Chai Che-gong
belonged to the noble army of literati martyrs. By this
we mean that he spent
all his time wrestling with the problems of Confucian
lore and let his wife
look out for his support. Perhaps it was she who
belonged to the martyr army
rather than he. At any rate the family fell into the
lower depths of poverty.
Fortunately for them, however, they lived in those good
old days when letters
were in some sense their own reward, for a hard-working
merchant next door,
named Kim, came to their relief and drew them out of the
depths, or at least
held them on the brink without letting them fall
completely in. During the
years that passed the needy family leaned more and more
heavily upon him until
at last his resources were exhausted and he too joined
them in the procession.
But
as fortune would have it, the literary gentleman was
suddenly raised to
comparative affluence by receiving a government
appointment. His rise was rapid
and before long his knowledge of the Chinese Classics
placed him in the
governor’s chair in the northern capital, Pyengyang.
Under these circumstances it
was but natural that the impoverished merchant should
follow in his wake like a
sea-gull behind a steamship, to pick up such scraps as
his generosity might
drop. And besides this he may have felt, though he would
never breathe it to a
soul, that the governor owed him a little consideration.
[page
2]
The governor picked up the thread of life in the
provincial capital as if he were “to the manner born” as
indeed he was, though
long time banished from its more favored precincts. Kim
the merchant knew his place
and only by his constant attendance impinged upon the
consciousness of the
governor. The latter gave him a small commission now and
again which sufficed
to support him and give him hope for something better.
At last his great
opportunity came, the “tide which taken at the flood--.”
The son of a wealthy
gentleman in the far north, while in his cups, committed
manslaughter and was
lodged in prison at Pyeng-yang awaiting judgment. The
young man’s father
hastened up to the city determined to find some flaw in
the governor’s mask of
rectitude through which he might strike him with a
bribe. It was through Kim
the merchant that the attack was made but it was quite
unavailing. The governor
would listen to no words of entreaty even uttered to the
accompaniment of
rippling silver. The gentleman offered a million cash.
He might as well have
thrown it at a stone wall. He offered five million but
he might as well have
tried to dam the Tadong with his cash. The governor was
ice and naught would
thaw him.
As a last desperate move
the felon’s father placed in the hands of the merchant
ten bundles of mountain
ginseng which represented a fabulous sum, and begged him
to present it to the
governor with his humble compliments. The merchant took
the costly gift,
summoned every last remaining shred of his assurance and
entered the presence
of the governor. On his knees he pleaded for the
condemned man and deposited
the ginseng on the floor. The governor eyed it
suspiciously.
“What
is that stuff?”
“It is only a poor little
tribute to your goodness and clemency vouchsafed by the
hand of the erring man’s
father. It is only ten pounds of mountain ginseng that
he begs you to accept.”
He said it in great humility but there was a latent
gleam in his eye which
proclaimed the incredible value of the gift. But the eye
of the governor never
gleamed. He was far above the reach of riches.
[page
3]
He glanced scornfully at the treasure, waved his hand
toward a closet beside him and said in the coldest of
tones :
“Put
the stuff on that shelf and leave me. I will show these
people what it is to
tamper with my honesty!’’ The trembling man obeyed and
slunk from the room. He
had taken the tide at its flood and it had overwhelmed
him. Doubtless the
governor would keep the bribe and kill the offender as
well. All was lost. He
told the anguished parent and together they waited for
the dreadful end of the
tragedy.
Early
the next morning there was an unusual stir in the
governor’s palace. Bugles
were sounding and excited messengers were hurrying in
and out. Something was
about to happen. At ten o’clock a herald announced that
the people should
congregate in the great open space inside the outer wall
of the palace. They
came from all directions bent upon curiosity to see what
the governor had to say.
At the appropriate moment the governor apppeared, clad
in his robes of office
and supported on each side by a full retinue of
officials and retainers. The
place was crowded to suffocation but the guards kept a
space clear in the
center of the court full forty feet square.
The
governor spoke a quiet word and a herald cried: “Bring
forth the condemned
criminal.” Ah! it was a killing they had been sent for,
to witness. They almost
trod on each other to get a better view. The wretch, was
brought out, his arms
bound with a cord and his face already grey with the
certainty of approaching
death. The father, bowed with grief, stood behind him on
the edge of the crowd.
The governor spoke another word to his attendants, and
the herald cried:
“Dig
a hole in the ground the depth of a man’s stature.” A
muffled “Oh” ran through
the crowd. The man was to be buried alive! Quick hands
dug the hole. The
prisoner writhed and the father wrung his ineffectual
hands.
“Fill
it half full of burning charcoal.” What! was the man to
be burned
to death? Horrible! — but interesting. The father, now
on his knees, rocked
back and forth in an [page 4] agony of apprehension. The
son looked on in dumb fear which gripped him too tight
for speech.
The
burning charcoal sent up its noxious fumes to the
nostrils of the crowd and
they smelt death in air. The governor stepped forward.
“Before
you stands a condemned criminal who merits death.
Yesterday at this hour a
monstrous bribe was offered me. Shall I accept it or
not? Shall I stain the ermine
of my office? Nay verily! Bring forth the bribe.” A
servant came bearing the
ten bundles in his arms.
“Cast
them into the fire — first.” Down they fell into the
lurid flames of the pit.
The governor pointed to the fire.
“That
is mountain ginseng!” At this word the people
stood dumb for a moment but as the monstrous truth
opened upon them that a
kingdom’s ransom was feeding that flame to save the
honor of their governor the
matchless rectitude of the man elicited a roar of
approbation that startled the
bullock drivers far out on the country-roads.
The
smoke of the burning went up to the heavens and a
strange sweet odor floated
through the palace and over the heads of the wondering
crowd. They drew long
draughts of it, as one would fasten eyes upon the face
of a departing friend,
never to be seen again. But the offering was only half
complete; the victim was
yet to be immolated. The crowd bent eagerly forward to
see the final act. The
governor raised his hand.
“Such
be the fate of all bribes! But be it known that, though
I cannot be touched
with perishable wealth, I can be touched by pity. Behold
the stricken father
whose last remaining hope I might crush to the earth.
But mercy cries to me
with louder voice than vengeance. Cut the prisoner’s
bands and let him go!”
The
prisoner fell forward to the earth, overcome by the
sudden weight of joy; the
father still on his knees opened wide his arms and
stared about him as if he
could not believe the cruel dream. The people, thrilled
to ecstasy by this
crowning act of greatness gazed at one another in
amazement. And then another
shout went up, which dwarfed the first one to a whisper
and made [page
5] the
age-old walls of Pyeng-yang think the Im-jin year had
come again when the
beleaguered hordes of Hideyoshi manned them against
their double foe.
The
crowd pressed forward, some to cast themselves with
tears of joy before their
over-lord while others raised the reviving prisoner on
exulting hands and bore
him like a paladin forth from the presence of the
governor.
But
Kim the merchant wended his way sadly homeward. It was
all well enough to
exhibit these high qualities. They were very pretty but
they helped him not a
whit to rice and kimchi. Just to think of it, a princely
fortune swallowed in
the flames just to satisfy a whim; it was monstrous! The
more he thought about
it the less reconciled he became and after a restless
night he arose with a
hard resolve in his face. He would give that governor a
piece of his mind and
then leave the ungrateful man forever.
When
he found himself in the governor’s presence he was a
little ashamed of his
mission but he lashed himself by the memory of his
wrongs, and began to upbraid
the official for having forgotten the days when he, Kim
the merchant, spent his
money unsparingly to help the indigent scholar. When he
stopped for breath the
governor shrugged his shoulders and smiled at him. This
fanned his anger to the
flaming point.
“Yes
all this and more I have borne for you and you turn from
me in your day of
fortune! What of your boasted mercy in sparing that
felon yesterday? You have
showed no mercy to me who deserved every thing at your
hands. I will leave the
place with my curse and shake the dust of this city off
my feet.”
“Yes,
Kim, I think you had better go home now,” said the
governor in a quiet tone.
The
merchant turned and quitted the room with a muttered
curse between his lips. He
packed up his small belogings and fared southward on
foot toward his home in
Seoul. On the way he was taken ill and it was five
months before he reached
home.
So
it was that, foot-sore, ragged and weary he dragged
himself into the capital
and drew near his home. [page 6]
Here was the street and here the lane that led to his
door but there was a
great change. The entrance had been widened, and instead
of his little door
there stood a great gate. Someone had seized his house
and torn it down. He
stood for a moment dazed by this new misfortune but at
that moment, who should
emerge from the gate but his own son clad in costly
silken raiment. When the
boy saw his father he rushed to him and cried.
“Why,
father, what does this mean? You are ragged and
foot-sore. Is it possible that
you have come home on foot?” The father answered in turn
: —
“And
what does all this
mean, my son? Who
has torn down my house to build this palatial residence
and how come you to be
clad in this silken garb?’’
“Why
father, don’t you know? The governor of Pyeng-yang sent
us down ten
packages of mountain ginseng and all
this cost only one of them. The other nine are still
intact and we have—”
“Wh-h-what!
what!!”
And
just here the point of ethics obtrudes itself and leaves
us wondering whether,
taking it all in all, the governor was justified in his
action or not. Sure it
is that to this day that governor’s memory is redolent
with the perfume of the
ginseng which he did not bum.
The Late Queen
Dowager,
The late Queen
Dowager whose death occurred on the 2nd of January 1904
was the second queen of
King Honjong the twenty-sixth of this dynasty who ruled
from 1835 till 1850.
His first queen died in 1843 and he married the second
in 1844. She was the
daughter of Hon Cha-yong who after the elevaticm to the
royalty was made Prince
Pu-wim. She was bom in Chulla Province, district of
Ham-yul, in 1831; so it
appears that she was thirteen years old when she became
Queen of Korea. The
King her [page 7] husband
died in 1849 when she was only eighteen. No children had
been born to them. The
new king, known by his posthumous title of Ch’ul-jong,
was nineteen years old
when he ascended the throne and his wife, of course,
became queen and the
former queen, who is the subject of this sketch, became
Queen Dowager. At the
same time there were two other Dowagers still living, in
the persons of the
queen of King Sun-jo (1801-1834) and the queen of King
Ik-chong who reigned
only a few months in 1834 after the death of his father,
King Sun-jo. These
three Dowagers are known as (1) Queen Dowager Kim who
died in 1857 (2) Queen
Dowager Cho who died in 1890 and Queen Dowager Hong who
died this month. Later
there was another Queen Dowager Kim the widow of King
Ch’ul-jong (1850-1863)
who died in 1878.
In
1897 the Queen Dowager Hong received the title Myung-hon
Ta-hu (明憲太后). This was upon the
occasion of the elevation of His Majesty to imperial
rank. She died in her
seventy -third year. Next summer would have been the
sixtieth anniversary of
her marriage. The great cycle of sixty years would have
been completed and a grand
celebration would have been held. In the eyes of the
Koreans she was greatly to
be pitied for three things, first because she was left a
widow at such an early
age, second that she was childless, and third because
she just missed seeing
this sixtieth anniversary of her wedding.
She was a woman of great
common sense, in that she never interfered in politics
nor became the tool of
sorceresses and fortune-tellers. During her long and
lonely life she lived
quietly through all the alarms that were sounded about
her. It was always
necessary that she live in the palace where the king
resided and there must
have been many an anxious day. But she was possessed of
great self control and
equipoise and none of these things moved her. She died
of sheer old age and will
probably be buried outside the Northeast gate of Seoul,
perhaps beside her
husband King Hon-jong, whose body lies at Yang-ju.
