money or influence will uniformly win its case. Of justice in Korea, to quote from Mr. Hulbert again,^[5] there is "not much more than is absolutely necessary to hold the fabric of the commonwealth from disintegration." Until the Chino-Japan war, when Japanese influence made itself felt in a controlling way, the brutal spectacles were not infrequent of men having their heads hacked off with dull swords, or their bones broken by beating with a huge paddle. Death by poison with extract made by boiling the centipede was administered to prisoners. It was not till 1895 that the law was abolished which required the poisoning of mother, wife, and daughter for the man's treason, the poisoning of wife for his crime of murder or arson, and the enslaving of wife for his theft. When the reformers of 1894 ordered the restoration to their lawful owners of the lands and houses which had been illegally seized, numerous officials—some of whom were well known in foreign circles as partners of concessions obtained through influence—lost large fractions of their wealth because of the decree.

After describing the Yang-ban as one sees him upon the streets or meets him in social gatherings at Seoul in the following terms a "dignified, stately gentleman, self-centred, self-contented, naively curious about the foreigner, albeit in a slightly contemptuous fashion" a writer well acquainted with the Korean gentry goes on to say: "Experience teaches that this fine gentleman is not ashamed to live upon his relatives, to the remotest degree; that he disdains labor and knows nothing of business; that he is not a liar from malice, but that he is a prevaricator by instinct and habit. Even when he wishes to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, it leaves his lips so embroidered with fanciful elaborations that the Father of lies would be glad to claim it for his own. With all that, he may, according to the accepted standards of his class, be an upright citizen, a kind husband, and a conscientious parent. And just as likely as not, he may possess qualities which endear him to the foreign observer."

Under centuries of subjection to a ruling class having the character described above, the mental and moral characteristics of the Korean people have been developed as might have been expected. The ethnic mixture from which the race has sprung is possessed of fine physical and spiritual qualities. The male members of the race, especially, are in general of good height, well formed, and capable of endurance and achievement in enterprises demanding bodily strength. They are undoubtedly fond of their ease and even slothful—for man when not stimulated by hope or necessity is naturally a lazy animal—as the impression from the rows of coolies and peasants squatted upon the ground and sucking their pipes, or lying prone in the sunlight, during the working hours of the day, bears witness. As for the Yang-ban, on no account will he do manual work. But, on the other hand, the lower classes make good workmen, when well taught and properly "bossed"; and their miners, for example, are said by experts to be among the best in the world. The success in manual pursuits of those who emigrated to Hawaii some years ago testifies also to their inherent capacity. As has already been said, the Koreans are much given to forming all manner of associations; they are "gregarious in their crimes as in their pastimes." When well treated they are generally good-natured and docile—easy to control under even a tolerably just administration. Nor are they, probably, such cowards that they cannot be trained to acquit themselves well in war.

The prevailing, the practically universal vices and crimes are those which are inevitable under any such government, if long continued, as that which has burdened and degraded the Korean populace from the beginning of their obscure history as a complex of kingdoms down to the present time. What their vices and crimes are can be learned even better from the lips of their professed friends than from those whom they regard as their open or secret enemies. Of the average Korean Mr. Hulbert^[6] affirms: "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." "In Korea it is as common to use the expression, 'You are a liar' as it is with us to say, 'You don't say. ' . . . A Korean sees about as much moral turpitude in a lie as we see in a mixed metaphor or a split infinitive." As to his good nature: "Any accession of importance or prestige goes to his head like new wine and is apt to make him offensive." The same author, after saying of the Korean bullock, "This heavy, slow-plodding animal, docile, long-suffering, uncomplaining, would make a fitting emblem of the Korean people," goes on to describe his own disgust at the frequent sight of the drunken, brutal bullock-driver, venting his spleen on some fellow Korean by cruelly beating his own bullock. Torturing animals is a favorite pastime for both children and adults. The horrid brutality of the Korean mob, to which reference has already been repeatedly made, has been more than once witnessed by those now living in Seoul; it would speedily be witnessed again, if the hand of the Japanese Protectorate were withdrawn. For the Korean, when angry, is recklessly cruel and entirely careless of life, and resembles nothing else so much as a "fanged beast."^[7] When combined with the superstition and the incredible credulity which prevail among the populace, this brutality constitutes a standing menace to the peace and life of the foreign population residing in the midst of them. It was as late as 1888 that the mob, excited by the report that the Americans and Europeans were engaged in the business, for profit, of killing Korean babies and of cutting off the breasts of Korean women to use in the manufacture of condensed milk, were scarcely repressed from wholesale arson and murder.^[8]