On the 5th the body was
removed from the palace to the Heung-duk-jun, behind the
British Legation. On
the seventh all the officials donned the mourning garb
consisting
[page 8]
of a white head-band, white shoes and linen clothes. The
Emperor himself
dressed in mourning and will continue to wear it for
five months. The officials
and people will wear it one year but the surviving
concubine of King Hon-jong,
the palace women who attended the deceased, the grave
keepers and a few others
will wear mourning three years. All the female relatives
of the Emperor and of
the deceased and all the wives of the high officials
will wear half mourning
for 100 days. A family conclave including all the nearer
male relatives of the
Emperor and of the deceased was held soon after the
death. This is called the
Chong-ch’uk Chip-sa. It is their duty to consult about
funeral ceremonies in
conjunction with other officials specially appointed for
the purpose. Among the
members of this conclave are such well-known men as Yi
Seung-ong, Yi Cha-geuk,
Yi Cha-sun, Yi Chi-yong, Hong Sun-hyang and others. Then
there is the Ch’ong-ho-sa
or Master of the Funeral Ceremonies who has supreme
charge of the obsequies.
This duty devolves upon Yun Yong-sun, lately Prime
Minister. Under him are
three Kuk-chang To-gam Tang-sang or Chiefs of the
Imperial Burial Bureau. These
are Yi Chong-no, Yun Yong-gu and Sung Keui-un. Besides
these there are the
three San-neung To-gam Tang-sang or Chiefs of the
Imperial Tomb. These are Pak
Chong-yang, Yi Kun-ho and Kim Se-keui. Three officials,
called Pin-jon To-gam
Tang-sang or Chiefs of the Temporary Mausoleum, are Hong
Sun-hyang, Kim Chonghan
and Cho Chong-heui. The Chief of the Tomb-keeping Bureau
is Prince Yi Cha-sung.
The Commissioner of Posthumous Titles is Kim Pyong-guk,
with Min Yung-so as his
assistant. Min Pyung-suk is appointed Commissioner of
Eulogy and Inscription,
with Cho Chung-heui as assistant. Sim Sun-tak is the
Commissioner of Obituary,
with Cho Pyong-sik as assistant. The Commissioner for
burying
the tablet before the grave of the Queen Dowager is Cho
Pyung-se, with Min
Yong-whan as assistant. The Comissioner on Biography is
Kim Hak-chin with Yi
Chageuk as assistant. Another official is appointed to
write the inscription in
the tomb. After the casket is deposited in the ground it
is covered with earth
nearly to the general [page
9]
surface of the ground but the last few inches are filled
in with lime plaster.
When still but partially dry this official writes upon
the plaster, with dry
charcoal dust, the inscription telling the name, office,
age and condition of
the deceased and in which direction the head lies. When
this is done the whole
is covered by the great circular mound. The official
appointed to this duty is
Yi Keunmyung the present Prime Minister, with Yi Sun-ik
as assistant and Hong
Sun-hyung and Kim Chong-han as scribes.
The
funeral ceremony will take place in May and the entire
cost is estimated at
$650,000.
Korean
Relations with Japan.
Continuing the
description of the Trading Station at Fusan we read that
within the wall of the
enclosure there was a fire signal station set in a
conspicuous place so that it
could be seen from every direction and by it news was
flashed from mountain top
to mountain top all over the country.
There
was also a great banquet house of thirty-five kan and a
guest house of
twenty-eight kan. These two were united, and had a great
gate of three kan, a
middle gate of a kan and a half and an apron wall inside
it. There was a store
house for charcoal of ten kan and there was a guest
reception hall. In the very
center of the enclosure was a council house of forty
-four kan and on each side,
like wings, were extensions of two kan each.In this
building were rooms for a
teacher whose business it was to instruct new comers as
to the proper etiquette
to be observed in the various functions, and there were
inner rooms of eight
kan for any women, wives of Korean officials who might
be there. Besides these
there were apartments for interpreters and rooms for
examination of goods to or
from Japan.
It
was in 1679 that these buildings were all erected by
Japanese workmen from
Tsushima but at Korean expense. [page
10]
They were two years in building them. The total cost was
9,000 bags of rice and silver 6,000 ounces. As this
station was built close to
the sea it was supposed that the houses would
deteriorate rapidly, so workmen
were permanently stationed there to effect repairs. As
soon as the houses were
built they were destroyed by fire. This occurred in
1680, but in 1684 the work
was again begun and was finished in 1690. Repairs were
effected in 1700. From
that time on repairs were made from time to time until
1874 when, in the first
year of the present ruler, the buildings were repaired
for the last time.
SALARIES OF
PERMANENT OFFICIALS AT THE TRADING POST.
The two men
who acted as masters of ceremonies at all official
functions received a monthly
salary of one bag and nine pecks of rice, twelve pecks
of beans and two pieces
of cotton cloth. Besides this, between the third and
eighth moons, they
received extra for tiffin at noon. These were the
highest permanent officials
on the post. Next came the secretaries who received one
bag of rice and six
pecks of beans. The three gate-keepers each received ten
pecks of rice and two
pieces of linen. The thirty cadets, some of whom acted
as interpreters,
received each six pecks of rice a month. The man who had
charge of the guest
house received six pecks of rice. The four messengers
received each six pecks
of rice. The two grooms received between the third and
eighth moon three pieces
of cotton cloth or in lieu of this 450 cash. During the
rest of the year they
received one piece of cotton or 150 cash. The master of
the gate keepers
received his pay in linen cloth. The men who furnished
fuel received for the
fuel during spring and summer 1,836 cash and during
autumn and winter 2,004
cash. So the total cost of fuel for a year was only
3,840 cash.
PASSPORTS.
Every man who
wished to enter the Station had to be provided with a
wooden tag on one side of
which was [page 11] written
the characters **** and on the the other the date and
the seal of the envoy who
was temporarily in charge. This seal was burned into the
wood.
SEATING AT
BANQUETS.
Upon the
arrival of a Japanese envoy there was first the tea
drinking ceremony. At this
the Korean commissioner sat facing the south and
opposite him the Japanese
envoy facing the north while between them on either side
were two lines of
Koreans and Japanese the former facing the east and the
latter the west.
At
the banquets which followed this order was reversed, the
Korean commissioner
facing the west and the Japanese the east.
RECEIVING THE
GIFTS.
Upon the
arrival of the Japanese envoy the presents which he
brought to the Korean
Government were carefully examined by the Korean
officials, wrapped carefully
in paper and placed together in the center of the
examination house. Then the
Japanese envoy and the Korean commissioner came in their
court dress and,
standing on either side of the pile of gifts, bowed
ceremoniously as if in the
presence of royalty. The same ceremony was gone through
when the gifts from the
Korean Government were to be shipped to Japan.
THE RECEPTION
CEREMONY.
When the
Japanese envoy disembarked he was ushered into the
enclosure of the Trading
Station by way of the west gate and took his stand
facing the east. The
Commissioner sent from Seoul to meet him stood facing
the south. The Korean
master of ceremonies stood with the envoy. The prefect
of Tongna stood with the
commission. On the south side stood a servant who burned
incense. On the east
and west were placed red umbrellas. On either side stood
Korean boys who
chanted in the Japanese language. Then the Envoy and the
Commissioner
[page 12]
both of whom were in court dress bowed ceremoniously to
each other four times.
They went into the reception hall and had a feast, where
there were flowers,
music and dancing. First they pledged each other in nine
cups of wine in a
solemn manner beginning with the Envoy and going down
through the different
ranks of Japanese and Koreans. Young Korean boys acted
as waiters.
The
ceremony of receiving the gifts was as follows. The
Korean officials clad in
white linen court robes with long flowing sleeves
entered from the east and
took their places on the north side of the apartment.
The Japanese were
stationed on the south side and the gifts were placed
between the two parties.
Candles made of bean oil and beeswax were lighted and
incense was burned. Then
both parties bowed before the gifts. Japanese
interpreters were introduced and
through them the ceremonial greetings were expressed.
There
also was the ceremony of the exchange of perfumes. A
special day was selected
from the calendar, that would be most auspicious and on
that day the Japanese
brought out their perfume and the Koreans brought theirs
and a ceremonious
exchange was made with many genuflections and mutual
compliments.
In
cases where the Japanese Envoys could not come to Seoul
there was a sort of
mock audience arranged at the port, which resembled a
real one except, of
course, that the King was not present. The governor of
the province personated
the King at such functions. The Japanese presented such
memorials as they had
prepared, offered their congratulations and went through
the regular forms of
an audience. Cheers were given as now with the “Man-se,
man-se’’ or the “Ch’un-se,
Ch’un-se.’’ The Japanese wore dark clothes but at these
functions they wore
white badges of some kind to distinguish them.
If
the ceremony happened to be at the time when a King had
died there was the
additional ceremony of the changing of the fo-su or seal
which the Daimyo of
Tsushima held from the Korean Government. This was
prepared in Seoul. It was a
brass seal with the name [page 13]
Tsushima written on the side. It was inclosed in a bees
box, wrapped in cotton
and carried to Fusan to give the Envoy.
Retrospect of
1903.
The past year
has been full of important events for Korea. We cannot
say that it has been a
year of progress but it has seen a steady movement
toward an in-, evitable end
and as the year opens there is every sign that a crisis
in the history of the country
has arrived.
In
January Yi Yong-ik, who had gone to Port Arthur,
returned to Korea without
successful opposition. Whether this was for his
country’s good remains to be
seen, but at any rate it has exercised a tremendous
influence over the course
of events during the past year, whether for good or ill.
As soon as he returned
he ordered a large invoice of rice from Annam and by so
doing probably
prevented a great deal of suffering in the capital.
This, among the common
people, is his one redeeming act. At about this time Yi
Keun-tak began
cultivating the good graces of Yi Yong-ik and with such
good success that in
the latter months of the year he gave promise of
superseding his master. These
two men dominated the situation and there can be no
doubt whatever that the
condition in which the country now finds itself is
directly due to the policy
of this duumvirate. That policy is illustrated by two
significant acts which
were at least attempted in January. The first was the
attempt of Yi Keun-tak to
have Mr. Waeber appointed to an important post as
adviser to the Korean
Government but it was foiled, so report has it, by the
opposition of the
Russian Minister. Yi Yong-ik, on the other hand, added
to his record as a
financier by securing the foundation of The Central Bank
of Seoul. This of
course was in opposition to the Japanese who have always
demanded that the
Korean Government should have a reliable currency.
Japanese trade had been
suffering severely because of the deterioration of
Korean currency
[page 14]
and the Dai Ichi Ginko had, with the consent of the
Korean Government, issued a
bank note to be circulated only in Korea. Yi Yong-ik was
always the determined
enemy of this movement which looked toward the
strengthening of Japanese
influence here, and the Central Bank idea which included
the scheme of putting
out Korean bank notes was a direct act of hostility, and
yet could not be taken
up by the Japanese, as it did not directly infringe upon
their rights.
In February, however, the
opposition to the Japanese bank notes took form in the
fatuous placards posted
about the city threatening the people with all sorts of
dire punishments if
they dared to circulate the Japanese notes. As a piece
of financiering this act
hardly has its parallel in history. It was a severe blow
not only at the
Japanese but at the Koreans as well, who held hundreds
of thousands of this
money. The result was an immediate and heavy run on the
Japanese Bank, the
suspension of many business plans and a general upheaval
in the monetary
conditions. As a natural result the Japanese Government
took hold of the matter
with a firm hand and within a few days forced the
Koreans to stultify
themselves, by taking it all back, apologizing abjectly
and posting notices
that were diametrically opposed to the former ones. In
this same month the
budget for the year was published showing that the
revenue amounted to about
eleven millions in Korean money and the disbursements
about an equal sum. This
month also saw the appointment of a commissioner to
proceed to Whangha Province
and investigate the charges made against Roman Catholic
adherents. We need not
enlarge upon this subject except to say that the charges
were proved and a
scandalous condition of things revealed which was
settled later by the condemnation
of several of the leading disturbers of the peace.
March
began with a rather significant event. The government
subsidized the two native
daily papers of Seoul, the only native dailies in the
country. It also wasted
some of its revenues in the purchase of a so-called
man-of-war from Japanese.
It later thought better of [page 15] this
and tried to get out of it, but without success.
April
brought another kind of difficulty. Russia had secured a
concession on the Yalu
for the cutting of timber. It was understood that Korea
was to have one fourth
of the net proceeds of the business, but in April when
the Russians began to
cut the timber it was found that Koreans were not
supposed to take any
cognizance of the work nor to watch proceedings in their
own interests to find
out how much timber was cut or what it brought in the
market. The most valuable
asset of the Korean government was thus definitely and
forever lost. The same
month saw a quarrel on the island of Quelpart between
Japanese and Koreans which
necessitated the presence of a Japanese gun-boat.
May
saw a further advance of Russia in the north when her
first gun-boat anchored
in Yongampo. Russia obtained some sort of hold on that
port and by so doing
demonstrated to the Japanese more clearly than by
anything else that Russia did
not intend to confine her operations to Manchuria.
The
month of June passed with comparative quiet except for
the attempt to blow up
Yi Yong-ik at the Japanese hospital in Seoul. How this
was done or by whom has
never transpired. An official census of the capital and
suburbs gave the
population as 194,100, but this is surely an
under-estimate.
The
rainy season of July seems to have kept everybody quiet.
August
witnessed the departure of Hyun Sang-geun for Europe
where he hoped to raise a
loan for the Korean government and do some other
impossible things. At about
this same time there began a discussion as to the
opening of Eui-ju to foreign
trade. In September the Russians began to carry on
operations at Yong-ampo
which were believed to be fortifications.
October
was an especially busy month. It saw an accident on the
Seoul electric road
which led to a miniature riot in which a Japanese shop
was wrecked. The report
arrived that Russian guns were being landed at Yongampo.
The Japanese were
employed to handle the annual ginseng [page
16]
crop. The eighth passed without Russia redeeming her
pledge to evacuate Manchuria. A treaty was signed
between China and the United
States by the terms of which Alukden and Antong were to
be, or rather are to
be, opened to foreign trade next October. A guard of
twenty-six men came to the
Russian Legation. A Belgian gentleman was appointed
adviser to the household
department. Mr. Hagiwara of the Japanese Legation in
Seoul went to Yongampo but
was refused permission to land. Russia prevented the
joining of the Korean
Telegraph system with the Chinese. The Home Minister was
cashiered for selling
offices. Exchange went down to its lowest point, one yen
bringing over two and
a half Korean dollars. The Seoul-Chemulpo and
Seoul-Fusan Railroads were joined
under the latter name.
In
November occurred a serious riot in Chemulpo between
Japanese and Russian
sailors which threatend to make complications. The
government stopped the
coining of nickels. The Russians named Yongampo Port
Nicholas. The Western
Palace at Pyeng-yang was finished. U Pom-sun the refugee
in Japan was
assassinated. A riot occurred in Mokpo between Japanese
and Korean coolies.
December
was spent in efforts on the part of various foreign
representatives to induce
the Korean Government to open a port in the north. All
these attempts were
blocked by Russia and the new year opened with Korea
firmly impaled upon the
Russian horn of the dilemma.
Such
are some of the most prominent events during the year
1903 in Korea and they
all point one way. They have demonstrated the absolute
necessity which faces
Japan of showing her hand in Korea, and that in no
uncertain way or of seeing
her commerce ruined and all her efforts of the past
three decades come to
naught. We are not desirous of seeing war. Almost
anything were better than
that. But when two radical ideas come in opposition to
each other and are not
only different but radicaly incompatible there is little
room for compromise.
Were Russian and Japanese interests both of a commercial
nature there might be
some hope of a compromise. [page 17]
Were they both of a merely strategic nature they might
come to an
understanding, but as it is there seems to be little
hope of such an issue. It
becomes rightminded men therefore to look at the
question impartially and
decide each for himself on which side right lies, if on
either side
exclusively, or on which side it preponderates. This
suggests several
questions.
(1) The
success of which contention will bring the greatest good
to the greatest number?
(2) The
contention of which of the contestants in this
threatened war is based upon the
tenets of recognized international justice?
(3) What does
each stand to lose in case there is no war?
(4) What does
each stand to gain or lose in case of war?
(5) The
success of which party will mean the most good to Korea?
(6) What has
history to say as to the relative benefits that Korea
has received from Japan
and Russia respectively and what may be argued from the
past as to the probable
benefits that Korea would receive should either the one
or the other withdraw
from Korea?
It would be
presumptuous for us to attempt to answer questions of
such moment as these
without having much more data than we have. Our interest
in the matter is of
two kinds, general and particular. We want especially to
know what is best for
Korea. There are those who say that in any case Korea
must lose her autonomy
and become a mere appendage of one of the two hostile
powers, and they argue
that this would be a good thing, on the ground that this
country does not
contain material out of which a good government can be
formed. This sounds much
like saying that New York cannot be well governed simply
because Tammany is
temporarily in power. We believe that material exists in
Korea out of which
could be built a fairly efficient government. It may be
that outside help might
be required for a short time while this material was
being hunted up [page 18]
and the decks cleared for action, but that it could be
done we fully believe.
But
there is one difficulty in the way. It would be of no
use, for instance, to
have half a dozen powers guarantee the independence of
Korea and then leave her
to her own devices. The same difficulties which now
oppress her would come
again. In order to have anything like order restored in
Korea it is necessary
that besides having her real independence declared some
one or more of the
powers should with her consent be appointed to give her
the assistance which
she needs in order to get things into proper running
order. We are talking now
of what Korea needs, not of what she seems to want nor
what she seems likely to
get in the near future.
Some
think that to make Korea a buffer state would settle the
difficulty yet it takes
but a glance to see that Korea is not in a situation to
be a buffer state, for
she is essential to the plan of Japan’s commercial and
industrial expansion and
she is essential to the plan of Russia’s territorial
aggrandizement in the Far
East. If you put a piece of bread between two hungry men
one of two things is
going to happen; either they will divide it or else one
will get the whole of
it. Humiliating and unjust as this may be to Korea it is
fact and must be
faced. And yet this simile is not wholly applicable to
the situation; for while
the two hungry men want the bread for the same purpose
the interests of these
two powers in Korea are of an entirely different nature.
As everyone knows,
Japan desires to see the Korean government established
on a progressive basis
and to be administered in such a manner that the people
shall have the greatest
incentive to industry and enterprise, for in this way
alone can the resources
of the country be developed both for Korea’s good and
Japan’s as well. The
railroad which the Japanese are building from Fusan to
Seoul cannot but be of
enormous benefit to the Korean people in spite of the
sneers of some who think
that the Japanese are intending to use it as an entering
wedge for the
accomplishment of some purpose inimical to the interests
of Korea. The attitude
which the Japanese have taken toward the [page 19]
matter
of coinage is one that is thoroughly in the
interests of Korea. Can anyone deny that the Japanese
trade with Korea is a
valuable thing for this country? And if so anything that
tends to destroy that
trade is an injury to the country. The demands for the
opening of more ports to
foreign trade are also in line with this same idea, the
opening up of Korea’s
resources.
Again,
which one of the points of Japan’s policy in Korea is
not in direct line with
the policy of the open door? Everything she has done in
regard to the currency,
in regard to opening ports, in regard to the
encouragement of good government
is as much to the interest of British, American, German
and Russian trade as it
is to Japanese trade.
Such
is Japan’s evident policy in Korea. As to Russia’s
policy the public can not be
so sure, for Russia seldom explains her policy in
advance; but it is natural to
suppose that the development of her vast Siberian domain
would be the main
point in her Eastern policy. In this great and laudable
work the whole world
without exception wishes her success. Every acre of
arable land added to the
grain producing area of the world is a distinct triumph.
In the development of
Siberia the great railroad that Russia has built must
play an important part,
nor should anyone object to seeing Russia have a
commercial outlet on the
Yellow Sea. As this is necessary to the development of
Siberia she has a right
to it; but Russia is not much interested in Korean trade
nor in any object that
makes for the direct advancement of the Korean people.
We look in vain for any
evidence of increasing prosperity in Korea due to the
moral ascendency which
Russia has exercised during the past three years or
more. It would be difficult
to explain how the present state of Korean finances and
government could injure
Russia in any way, while on the other hand they are a
serious detriment to
Japanese trade.
It
should be no small consideration with thinking men that
what will conduce to
Japanese interests in Korea will also conduce to the
welfare of the Korean
people themselves.
[page 20] If
we ask what Russians interests are in Korea we must
frankly confess that we do
not know. If we take the Russian press as evidence, it
would seem that Korea is
strategically necessary to Russia. If it is true that
the wants to get a port
in southern Korea which she handle as she has Port
Arthur, than the Russian
press is apparently correct. There is no considerable
Russian trade in Korea,
and geographical considerations seem to point in the
same direction as the
Russian papers have pointed. In what way the realization
of this policy on the
part of Russia will benefit Korea it is hard to see. We
do not know that any
Russian publicist has tried to show how it would help
the people of Korea. In
the absence of any difinite statement or any evident
plan on the part of the
northern power it must be left to time to decide. We
wish that someone
thoroughly acquainted with the Russian side of the
question would give to the
world the ways in which predominant Russian influence in
Korea would be of
benefit to the people of the peninsula. We do not doubt
there are arguments,
but we have never seen than frankly stated and therefore
are not in a position
to compare them with the Japanese side. We do know that
the demands which Japan
makes on Korea do not include a single point that will
not work as much to the
interests of every other treaty power as to Japan
herself. If the advocates of
Russian predominance in the peninsula can make as good a
showing as this, no
reasonable man can object.
Odds and Ends.
Lie on the
left side
There is a
Korean proverb which says “Even if a tiger catches you,
if you keep your wits
about you, you may live.”This is used when speaking of
some great calamity or
danger, that there is always some way of escape if one
has the wit to find it.
The proverb is based upon the general belief that a
tiger will not eat a man
who lies on [page 21]
his left side. This is because tiger
corresponds to “West”and dragon to
“East.”
Now with the head to the north and the feet to the south
a man’s left side will
be toward the east, the dragon side, and his right side
toward the west, the
tiger side. So when a tiger catches you by the ear (that
is not complimentary
as to the size of your ear, but “that is never mind”)
and swings you across his
shoulder and makes for his den, just do some tall
thinking for a few minutes
and when the brute drops you on the ground just roll
over on your left side and
you will be quite safe. He dare not touch you. Just put
this in your note book
for future reference. It may come in handy .
A
fortune-teller’s dilemma.
A high
official conceived the idea of going incognito to a
blind fortuneteller and
having his fortune told. Donning poor garments as a
disguise he went to the
fortune teller’s house and consulted him. The blind man
fumbled his book and
then opened it at random. His finger rested on the
character 問 which means “to ask”but
the 門 means “gate” and the 口 means mouth, so the
fortune-teller said, “It is plain that you will become a
beggar for he opens
his mouth in every man’s gate.” The official smiled,
paid the fee and departed:
The next day he happened to be talking with the young
prince and told him the
joke on himself, how he was to become a beggar. The
prince laughed with him but
then said : “We could have a good joke on that fortune
teller aud get some fun
out of him. Call him in and make him tell my fortune,
and when he opens the
book tell him that it is this same character that his
finger is on. Then we
will see how he gets out of telling me that I will
become a beggar.”
They
did this very thing, the fortune teller prostrated
himself and then opened the
book. Aha, he had struck the character 問.