The anti-Japanese natives and foreigners have with more or less good reason complained that an increase of sexual impurity and of licensed vice has resulted from the Japanese Protectorate over Korea. Without entering upon the discussion of the difficult problem involved in these charges, it is enough to say that "corruption of the Koreans" in this regard is scarcely a proper claim to bring forward, under any circumstances. It is of no particular significance to determine whether the statement of a recent writer that the exposure of their breasts on the streets is characteristic of Korean women generally, is a libel, or not. It is true, indeed, that the foreign lady who has done much to encourage among the natives of her own sex in Seoul a certain regard for the decencies of civilization, was accustomed, not many years ago, to provide herself with safety-pins and accompany their use upon the garments of the lower classes (women of the higher classes do not appear upon the streets) with a moral lecture. But to one acquainted with the unimportant influence of such exposure upon really vicious conduct among peoples of a certain grade of race-culture, the charge, whether true or not, is comparatively petty. Much more determinative is it to learn from their friendly historians that only one in ten of their songs could with decency be published; that almost all their stories are of a salacious character and, "however discreditable it may be, they are a true picture of the morals of Korea to-day"; and that among the lower classes "the utmost promiscuity prevails. "A man may have half-a-dozen wives a year in succession. No ceremony is required, and it is simply a mutual agreement of a more or less temporary nature."^[9]

As to business honesty or respect for property rights, as such, there is almost none of it among the people of Korea. But what else could be expected of pedlers, peasants, and coolies, who have lived under the corrupt and oppressive government of such rulers during centuries of time? To quote again from the friendly historian:^[10] "In case a man has to foreclose a mortgage and enter upon possession of the property, he will need the sanction of the authorities, since possession here, as elsewhere, is nine points of the law. The trouble is that a large fraction of the remaining point is dependent upon the caprice or the venality of the official whose duty is to adjudicate the case. In a land where bribery is almost second nature, and where private rights are of small account unless backed by some kind of influence, the thwarting of justice is exceedingly common." More astonishing still, from our point of view, is the use made of the public properties, which until recently prevailed even in the city of Seoul, by the lowest of the people. Any Korean might extend his temporary booth or shop out into the street, and then, when people had become accustomed to this, quietly plant permanent posts at the extreme limit of his illicit appropriation. On being expostulated with, "he will put on a look of innocence and assert that he has been using the space for many years";^[11] indeed, "he inherited it from his father or father's father." To this day the making of false deeds, or the deeding of the same property to two different purchasers (by one false deed and one genuine, or by both false) is an exceedingly common occurrence. If the native wanted a place for the deposit of his filth, and the drain near his house was already full, he dug a hole in the street; if he wanted dirt for his own use, he took it from the street. "Scores of times," says Hulbert, "I have come upon places where a hole has been dug in the street large enough to bury an ox." Meanwhile, petty stealing and highway robbery have been going on all over the land. This, too, is the practical morality of the Korean populace, when unrestrained by foreign control, even down to the present time.

A curious confirmation of the foregoing estimate of the mental and moral character of the people of Korea was afforded by the "confessions" which poured forth in perfervid language, ending not infrequently in a falling fit or a lapse into half-consciousness, from thousands of native Christians during the revival of 1906-1907. The sins which were confessed to have been committed since their profession of Christianity, were in the main these same characteristic vices of the Korean people. They included not only pride, jealousy, and hatred, but habitual lying, cheating, stealing, and acts of impurity.

It is, then, no cause for surprise that a recent writer^[12] affirms: "If it seems a hopeless task to lift the Chinaman out of his groove, it is a hundred times more difficult to change the habits of a Korean. . . . The Korean has absolutely nothing to recommend him save his good nature. He is a standing warning to those who oppose progress. Some one has said that the answer to Confucianism is China; but the best and most completely damning answer is Korea."

Can Korea—such a people, with such rulers—be reformed and redeemed? Can her rulers be made to rule at least in some semblance of righteousness, as preparatory to its more perfect and substantial form ? Can the people learn to prize order, to obey law, and to respect human rights ? Probably, yes; but certainly never without help from the outside. And this help must be something more than the missionary can give. It must lay foundations of industrial, judicial, and governmental reform: it must also enforce them Such political disease does not, if left alone, perfect its own cure. The knife of the surgeon is first of all needed; the tonic of the physician and the nourishment of good food and the bracing of a purer air come afterward. We cannot, therefore, agree with the small body of Christian workmen now, happily, a minority who try to believe that the needed redemption of Korea could be effected by their unaided forces. A union of law, enforced by police and military, with the spiritual influences of education and religion, is alone available in so desperate a case as that of Korea to-day.