“Now what do you make of it my good man? Yesterday you
interpreted it for somebody, I believe. Let us see
whether you can do as much
for me.” The poor fellow saw he was trapped but he
thought as quick as lightining
and said without even seeming to consider the matter :
[page 22]
“Circumstances alter cases. Now you will see that this
character 問, if looked at from the
left side only, becomes * which means king and if looked
at from the other side
it is * or king turned around; so from whichever side
you are looked upon the
beholder will see king all over you. You will surely
succceed your royal father
on the throne” The two jokers had to laugh at their own
discomfiture and as the
fortune teller passed out the gate with a substantial
reward in his sleeve he
muttered to himself: “Its a mighty small hole that a
fortune-teller of my
experience cannot crawl out of.”
Sorcery
Exposed.
A Korean
gentleman never allows a mudang or sorceress to perform
her incantations at his
house, but in this case there was an exception to the
rule. The gentleman’s
wife was so anxious to have it that he reluctantly
assented : but he was
determined to test the truth of the mudang’s
professions. So he secretly
removed one the heads of the double ended drum that she
would use in her
incantation, stuffed a tiger skin into the belly of the
drum and then replaced
the head. The hour came for the ceremony to being. The
mudang arrived in all
her fantastic toggery, the food and drink were all
placed in order on the
tables, and there seemed to be no obstacle to the
performance of her ghosth’
function. But when the music struck up, the drum,
instead of booming out as
usual, only emitted a snarl. This called for immediate
consideration. The
mudang declared that it was because the spirits were
displeased that the food
was not good enough, and the silk and cotton cloth used
in the ceremony were
not sufficient. The gentleman said, “Oh, is that all?
Well, give her more food
and silk, to her heart’s desire.” This was done but
still the drum refused to “go.”
The mudang then declared that it was because some of the
dishes or utensils
were dirty. They were all examined and cleaned but still
the drum would only
snarl. At last a blind exorcist was sent for. He might
be able to solve the
mystery. He was told what the matter was and heard the
sound of the bewitched
drum. Then he cast the dice with which he was accustomed
to tell fortunes and [page
23]
pronounced the following enigma: “When a tiger catches a
dog he roars but when
a dog tries to catch a tiger there is only a plaintive
whine.” When the
gentleman heard this he clapped his hands and laughed a
full minute. “Take the
head off that drum.” It was done, and out rolled the
tiger skin. “You see it
was the dog that caught the tiger.” For drum-heads are
made of dogskin. The
mudang was therefore driven away and all the food and
silk were given to the
exorcist. The blind are proverbially quick of ear and
the man’s ready wit
probably divined the cause of the trouble and improvised
the clever enigma.
Editorial
Comment.
The Kobe
Chronicle has again attempted to discredit the position
taken by this magazine
relative to Korean refugees in Japan and has challenged
us to the following
question: If the Korean government were wholly dominated
by the Roman Catholic
element and a price were put on the head of every
Protestant, would the
Japanese government be justified in sending back
Protestant refugees to be
dealt with by their enemies in Korea? We answer no, and
in so answering we
would ask the Chronicle on what page of the Review it
found the statement that
Korean refugees ought to be sent back to Korea. The
Chronicle should choose its
questions with more care. In the second place we
challenge the editor of that
journal to show us the page where the Review stated that
economic and
international law do not apply in the case of Korea. We
still affirm that those
sciences are not like mathematics; that only their most
general laws are
universally applicable; that each economic or
international complication must
be treated as a case by itself, arguments pro and con
must be balanced and the
solution found in the preponderance of evidence. There
are other international
laws beside that of asylum and when we said that
“considering all the facts of
the case and all that has occurred during the last two
decades we may be [page
24]
allowed to wonder that Japan should show such
highmindedness at such a cost,”
we were referring to events that it is not pleasant to
recall but which the
readers of the Chronicle know very well. We said there
is no question of the
high-mindedness of Japan in giving these men asylum, but
if, as we fully
believe, Japan is interested in the development and
progress of Korea it would
be fully as high-minded to ask these men to cross to
America and thus relieve
Japan of the suspicions of the Korean government which
are the main obstacle to
Japan’s usefulness in the peninsula.
News Calendar
Yi Chi-yong
was made Minister of Foreign Affairs on Dec. 30th1903
On the 20th
instant the Korean News Company began the publication of
a Daily Bulletin in
Seoul, giving telegrams from Tokyo and general news. In
case of war they
propose to have a number of men with the Japanese army.
About the 21st
inst. the Korean Government issued a declaration of
strict neutrality in view
of the apparent approach of war.
Yi Keun-sang
has been appointed Minister to Italy.
On the 22nd a
young woman alighted from a chair in front of the palace
gate, announced that
she was the daughter of Heaven and had come to give the
Emperor some good
advice as to the proper course to pursue in these
troublous times. The police
took her in hand. It is rather a pity she was not given
a chance!
Yi Yong-ik
again became Finance Minister on the 27th inst. And Yun
Ung-yul became Minister
of War on the 25th.
On the 23rd
fifty people departed for Hawaii.
General Ichiji
arrived on the 22nd to act as Military Attaché of the
Japanese Legation.
Rumors of
preparations for a great popular uprising in the south
are rife. There is
something in them, without doubt, and we are likely to
see lively times in the
Spring.
A painful
accident happened on the Electric road outside the South
Gate on the 24th. On a
steep grade and frosty track the motorman lost control
of the car and it ran
into a cartman who had been loudly warned but had
insolently refused to budge.
A crowd gathered and began to stone the car but United
States marines arrived
promptly on the scene and dispersed them. The Korean
police made no attempt to
quell the disturbance.
[page
25]
Queen Dowager Hong died on the second instant at the age
of seventy-three.
On the fourth
inst. the Emperor ordered the Home Office to send a
proclamation to all the
country districts with commands to make every exertion
to put down the robbers
which infest the country.
A serious
movement has begun in the two Southern provinces of
Korea where thousands of ajuns have been
banding together and
preparing to raise an insurrection. This is considered
by well-informed Koreans
to be more serious than the Tonghak uprising of 1893
because of the greater
intelligence of its partisans.
Cho Min-heui
has been appointed Minister to Japan to which place he
will soon start from
Washington. Yun Hon has been appointed Minister to the
United States.
Ko Yung-geun
the assassin of U Pom-son in Japan has been condemned to
death and his
accomplice has been condemend to imprisonment for life.
At the end of
1903 there were 6,400 Japanese residents of Chemulpo.
On Dec. 27th
fifty more Koreans started for Hawaii to engage in work
on the sugar
plantations.
The barley
imported by the Japanese is estimated by the Koreans to
amount to 20,000 bags.
The Italian
Minister early in January intimated to the Foreign
Office that as the Korean Government
had granted gold mining concessions to various other
nationalities it would be
proper to grant one to an Italian company.
On January 5th
a United States Legation guard of thirty-six men arrived
in Seoul. The U. S.
gunboat Vicksburg and the transport Zafiro from Manila
had arrived in Chemulpo
a few days before. A protest was made by the Foreign
Office on the ground that
the Korean soldiers were sufficient to secure quiet in
Seoul. The American
Minister replied to the effect that such protection was
not deemed sufficient
and that a further force would be brought in to guard
the property of the Seoul
Electric Company’s property.
On Jan. 6th
thirty additional Russian soldiers marched up from
Chemulpo. This also brought
forth a protest from the Foreign Office.
According to
custom the Korean people of Seoul donned the mourning
garb for the late Queen
Dowager and proclamation was sent throughout the country
ordering all classes
to do the same and to turn their faces toward Seoul and
wail.
The night of
January 6th was excessively cold and owing to this eight
Korean soldiers
deserted and fled. The rumors of wholesale desertion on
the part of Korean
soldiers seems to have been false. These eight men were
Pyeng Yang soldiers.
Japanese
residents of Fusan are said to number upwards of 13,000.
On the eighth
inst. a British Legation Guard of twenty men arrived in
Seoul and on the
following day the Russian guard was increased by the
arrival of forty-five more
men.
[page
26] Yi
Po-hyun bought 2,000 bags of rice at Chemulpo,
transported them by sea to
Kang-neung on the eastern coast, and distributed them
among people who are
suffering for want of food. They cannot praise him
highly enough, and demand
that he be given office.
Early in
January the Japanese brought eleven Gatling guns into
Chemulpo and immediately
transported them to Seoul.
The Emperor of
Japan sent a message of condolence to the Korean Court
on the occasion of the
death of Queen Dowager Hong.
Six hundred
thousand dollars have been appropriated to cover the
expenses of the funeral of
the Queen Dowager.
The gate of
the apartment where the body of the late Queen Dowager
lies is guarded day and
night by thirteen members of the peddlars guild.
All operations
have been suspended both by Japanese and Korean
pawn-shops. This entails an
enormous amount of suffering on the people, thousands of
whom depended upon
loans from these places. The suspension is of course due
to fears of
disturbances.
On Jan. 8th
the Emperor put forth an edict stating that the
condition of the government was
anything but ideal and that there must be a radical
change. He ordered that all
mudang, fortune-tellers and others of the same ilk be
expelled from the palace.
On the 9th inst
twenty-two Italian soldiers arrived to act as a
legation guard in Seoul.
The impression
has prevailed generally among foreigners all through the
month that there was
more or less danger of Korean insurrection in Seoul.
This led to extra
precautions on the part of most foreigners. The electric
car motormen were
under strict orders to go slowly for fear of some
accident which might
precipitate trouble. The common people have been however
very apathetic and the
curious tirades of one of the daily native papers seem
to have caused very
little excitement. The Koreans have seemed unable to
realize that the coming of
half a dozen legation guards is but a precautionary
or preventative measure but the wonder has been of a
very mild character.
In Yong-in the
owner of a fine bullock refused an offer of 900,000 cash
for his beast. The man
who made the offer sued the owner before the magistrate
for charging so much
for the animal! The magistrate gave them both a beating
and sent them about
their business!
Besides the
$600,000 appropriated for the funeral expenses of Queen
Dowager Hong, the
Emperor donated $10,000 out of his private purse for
incidental expenses which
the commission may incur.
The members of
the Household Department in Tokyo have decided to assume
mourning for nine days
in honor of the late Queen Dowager.
On the 9th
inst. thirty-one more Koreans started for Hawaii.
There are one
hundred and six prisoners in the central prison in Seoul
.
The
Whale-fishing Japanese Company have secured a twelve
years extension of their
franchise.
[page
27] Nine
secondary bereaus and commissions have been abolished
for reasons of economy.
They are the Famine Relief Bereau, Irrigation Bureau,
Government Hospital, the
Buddhist Monastery Bureau, Bureau of Decorations, Bureau
of Surveys, Imperial
Library Bureau, Bureau of Weights and Measures and the
Supreme Court. The
latter has not been actually abolished but merged into
the Law Department,
Hyun
Sang-geun, who was sent to Europe last Autunm to raise a
loan for Korea,
returned via Siberia and arrived in Seoul on the 11th
inst. strongly impressed
with the might and prestige of Russia. We hear that he
told the Emperor that
Japan would have no chance against the northern power,
but we are unaware of
his having made a careful investigation of Japanese
military and naval
resources.
Directly
opposite reports are given of the advice sent by Yi
Pomchin, Minister at St.
Petersburg, to the Emperor. Some say he advised the
Emperor to make friends
with the Japanese and others say he advised him to
cleave to Russia.
On the 12th
inst. Yen 4,000 were appropriated for the support of
Prince Eui-wha in America.
Great
suffering is being caused in Kong-ju by the failure of
the semi-annual fair.
People are afraid of highwayman and war rumors are rife;
so neither buyers nor
sellers came up to the fair and the people of the town
find it extremely
difficult to get rice at any price. A foreigner recently
offered to pay any
reasonable figure for a few bags of rice but found it
impossible to buy. No one
would even name a figure.
Kil Yung su
advised the Emperor to place Pyeng-yang soldiers as
guards of the palace
instead of Seoul men and there would be no possibility
of trouble. Hardly
complimentary to the Seoul soldiers!
Yi Nam-heui,
Supreme Judge in Seoul, imformed His Majesty personally
that the Japanese were
planning to depose His Majesty and place Prince Eui-wha
on the throne. For this
breach of etiquette the Judge was immediately imprisoned
and if the matter is
pressed he may lose his life.
The exodus
from Seoul, for fear of trouble, has begun though as yet
not many have gone. A
few high officials have sent their families and
valuables to the country.
The number of
Korean policemen in each of the open ports has been
lowered to thirty except in
Chemulpo and Fusan and at these places forty have been
left.
There is
evidently some anxiety at home over news of possible
danger to foreigners in
Seoul, as telegrams have been coming to many private
individuals inquiring as
to their safety. It is a pity that sensational reports
should have been sent
home at such a time as this.
On the 14th
Sim Sang-hun was appointed Minister of Finance.
On the 13th
Ex-Prime Minister Cho Pyungse told His Magisty that in
the present disturbed
state of things it was necessary first to deprive Yi
Yong-ik and Yi Keun-tak of
power and then matters could be settled on a safe and
satisfactory basis.
The annual
stone fights have begun outside the East and West
[page
28]
gates. It is rather early for this sort of thing but
evidently the people feel
more enthusiastic about it than is their custom.
On the 10th
inst. Baron Gunzberg removed all his effects from his
home in Sa-jik-kol to the
Russian Legation .
From the
Che-guk Sin-mun.
It has been
generally believed by foreigners in Seoul that the
editorials lately appearing
in the Che-guk Sin-mun are offensive and even
threatening to foreigners. If so
it is a rather serious matter. We have made a careful
investigation of the
matter both by translation of the editorials and by
interviews with the editor
of the paper in question. , In the first place the
Editor disclaims any
intention of speaking disrespectfully or injuriously
about foreigners and he
disavows any intention of exciting the populace against
them. He grants that
what he has written might perhaps cause a little feeling
against foreigners
among the more ignorant people but he claims that they
already had that
feeling. If he has increased that feeling it was with no
intention of so doing.
Whether his statement is a candid one or not we do not
know but we give it for
what ii is worth. And now let us examine briefly what
has been said. In the
Jan. 12 issue the editorial bewails the condition of the
country, saying that
though a new year has begun the people have not prepared
for it, that robbers
swarm in the country because of the oppression of the
prefects, that in the
open ports many foreigners come, especially Chemulpo,
where foreign solders
swarm, that Japan and Russia quarrel over Yongampo
regardless of the rights of
Korea in the matter, that the whole Korean people seem
to be asleep, that many
foreign soldiers come to Seoul and the Koreans can see
no reason for it. Then
comes an expression that has been misinterpreted by
foreigners. The Editor says
“What are the Korean soldiers good for? Why have they
been training all these
years?” This has been interpreted to mean that if the
Korean soldiers had been
good for anything they would have successfully opposed
the entrance of foreign
soldiers; but it is safe to say that no Korean so
understands it. It simply
means that if the Korean soldiers had been up to the
standard, foreigners would
have relied on them for protection instead of sending
for foreign soldiers. It
is simply a criticism of the Korean army, on the ground
that foreigners could not
put faith in them, The Editor goes on to ask what the
‘‘peddlars” are good for.
He denounces them as useless. If there had been any
intention of inciting
people to insurrection this hardly would have been said.
His next statement is
open to rather more objection. He says that foreigners
go about the town with
glowering faces and evidently intent on serious business
while the Koreans
slouch along as if cowed. The implication is natural
that the foreigners are
oppressing the Koreans and doubtless among certain
classes this statement might
be a cause of additional anti-foreign feeling. The term
used in describing the
foreigners in this sentence just quoted is that there
was sal keui in their looks. This sal
keui (**) means “killing [page 29] force.”
but this is an hyperbola often used by Koreans in
describing the looks of an
angry man and so it is not so offensive an expression as
its literal force
might imply. It is the exact equivalant of our
expression “There was murder in
his eye.” But even so the sentence is sufficiently
offensive, and suggestively
so, to excite the people of the lower orders and the
Editor is much to blame
for indulging in such exaggerations, especially as the
facts do not bear him
out. There has been no more truculency in the looks of
foreigners of late than
there has always been. He drew upon his imagination for
the whole thing. At
such a time as this such statements are doubly
reprehensible. He goes on to
charge the police with being quite useless, and the
people with exchanging falsehoods,
(which in view of the above would include his own.) Then
after bewailing the
fact that there are no officials who will speak the word
which will break the
deadlock and free the government from the charge of
supineness he says there is
no man who will shoulder his axe and come forth to help
the country . This
sounds very incendiary and may be so to some Koreans but
very many of the
people know that this refers to Choe Ik-byon who in the
year 1873, when another
high official secured the imposition of a tax upon wood
merchants, took an axe.
went to the palace gate and placing his written memorial
upon the axe waited
for it to be presented to His Majesty the present
Emperor. The memorial
denounced the tax and said “lf my words are not true,
take this axe and kill me
but if they are true take it and kill the man who
proposed this tax.” The
editor means there is no man bold and patriotic enough
to tell the truth to the
Emperor even though it might cost his life. We hold no
brief for the editor of
the Che-guk Sin-mun and there can be no doubt that his
writing in this vein is
worse than useless but in common fairness we should give
him what benefit of
the doubt there may be and in censuring him not follow
his own example of
exaggeration. But on the 22nd inst. this same editor
lashes himself into a
verbal frenzy and makes all sorts of absurd charges
against the foreigners and
gives every evidence of trying to cover up the weakness
and pusillanimity of
the present officials by an outburst of vituperation
against those who because
of that very weakness have been obliged to bring in
foreign guards to defend
themselves. On the whole this attempt on the part of the
editor to relieve his
pent-up feelings is very foolish, and might be very
harmful if the people were
in the mood to follow his lead.
A Russian and
a French engineer employed in the Korean military shops
have been released from
service under the Korean Government, their terms of
contract having expired.
On the 14th
inst. forty-one French naval men arrived in Seoul to act
as a Legation guard.
On the 16th
inst. sixty-four American marines arrived in Seoul and
took up their quarters
in the Seoul Electric Company’s building.
The Koreans
report that many white hats have been bought by Japanese
and their inference is
that many Japanese are going out into the country
dressed as Koreans.
[page
30]
News comes from foreign residents
in Pyeng Yang that Korean soldiers and police are
breaking into the houses of
all the well-to-do people of that city and stealing
their goods. The
authorities remonstrated but could effect nothing. The
soldiers threaten to
disband if they are interfered with. The people can get
no redress whatever. At
the same time the Tong-hak movement is assuming larger
and larger proportions
and the local government seems almost to be favoring the
movement. Foreigners’
houses have not been attacked. Foreigners of long years’
residence in Korea say
they have never seen such a state of things in the
north. An American
missionary was lately driven in from one of the
neighboring towns and told that
if he showed his face there again he would be killed In
this state of things it
would not be wondered at that foreigners in the northern
city should feel a
little uneasy. Our correspondent states positively that
the facts as stated,
about the soldiers and police, can be fully
corroborated.
Many robbers,
taking advantage of the frozen river, come across the
ice at night and rob
houses in the river towns. “Peddlars” have been sent to
act as guards for these
towns.
There were
rumors that the Independence Club was to be revived and
so the government sent
fifty soldiers to guard the Independence Arch so as to
prevent any gathering
there. Some former leaders of that Club, so it is
reported, desired to start
the same movement again under another name, Yu-sin-whe
or “Reform Club,” but
were warned by the police and gave up the idea.
The machinery
for making guns, which was imported from Japan, costs
yen 180,000. This is to
be paid from the Finance Department by order of the
Emperor, but in the present
state of the national finances we may confidently expect
that there will be a
little delay in the payment.
In Musan on
the nothern border Koreans failed in an attempt to drive
back Manchu robbers,
and 394 houses and 19,820 dollars worth of grain were
burned.
Pak Chong-yang
has succeeded Min Yong-so as Minister of Education. Ku
Yung-jo has succeeded
Chong Keui-tak as Chief of Police. Yun Eung-yul was made
Minister of War on the
23rd.
Because of the
severe cold Yi Yong-ik has distributed four hundred
dollars among the men of
each of the twelve regiments in Seoul.
Great
suffering has attended the severe cold of January. Three
people froze to death
one night and a woman and a baby at her breast were
found frozen one morning.
About the 20th
inst. it was reported that Russia had suggested to Japan
that northern Korea be
made a neutral zone and that Japan exercise predominant
influence in the south,
but that Japan immediately rejected the proposal.
Yun Chi-ho,
under orders from the government, came up to Seoul from
Mokpo on the 22ud inst.
It is generally believed that he will be given an
important post in Seoul.
[page
31]
Rev. G. L. Pearson of Honolulu Hawaii sends the
following for publication,
about the Koreans in Hawaii.
The Koreans
who have come to Hawaii have found ready employment.
With the exception of a
few incidents they have received good treatment and they
generally are well
pleased with their homes, advantages and prospects. A
few have come who are not
at all fitted for the work, being unused to hard toil,
having too little
strength or an enfeebled health. A small number of such
characters are
dissatisfied and are a burden to the Korean community.
Men who are unable or
unwilling to work find a hard time in Hawaii as do all
such per-sons in any
country. Nearly all are industrious and are hopeful.
Our public schools are open
to Korean children. Where schools are located near
plantations many are able to
take the opportunity of learning English. The religious
work for the Koreans is
being done by the Methodist Episcopal Church, there
being no organized bodies
of Presbyterians or Baptists. The Hawaiian Board of
Missions which aflfiliates
with the Congregational Church on the main land, is not
intending to give any
special attention to this work, thus leaving the field
to the Methodists. We
have organized a class wherever there is any
considerable number of Koreans and
are doing work under the supervision of the Presiding
Elder, by Korean Local
Preachers. Exhorters and Bible Teachers. We are giving
it our best attention
and are hopeful of conserving the work already done for
these people and of
carrying on the work of evangelization.
It
would be a great advantage to me if all protestant
Missionaries in Korea, would
send me the names, certificates of membership, and
advices concerning any of
their members, or flock, who may come to Hawaii. This
would enable me to more
wisely select men for the responsible positions in our
societies, to assign
believers to their proper classes and to give special
attention to the needs
they may severally have.
I
am pleased to say that the loyalty, zeal, spiritual
power, observance of the
Sabbath etc., on the part of the Koreans who are here
testify to the thorough
work of the Missionaries in Korea.
On Jan. 3rd a
great fire occurred in Taiku which threatened the whole
city but it was brought
under control.
Real estate is
going up rapidly in Taiku. This is due to the influx of
Japanese merchants. The
woman’s winter training class of the Presbyterian
mission has grown from
fifteen to forty. The present governor is not very
friendly to Japanese. The
report circulated recently that any Korean who sold land
or houses to Japanese
would be beheaded. The Seoul-Fusan railway passes the
city to the south running
east and west but does not touch the city proper nor
will it necessitate the
tearing down of any houses. The station will be not far
from the south gate.
The missionaries (Protestant) of Taiku have opened a
sleeping-room for the beggar
boys and some thirty-five enjoy its hospitality. Nothing
could be more pitiable
than their lot.
[page
33]
KOREAN HISTORY.
In spite of
the oath that he had taken, the young king built a
separate shrine to his
father and worshiped at it in the same manner as at the
ancestral temple. This
was in accord with the letter of the oath, for he
religiously refrained from
calling his father by that name. He likewise honored the
memory of his father
by decreeing that if anyone mentioned the fact that he
had been enclosed in a
box and starved to death it would mean death. He
banished the son of the
princess who had encompassed his father’s death. The
highhanded Hong In-han who
had worked so hard to prevent his accession was first
banished to Yosan and
enclosed in a thorn hedge, and then was poisoned by
royal edict.