It is to the task of a political reformation and education for both rulers and people in Korea that Japan stands committed before the world at the present time. As represented by the Marquis Ito, she has undertaken this task with a good conscience and with a reasonable amount of hope. Among the administrative reforms in Korea^[13] one of the most important is the "Purification of the Imperial Court." This "singular operation the Resident- General caused to be resolutely carried out in July, 1906." At that time "men and women of uncertain origin and questionable character . . . had, in a considerable number, come to find their way into the royal palace, until it had become a veritable rendez-vous of adventurers and conspirators. Divining, fortune-telling and spirit-incanting found favor there, and knaves and villains plotted and intrigued within the very gates of the Court, in co-operation with native and foreign schemers without. By cheating and chicanery, they relieved the Imperial treasury of its funds, and in their eagerness to fill their pockets never stopped to think of what dangerous seeds of disorder and rapine they were scattering broadcast over the benighted peninsula."

It must doubtless be confessed that under the ex-Emperor the efforts of the Residency-General to effect the needed reforms were successful only to a limited extent. But with his last piece of intriguing to "relieve the Imperial treasury of its funds, "by sending a commission to the Hague Conference," in co-operation with native and foreign schemers," the old era came quickly to an end. The history of its termination will be told elsewhere; but the fact has illumined and strengthened the hope that Korea, too, can in time produce men fit to rule with some semblance of honesty, fidelity, and righteousness. Meantime, they must be largely ruled from without.

How this hope of industrial and political redemption may be extended to the people at large and applied to the different important interests of the nation, both in its internal and foreign relations, will be illustrated in the several following chapters. Now that the Emperor^[14] is publicly committed to an extended policy of reform; that the Ministers are for the first time in the history of Korea really a Cabinet exercising some control; that the Resident-General has the right and the duty to guide and to enforce all the important measures necessary to achieve reform; that the foreign nations chiefly interested have definitively recognized the Japanese Protectorate; and that the leaders of the foreign moral and religious forces are so largely in harmony with the plans of Japan; now that all this is matter of past achievement, the prospects for the future of Korea are brighter than they have ever been before. One may reasonably hope that the time is not far distant when both rulers and people will be consciously the happier and more prosperous, because they have been compelled by a foreign and hated neighbor to submit to a reformation imposed from without. That they would ever have reformed themselves is not to be believed by those who know intimately the mental and moral history and characteristics of the Koreans.

 

 

1. An amusing illustration of the ex-Emperor's way of filling his privy purse is found in the following authentic incident. At one time the large sum of 270,000 yen was wanted in cash to pay a bill for silks and jades which, it was alleged, had been purchased in China for Lady Om. When the request was made to exhibit the precious goods which had cost so enormous a sum, and which were going to make so large an unexpected drain upon insufficient revenues, the show of materials was entirely unsatisfactory. But, if not the goods, at least the bill itself could be produced. A bill was then brought to light, with the items made out in due form, but by a Chinese firm of merchants in Seoul instead of in China. The Chinese Consul-General, on being inquired of, replied that there was indeed such a reputable Chinese firm in the city; and he desired to have the matter further investigated lest the credit and business honor of his countrymen might suffer by connection of this sort with His Majesty's efforts to obtain ready money. Investigation elicited the fact that a certain Court official had visited this firm and inquired how much such and such things would cost, if purchased in Shanghai. But no goods had been delivered or even actually ordered!
2. See Hulbert, The History of Korea, II, p. 61
3. See Hulbert, The History of Korea, II. , p. 54.
4. Hulbert, The Passing of Korea, pp. 50, 58.
5. The Passing of Korea, p. 67.
6. The Passing of Korea, pp. 38, 41.
7. Ibid., p. 43.
8. See the account of the "Baby War" and "Breast Hunters," The History of Korea, II. , p. 245.
9. The Passing of Korea, pp. 311, 319, 369.
10. Ibid., p. 283.
11. Ibid., p. 247.
12. Whigham, Manchuria and Korea, p. 185.
13. See a pamphlet bearing this title as an "Authorized Translation of Official Documents published by the Resident-General, in Seoul, January, 1907," p. 7.
14. During all my visit in Korea it was commonly reported by those intimate at Court that the Crown Prince was an imbecile both in body and in mind. But in his boyhood he was rather more than ordinarily bright, and his mother, the murdered Queen, was the most clever and brilliant Korean woman of her time. It is not strange, then, that since his accession to the throne and in view of his obviously sensible way of yielding to good advice from others, in spite of the evil influence of his father, the impression has been made that he might have been feigning imbecility in order to escape plots to assassinate him, which were formed in the interests of a rival claimant to the throne.