Being
without issue, the king, at the instigation of his
mother, took a concubine,
the sister of one of his favorites, Hong Kuk-yung. This
resulted very
unfortunately, for when this concubine died her father
was drawn into
treasonable operations.
Many
of the present customs of Korea date from this reign.
The king first made the
law that after the closing of the gates, they could not
be opened except by
special permission from himself.
It
was in his first year that the scholar Kwun Chul-sin
gathered about him a
company of disciples and went to a mountain retreat to
study. They possessed
one copy of a Christian work. This they diligently
studied, and one and all
determined to adopt the belief there inculcated. So far
as they understood it,
they practiced its teachings in secret.
Two
years later the king took as a second concubine the
daughter of Yun Chang-yun,
and Hong the father of the first concubine, because of
his opposition to it,
was banished .
[page 34]
Up to this time very few officials had been drawn from
the northern provinces
or from Song-do, but now the king decreed that they were
as worthy to receive
office as any others and said that they should share in
the gifts of the
government. He ordered that a record be kept of all the
decisions in council
and that they be preserved in a book called the
Il-deuk-rok. Those were days of
severe famine in the land and the king did all in his
power to relieve the
distress, giving from his private treasure large
quantities of silver bullion,
black pepper and dyewood, things of great value in
Korea.
In
the year 1783 strange rumors were afloat. It was said
that war had been
declared against Korea by some foreign power which was
about to throw an
immense army into the peninsula. No one knew where it
was to come from, but
many believed it was Japan. The excitement grew so
strong that crowds of people
fled to the country, and so great was the influx into
the southern provinces
that real estate rose rapidly in value. Such was the
haste of these deluded
people that on the road families became separated and
children were lost. Out
of pity for the latter the king founded an asylum in
Seoul for their
maintenance.
Yi
Tuk-cho of Kyong-ju was one of the men who had accepted
the teachings of the
Roman Catholic books and in this year he induced a young
attaché of the embassy
to Peking to look up the missionaries there and get such
light as he could on
the subject. This young man, Yi Sung-hun. met at Peking
the Portugese Alexaudré
de Govea of the Franciscan order. He accepted
Christianity and was baptized
under the name of Pierre. He brought back with him many
books, crosses, images,
and other religious emblems. Some of these he gave to Yi
Tuk-cho who redoubled
his studies and at the same time began to do some
proselyting. Two of his most
celebrated converts were two brothers Kwun Ch’ul-sin and
Kwun Il-sin of
Yang-geun, thirty miles from Seoul. This town is called
the birth place of
Roman Catholicism in Korea. Yi Tuk-cho took the
baptismal name of Jean Baptiste
and Kwun Il-sin that of Francois Xavier. The propagation
of the Christian faith
soon began in Seoul and from there rapidly spread in the
south.
In
1785 the Minister of Justice began active operations [page 35]
against the new faith and in the third moon of that year
a courtier memorialized the king on the subject. This
caused the defection of
many of the converts.
In
1786 Kim Yi-so informed the king that when envoys came
back from China they
brought in their train many Catholic books, which caused
a “conflagration” in
the country, and he denounced it as a bad religion. He
.said the books were
flooding the land and that the only way to stop it was
to make Eui-ju, on the
border, a customs port and have all baggage strictly
examined before being
allowed to pass.
Many
Chinese had settled on Sin Island off Eui-ju but the
Koreans on the adjacent
mainland resented it. They collected a considerable band
of men and crossed to
the island where they burned all the houses of the
settlers and destroyed all
their property. When the king heard of it he condemned
it as a brutal outrage.
This year was marked by one of the most destructive
scourges that ever visited
the country. Cholera swept the land from end to end. It
is asserted that 370,979
people perished, among whom was the infant Crown Prince.
The government found
it necessary to undertake the work of interment The king
gave out from the
dispensary 29,000 pills, and in Seoul alone there were
8,149 recoveries.
Knowing as we do the frightful ravages of this disease
when it takes a virulent
turn, the fact that there were over 8,000 recoveries in
Seoul indicates that
there must have been at least 60,000 deaths. Probably
this was more than half
the population of the city at that time. It was during
this same year that the
great mound in Kang-dong, P’yung-an Province, was found.
It is some 680 feet in
circumference. It was called, from the first, the grave
of the Tan-gun, though
there is of course no evidence to show that this is more
than the merest fancy.
The
king had a half brother named Prince Eun-on for whom he
had a great affection;
but Hong Kuk-Yung whose daughter had been the king’s
first concubine and had
violently opposed a second union, now conspired with two
other choice spirits
with a view to putting Prince Eun-on on the throne. The
vigilant Queen Mother
discovered the plot and the conspirators were executed.
All likewise demanded
the death of the young prince but to this the king would
not [page
36] listen.
He was forced to banish him to Quelpart, but a short
time after had him brought
back as far as Kang-wha, where comfortable quarters were
provided for him.
The
king interdicted the use of silk excepting by very high
officials and by very
old people. He set up stones to mark the place where the
great-grandfather of T’a-jo
Ta-wang had lived, where his grandfather had fished and
where that king himself
had once lived, in Ham-gyung Province. Someone found in
P’yung ch’ang,
Ham-gyung Province, the grave of T’a-jo Ta-wang’s
great-grandmother and the
king had it repaired and guarded.
Up
to that date the women had been accustomed to wear the
hair in a great bunch on
top of the head as female professional mourners do
to-day in Korea. Large
amounts of false hair were used and it was decorated
with long pins and with
flowers. It is said that a full headdress cost as much
as the furnishings of a
house. The king ordered a change in this expensive
custom, and since that day
only mourners and palace women have been allowed to wear
them.
The city of Su-wun dates
its importance from the year 1789, for at that time the
king removed his father’s
grave to that place and went there several times to
sacrifice. He secretly
called his banished brother from Kang-wha, but when his
mother learned of it she
made such an ado about it that he was fain to send him
back. At Ham-heung, near
the ancestral seat of the dynasty, there was an immense
tree, so large that ten
men holding each other’s hands could but just encircle
it. The shadow which it
cast was “A hundred furrows wide.” So goes the story.
The king had it enclosed
in a wall, as being the place where his great ancestor
practiced archery.
The
year 1791 will always be memorable for the persecution
of the Roman Catholics.
During the preceding year the Roman Catholic converts
had sent a man to Peking
to arrange for the coming of a priest who could
administer the sacraments, for
the Koreans had been strictly forbidden by the Catholic
authorities in China to
administer them among themselves without the services of
a regularly
consecrated priest. At the same time certain important
questions about ancestor
worship were asked. A priest was promised to the Korean
[page
37]
church but the answers to the questions about ancestor
worship were very
unsatisfactory to the Koreans and in consequence there
were many defections. It
is much to the credit of the Roman propaganda that from
the very first it set
its face hard against the practice of ancestor worship.
In the fifth moon it is
said the, “flame of Roman Catholicism burned high.” In
other words it was
discovered then what had been going on quietly for many
years. Two men of
Chin-san in Chul-la Province were caught and killed
because they had burned
their ancestral tablets. It was only after long
discussion and with great
hesitation that the order was given for their
decapitation, and at the very
last moment, after the men had already been carried to
the place of execution,
the king changed his mind and sent a reprieve; but it
was too late. The king
called the new religion not Ch’un-ju-hak or “Religion of
the Lord of Heaven,”
but Sa-hak or “The Deceiving Religion.” The Minister
Chon Che-gong advised the
king to annihilate all Roman Catholics, but the king
answered, “We must do it
by elevating Confucianism.” He had found the only
rational way to deal with
religious differences. He said, in substance, let the
fittest survive. This is
all that Christianity asks in any land, and the
opposition of it by force
always has been and always will be an acknowledgment of
inferiority. The king
knew well that China was the source from which the new
influences came and he
made a very strict law against the bringing across the
border of Christian
books. An edict was promulgated threatening with
punishment all who did not
deliver up their Christian books within twenty days, and
the prefect of
Chin-san, where the two men hid been working, was
cashiered and forty-nine
other prefects were degraded one or two degrees, because
Christian converts
were numerous in their districts. The Roman Catholic
writers attribute the
numerous defections at this time to the entire lack of
pastoral care, the
absence of the sacraments and the paucity of Christian
literature.
The
king did not live up to his advanced ideas about using
physical force to combat
Christianity, for in the eleventh moon of this year four
high officials who had
embraced Christianity were seized and put to death,
together with a
considerable number of the common people.
[page 38]
In 1792 the pope formally put the care of the Korean
church in the hands of the
Bishop of Peking.
Sacrifices
were offered at the tombs of Tangun, Ki-ja, Su-ro-wang
(the founder of Karak)
and of T’a-jo Ta-wang. Whether this was done to aid in
combatting Christianity
we are not told but it is not improbable. This was a
time of general prosperity
among the people and it witnessed a rapid increase in
the population of Korea.
These things were evidenced by the strong colonizing
spirit which sprang up.
Thousands flocked northward to the banks of the Yalu and
to the islands on the
coast, and the area of arable laud was largely
increased. Two years later this
period of prosperity terminated in a terrible famine in
all the southern and
central provinces, and the government was obliged to
dispense 280,000 bags of
rice among the sufferers. This same year envoys from the
Liu Kiu Islands were
well received. The King told them that two hundred years
before Liu Kiu
officials had been given honorary titles by the king of
Korea. In view of the
friendly relations that had always existed between Korea
and these islands, the
envoys were feasted and sent off in grand style. Late in
this same year, 1794,
the Chinese Roman Catholic priest Tsiou crossed the Yalu
and entered Korea. The
government was aware of it and his arrest was ordered,
but he escaped from
Seoul in disguise. Two of his companions were taken, and
as they refused to
give information as to his whereabouts they were
immediately put to death. At
the time of his coming the Catholics estimate that there
were 400 believers in
Korea, but within a very few years the number increased
to 6,000.
The
year 1796 was signalised by a most important event in
the field of letters. In
the beginning of the dynasty a fount of 100,000 pieces
of moveable copper types
had been cast, and these had been supplemented soon
after by 200,000 more. Now
the king began to add to them. First he put out 50,000
and a year later he
added 150,000 more; then 80,000 more were made, and
moveable wooden types were
made to the number of 320,000. Already during this reign
the following works
had appeared. “The Gradation of Penalties,” “A
Commentary on the Chinese
Classics,” “The Proper Conduct of the king,” “The Record
of the Decisions in
Council,” [page 39]
“On Korean Customs,” “On Military Tactics,” “On Forms of
Official
Correspondence,” “On the Science of Government.” These
were now followed by
several editions of military and Confucian works, one of
which was a digest of
all the Confucian Classics in ninety-nine volumes. The
King was a great lover
of books and gathered all the best books that could be
procured. One work whose
publishing he superintended in person reached the modest
number of 191 volumes.
The
Minister of Finance advised the minting of five-cash
pieces but all the
officials united in a protest against it and advised
retrenchment as the
alternative. In this they were right, for the policy of
meeting a deficit by
minting money could not but be disastrous.
CHAPTER XIII.
A peculiar
plague .... a peculiar remedy. . . . a new king . . .
varions reforms. . .
.beginning of the policy of Roman Catholic opposition .
. .Christianity
and politics. . . .causes of
opposition. . . .prisons full. . . . Chinese evangelist
killed. . . . a
traitorous letter intercepted .... end of the
persecution. . . .conflagration .
. . eight severe charges . . . the miners’ rebellion . .
. .siege of Chong-ju .
. . . the mine explodes . . . Catholics send to Peking
for a priest. . . a long
list of calamities. . . . cholera. . . .taxes remitted .
. . Europeans fail to
enter Korea . . . nine years’ famine .. terrible
suffering... a new king . . .
reform . . .French priests enter Korea . . . the
persecution of 1839 . . . the
first French naval expedition against Korea . . . The
Koreans answer the French
charges . . . . a new king . . . reforms . . . .rapid
spread of Christianity .
. . . consternation upon hearing of the fall of Peking.
. . . a noteworthy
memorial . . . panic . . . a good opportunity lost . . .
a women’s riot.
In 1799 a
peculiar plague broke out in P’yeng-yang and spread with
great rapidity. It
began with fever and ague, accompanied by a cough, and
death was very sudden.
The king decided that if people so afflicted should eat
beef they would
recover. So he ordered cattle to be killed and the beef
to be distributed among
the people. The plague suddenly ceased and the people
have always believed that
it was the [page 40]
marvelous acumen of the king that enabled him to see the
remedy and stop the
ravages of the disease.
Early
in 1800 he made his son heir to the throne, and none too
soon, for in the sixth
moon he sickened and died. It is said that his death was
caused by his mourning
over the terrible fate of his father, whose cruel and
untimely death preyed
upon his mind. Others say that the cause of his death
was a malignant boil.
The
infant king, known by his posthumous title of Sunjo
Ta-wang, was of too tender
an age to undertake the duties of royalty and so the
government was
administered during his minority by his grandmother, the
woman who had wielded
such a strong influence over his father. She began by
instituting various
reforms. Outside the West Gate, which was then some
distance to the west of the
present New Gate, there was a monastery where
sorceresses and fortune-tellers
congregated. The Queen Mother drove them all out and
razed the monastery to the
ground. The tax by which the palace body-guard was kept
up was very distasteful
to the people and it was now remitted. Up to this time
the government medical
dispensary had been supported by revenue in money or
herbs from the country,
but this tax was also remitted. If we may believe the
records when they say
that she freed all the government slaves, we can not but
confess that in some
directions at least this Queen Regent was of exceeding
liberal mind.
It
is from the year 1801 that we may date the determined
and systematic opposition
on the part of the government against the Roman Catholic
propaganda in the
peninsula. Two other factions had grown up in Seoul, the
Si and the Pyuk. The
latter were violent opponents of the new religion but
they had been held in
check by the neutral attitude of the late king. But now
he was dead, and the
Queen Regent, being a member of that faction, determined
to give full rein to
the anti-Christian prejudices of her partisans. It must
be remembered that the
Koreans were extremely sensitive to outside influences.
The terrible invasion
of the Japanese on the one hand and of the Manchus on
the other had made the
Koreans hate all suggestions of commerce with the
outside world, and they sedulously
avoided every possible contact [page 41]
with foreigners. This is one of the main causes of the
opposition to
Christianity. But besides this, they had been told that
Roman Catholicism
struck at the very foundation of the state and was more
than likely to assume a
political aspect, a charge which, from the very claims
which it puts forth to
universal temporal as well as spiritual sovereignty,
would be somewhat hard to
refute. We can scarcely wonder then that there was
severe opposition to it. It
was looked upon as a danger which menaced the state. It
is said that Roman
Catholicism had assumed large proportions in Korea. Many
were now seized and
put to death. Among them were eleven high officials.
Release was granted in
case the accused would consent to curse Christ. The
agents of this persecution
went everywhere haling forth believers from city and
village. Soon the prisons
were running over. Eleven men were executed in April and
fourteen in the
following month. It is said that two princesses who had
adopted the foreign
faith were put to death. It was at this time that Tsiou,
the Chinese
evangelist, whom the Koreans call Chu Mun-rao, was
seized and put to death
outside the Little West Gate. He had at first fled north
to the Yalu and was on
the point of crossing, when he suddenly thought better
of it, turned back, gave
himself up and heroically met his death.
A
Korean named Whang Sa-yong had been instrumental in
bringing this Chinaman to
preach the faith to his fellowcountrymen. Now that the
evangelist was executed
this Whang sent out a letter to the European residents
of China asking that a
military expedition be gotten up to come to the shores
of Korea, overthrow the
dynasty and set up another in sympathy with the
Christian faith. This letter
was intercepted, the man seized and cruelly torn to
pieces. As to the accuracy
of these statements it would be rash to vouch. The
contents of that letter may
or may not have been what is generally believed by the
Koreans, but judging
from the active interest which European governments
rightly take in
missionaries from their shores, it is not unlikely that
the letter contained
substantially what is here stated. The persecution
terminated the following
year when the government ordered the execution of those
already apprehended but
ordered that no more Christians be proceeded against.
Between three and [page
42]
four hundred people had perished
and the church seemed to have been crushed.
It
was in this year 1803 that a terrible conflagration
swept P’yong-yang, and a
thousand houses were destroyed. It was repeated the
following year, and it is
asserted that almost the entire city was destroyed.
Upon
the death of the Queen Regent in 1805 the last remnant
of persecution ceased
and even the law which prohibited the import of books
was allowed to remain a
dead letter. Corruption in government circles ran riot.
The state of things is
well epitomized in a memorial which was sent in at this
time, (1) The Ministers
spend all their time reading books. (2) Nepotism and
bribery are the rule
rather than the exception. (3) The judges sit and wait
for bribes. (4) The
examiners of the candidates’ papers receive money in
advance, and merit can
make no headway against cupidity. (5) The censors have
been struck dumb. (6)
The prefects do nothing but extort money from the
people. (7) Luxury saps the
strength and wealth of the land. (8) The whole
commonwealth is diseased and
rotten to the core.
The
year 1811 is marked by an uprising in the north, where
Hong Kyong-na attempted
to set up a kingdom of his own. He was a resident of
P’yung-an Province and was
a man of enormous wealth. He was disaffected against the
government because the
men of his section were discriminated against in the
distribution of offices;
so he conferred with the miners who were engaged in
digging gold in various
places, and he told them an exaggerated story of how ill
they were being
treated by the government. He ended by proposing that,
as he had enough money
for them all, they set up a kingdom of their own. The
hardy miners, 5,000 in
number, accepted the proposal with alacrity and war was
on foot. This company
of undrilled but hardy miners were formidable and at
first carried everything
before them. They first took the town of Chongju,
putting to death the prefect
and his whole family. When news of this reached Seoul
the king appointed Yi
Yohon as general-in-chief against the rebels. Five
thousand soldiers were given
him with which to do the work. He acted in a
characteristic manner, settled
himself comfortably at the governor’s house outside the
New Gate and called it
the [page
43]
headquarters From that point he sent to the front
Generals Su Kum-bo, Kim
Kye-on and Pak Keui-p’ung. Meanwhile the rebels were
carrying everything before
them. Ch’ul-san, Ka-san, Song-chun, Yong ch’un, Pakch’un
and Son-ch’un fell in
quick succession. All the government provisions and arms
fell into their hands.
The main camp of the rebels was in the vicinity of An-ju
and they wished to
take that place. Here they met with strenuous opposition
and it was only after
a desperate struggle that they ever took the town. It
took ten days to reduce
the place; but the back bone of the revolt was broken
before the government
troops from Seoul arrived on the scene. The various
captains and local
commanders joined their forces, and by the time the
government troops had
collected in Pyung-yang the rebels had been driven into
their last remaining
fortress, Chong-ju, and were being held in siege. During
the retreat of the
rebels four of Hong’s lieutenants were captured and,
being sent to Seoul, were
there summarily executed. The reduction of Chong-ju by
siege was a work of some
time, and the king becoming impatient, supplanted Gen.
Pak Kye-p’ung and put
Gen. Yu Hyo-wun in his place. The latter immediately
decided to attempt to blow
up the town of Chong-ju. Constructing a fence, or
barrier of some kind, a
hundred and fifty paces from the wall, he began, under
cover of this, to mine
the wall, supporting the passage with beams of wood.
When he had extended the
passage well under the wall he placed a large amount of
powder in it and
attached a long fuse. After igniting the fuse the
soldiers all hastened out of
the mine. No explosion followed. No one dared to go in,
for fear that the fuse
might be burning slowly and that the mine might explode
while they were within.
After waiting two days, and finding no one who would
venture in, Gen. Yu
himself entered and found that the fuse had become wet.
He remedied the
difficulty and soon there was a tremendous explosion
that tore down a long
stretch of the wall and buried many of the garrison in
the debris. The place
was soon taken. Hong was caught, “The Man who Would be
King,” and his head was
sent to Seoul.
The
Christians had now begun to recover in some measure from
the terrible persecution
of 1801 and a man was sent to [page 44]
Peking to urge that a qualified priest be sent to Korea,
but the Peking church
itself was in great vicissitudes and no help could be
promised.
From
this time on the reign was one long list of calamities
which followed thick and
fast upon each other. In 1813 there was a serious
rebellion on the island of
Quelpart; in 1814 occurred one of those fearful famines
that sometimes happen
in the southern provinces; this was followed by a flood
in Kyung-sang Province
which wrecked thousands of houses and cost many lives;
Seoul was without rice
and the government had to open its granaries and sell at
starvation rates;
414,000 bags of grain were distributed to the sufferers
in the country and
15,000.000 cash, 5,000 pounds of dye-wood and 500 pounds
of black pepper were
donated toward relief. The next year thousands who had
been made destitute by
the famine flocked to Seoul and the government had to
feed them till the barley
crop was harvested; then the native fever, a kind of
typhus, broke out and
mowed the people down, and the government had to erect
pest houses for their
accommodation. In 1816 two thousand houses fell in a
freshet in Ch’ung-ch’ung
Province and the government gave timber to help the
people rebuild. The year
1821 beheld one of the most terrible scourges of cholera
that the country ever
experienced. It began in the north, and sweeping
southward soon involved the
capital. Ten thousand people died in Seoul in ten days.
In the south it was
equally destructive. The government was obliged to
appoint a commission to
attend to the interment of the dead bodies along the
road. The following year
it broke out again with unbated fury. Houses were built
at intervals along the
roads, by the government, for the sake of those who
might be struck down with
the plague while traveling and gangs of men were kept
busy along the main road
burying the dead. It even crossed to the island of
Quelpart where two thousand
people died. In 1824 the government had to remit 69,300
bags of revenue grain
in the north because of the depredations of robber
bands.
In
1827 the Crown Prince was appointed deputy king and the
same year a son was
born to him. But troubles continued. The government was
obliged to remit taxes
of seaweed, salt, ginseng and fish in Kangwun Province.
The [page
45]
following year a terrible freshet swept away whole
villages in Ham-gyung
Province and the king sent large quantities of grain to
feed the destitute
there.
Still
troubles multiplied thick and fast. In 1830 the Crown
Prince died. He is the
grandfather of the present Emperor of Korea. The son who
had been born to him
is known as the Ta wun gun, who died in the spring of
1898. The building in
which the body of this Crown Prince was placed burned to
the ground and nothing
but the charred bones of the prince were recovered. Two
years later, in 1832 an
English vessel appeared off Hong-ju and its captain,
Basil Hall, sent the king
a letter saying that he had come to trade, but the king
refused permission. As
the flag of the ship bore the device “Religion of Jesus
Christ,” some Roman
Catholic converts boarded her, but when they found that
they were protestants
they beat a hasty retreat. It is said that several boxes
of books were landed
and that some of them were sent to the king, who
promptly returned them. The
foreigners who made this attempt to enter Korea were
Gutzlaff and Lindsay.
During
this year there were destructive fires and floods, but
the greatest calamity of
all was a famine that began at that time and continued
for nine successive
years, each year being accompanied with cholera. It is
said that bodies were
piled in heaps inside the South Gate. Many people are
still living who remember
that terrible time. The next year, in addition to famine
and plague, the palace
burned down. In the following year there was a
devastating epidemic of native
fever in Seoul, and a flood in Eui-ju which wrecked
2,000 houses. That summer,
the people driven wild with hunger mobbed the government
granaries but found
nothing in them. They laid the blame on the Prime
Minister and threatened his
life. He fled precipitately to the country.
In the last moon of 1834
the king died and his grandson a boy nine years old came
to the throne. He is
known as Hon jong Ta-wang. His grandmother Kim became
regent. She is known as
Sunwun Whang-ho. She immediately began a work of reform.
The law that made the
relatives of prefects’ clerks liable to punishment for
their crimes was
abrogated. Many burdensome taxes were remitted. The
government [page
46]
revenue collectors were kept to a strict account for all
the monies passing
through their hands. A conspiracy, headed by one Nam
Ong-jung, was put down
with a strong hand. The people were commanded not to
slaughter their cattle for
food, for the only hope for future crops was the cattle,
without which the land
could not be tilled. All prefects were commanded to have
regular office hours
during which they should attend to government business
exclusively.
In
1831 Pope Gregory XVI had made Korea a bishopric and
appointed M. Brugniere as
Bishop. A Chinaman named Yu who was then in Europe was
appointed to accompany
him to Korea This man Yu went ahead and found means of
entering Korea secretly.
M. Bruguiere worked three years in the attempt to enter
the country by way of
the north across the Yalu and at last died on the very
border. Yu who had
preceeded him desired to hold supreme power in the
Korean church, and so put
obstacles in the way of the entrance of the Bishop. But
in the following year
Pierre Philibert Maubant, who had been appointed to
Korea, succeeded in
entering the country and began work in Seoul at once,
but of course in secret.
By 1837 two other French priests had arrived, including
Bishop Imbert. It is
said that at the time of his arrival there were 9,000
adherents of the Roman
Catholic church.
While
the king was still but fourteen years old, in 1839,
there occurred a cruel
persecution of the Catholics. Three foreigners were in
Korea, as we have seen,
and they were known to the Koreans as Pom Se-hyung,
Na-ba Do-ru and Chong-a
Kak-bak-i.
The
persecution began as usual with a change of ministry. Yi
Chi-on became Prime
Minister. He hated Christianity and averred that the
reason why there were so
many Christians was that the work of extermination had
not been thoroughly
carried out in 1801. He demanded a house to house
inspection. This was done and
soon the prisons were full to overflowing. Hundreds were
cruelly beaten, but
the yamenrunners were not allowed to
loot the houses of the prisoners, which cooled their
ardor not a little.
Finally the three foreigners were arrested. Being
ordered to leave the country
they firmly refused. Thereupon they were declared high
criminals and were
executed on Sept. 21st, 1839. This was [page 47]
followed by still severer persecutions and even the
Koreans themselves grew tired of the horrors that were
enacted. It is said that
seventy were decapitated and that sixty died of beating
and strangulation. This
is but a fraction however of those who perished in
consequence of this
persecution.
The
last ten years of the reign were marked principally by
events connected with
the Roman Catholic propaganda. In 1844 two more French
priests entered the
country by way of Quelpart after a most difficult and
hazardous passage from
China in a Korean junk. Two years later the French
government sent a message to
Korea by a gun-boat, complaining of the death of the
three Frenchmen and
threatening her with punishment if these cruel actions
were continued. This
only excited the Koreans the more against Christianity,
for it seemed to imply
that Roman Catholicism had behind it a temporal power,
and was therefore of
political significance. In consequence of this a new
outbreak occurred which
cost the lives of several more Koreans, while the two
priests were obliged to
hide away very closely in the country.
In
the summer of 1847 two French boats, the frigate La Gloire and the corvette La
Victorieuse set sail from the Gulf of Pechili to
go to Korea and ascertain
what had been the result of the former letter. These two
boats both struck a
mud-bank and when the tide went down they broke in two.
The crews to the number
of 600 escaped to the neighboring island of Kogeum off
the province of Chulla,
and a pinace was immediately despatched to Shanghai for
aid. The Koreans gave
every assistance in their power and supplied them with
food and other
necessaries, and even offered to provide boats to take
the men back to China.
In fact the action of the Korean government was most
creditable throughout. An
English ship happened to come by and it carried the
survivors all back to
China. The Korean government, fearing further visits
from the French, decided
to answer the letter of the previous year. It was
couched in the following
terms:
“Last year we received a
letter from the foreigners. It was addressed to the
ministers of this realm and
read as follows : ‘Three of our countrymen, Imbert,
Chastan and [page
48]
Maubant, have been put to death by you. We come
to demand why you have killed them. You will say perhaps
that your law forbids
foreigners entering your country, but if Chinese or
Manchus should happen to
enter your realm you would not kill them, but you would
have them carried back
to their own country. Why then did you not treat these
men the same way? If they
had been convicted of murder, sedition or a like crime
we would have nothing to
say, but they were innocent, and in condemning them
unjustly you have committed
a grave injury against the French government.’ To this
letter we beg to reply
as follows : In 1839 there were arrested here certain
strangers who were
brought into the country at a time unknown to us. They
wore Korean clothes,
they spoke the Korean language, they traveled by night
and slept by day; they
veiled their faces, concealed their whereabouts and
consorted with men whom we
consider rebels, godless men and enemies of the
government. When brought before
the tribunal they claimed that their names were Pierre
No and Japanese Gang.
Are these the men you refer to? When interrogated, they
said nothing about
being Frenchmen, and even if they had we could not have
sent them back, for we
did not know where your country is. What could we do but
apply our law, which
forbids secret entrance into our kingdom? On the other
hand, their conduct in
changing their names and wearing Korean dress shows that
they had ulterior
motives, and they cannot be compared to those who have
been shipwrecked upon
our shores. Such men we save if possible and aid to send
back home. Such is our
law. Had your fellowcountrymen been shipwrecked upon our
coast, they would have
received precisely the same treatment as Chinese,
Japanese or Manchus under
like circumstances. You say that these men were killed
without cause and that
we have committed a grave offense against the French
government. This is most
astonishing. We have never had any communication with
France. We do not know
even how far she is from Korea. What motive could we
possibly have for injuring
her? How would you act if a foreigner should enter your
country secretly and in
disguise and do what you consider evil? Would you leave
him alone? If a
Chinaman or a Manchu should come here and do as your
people did they would be
treated in
THE KOREA
REVIEW
FEBRUARY 1904.
The
Russo-Japanese War.
The vexed
question has at last been settled and war has begun. But
this brings up another
question. How will it end? The impatient onlooker will
attempt to sum up the
chances on one side and on the other and will be eager
to catch at every event
however insignificant which gives any indication of the
actual ability of
either of the belligerents. It is claimed by some that
Japan is not what she
was in 1894 and the counter claim is made that Russia is
not what she was in
the days of the Crimean war. The letter of each of these
statements may be
taken for granted but the inference that neither power
is as strong as she once
was must be put to the test before it can be accepted.
In
1895 Japan, by virtue of her victory over China took
possession of the
Liao-tung peninsula. This was a severe blow to the
settled policy of Russia
who, as has been abundantly proved since, intended to
become mistress of the
whole of Manchuria. On the plea of preserving the
integrity of China, Russia
succeeded in securing the cooperation of France and
Germany, whereby Japan was
forced to give up the conquered territory for a money
consideration.
Unfortunately British sympathies were largely with the
Chinese in that war and
they looked with more or less complaisancy upon the
forced retrocession of the
Liao-tung peninsula. Had the British known what they
know now [page
50]
this never would have happened except at the price of
war. Japan in actual
possession could have beaten back the Russian forces on
land while the Japanese
and British fleets combined would have prevented any
danger from France and
Germany.
From the moment Japan left
Manchuria, Russia began to do the very thing which she
had urged as the cause
for the dislodgment of the victorious troops of the
Mikado. This in itself was
a direct insult to Japan and an insult as well to France
and Germany, unless
they were privy to the ulterior motives of Russia, and
this, at least in the
case of Germany, we cannot believe.
This
we may confidently claim to be the cause of the present
war; but not merely
because it wounded the vanity of the Japanese. It surely
did that, but the
continued encroachments of Russia upon the sovereignty
of China also menaced
the commercial success of the Japanese. The Russians
attacked them at two vital
points, their national honor and their national
prosperity. But in addition to
this the subjects of the Czar at the capital of Korea
began to make use of the
most corrupt officials at court and through them opposed
Japanese commerce at
every possible point, encouraged the continuation of a
debased coinage which
was destroying Japanese trade, caused the Korean
Government to stultify itself
by forbidding the use of the Japanese bank notes and
then making an abject
apology therefor, and in every possible way thwarted the
legitimate operations
of the Japanese. Furthermore they made continual demands
for exclusive rights
in different Korean ports and by cajolery and
intimidation made a secret
agreement whereby Russia encroached upon Korean
sovereignty in the harbor of
Yongampo. The evident policy of Russia was to supplant
Japan in Korea, and no
reasonable person can fail to see that it was their
ultimate plan to add Korea
to the map of Russia. To say, therefore, that Japan
struck the first blow in
this war is the same as saying that a man is the
aggressor because he knocks up
the hand of a burglar who is reaching for his throat.
The cause of this war,
therefore, was the necessity laid upon Japan to
safeguard
[page 51]
her own legitimate interests and her life itself by
checking the encroachments
of Russia upon Chinese and Korean territory. This at
least is what we deem to
be its purpose.
The Method
Before
submitting her cause to the arbitrament of the sword
Japan has exerted every
effort to make Russia define her intentions in the Far
East. As the latter had
leased Manchuria from China and then, upon the
expiration of the extreme limit
set by herself, had refused to execute either the letter
or the spirit of her
solemn engagements it became necessary not only for
Japan but for other powers
as well that Russia should be nailed down to some
definite proposition, and set
a limit to her ambition. For months Japan, with a
patience which elicited the
admiration of the world, kept plying Russia with
pertinent questions until at
last it was revealed that Russia proposed to deal with
Manchuria as she wished
and would consult no one but China about it. In the
second place she would
concede Japanese interests in southern Korea only and
then only as Japan would
engage not to act in that sphere as Russia is acting in
Manchuria. All this
time the Japanese people had been clamoring for war;
they wanted to get at the
throat of their manifest foe, but the Government in a
masterly way held them in
check, kept its own secrets so inviolable as to astonish
the most astute
diplomatists of the day, and at last when the proper
moment arrived it declared
itself for war without having weakened the enthusiasm of
the people by an ounce
weight and at the same time without giving the outside
grumblers the least
opportunity to hint that she had given way to popular
importunity. Nothing
could be saner or less sensational than her action
throughout.
At last Japan communicated
to Russia her irreducible minimum and one would think
that even the blind could
see that war was certain to follow, and follow soon. It
was the one subject of
conversation throughout the Far East. It is safe to say
that everybody except
the Russians felt sure that the time had come, but even
then, if there is any
truth in direct evidence, the great majority [page 52]
of Russians laughed the matter aside as impossible. The
Japanese had shown such moderation and self-control that
the Russians had
apparently counted it for hesitation; so that when the
moment came for action
and Japan sprang upon her like a tigress robbed of her
whelps Russia cried
loudly that she had not been notified. She must be
formally notified, she must
be given twenty-four hours in which to get under cover!
What did they suppose
the Foreign Office had handed back to Baron Rosen his
credentials for? This
took place at least as early as the morning of the
seventh. Notice had already
been given to the powers that negotiations had been
broken off. Diplomatic
relations were broken off on Saturday the sixth and on
that same evening the
Japanese Minister left St. Petersburg. This was over
forty hours before the
Japanese committed any hostile act against Russia. Even
had the Japanese
refused to send notification of this to the Russian
Minister in Seoul it could
have been sent straight to Port Arthur from St.
Petersburg and the boats lying
in Chemulpo harbor could have been notified in time to
retire from their
dangerous position. The Russian complaint that the
Japanese made no formal
declaration of war and sent no notification falls to the
ground. In these days,
as everyone knows, the formal withdrawal of a minister
is tantamount to a
declaration of war. The hour Minister Kurino left St
Petersburg the two powers
were virtually at war with each other. If the Russian
authorities thought there
was no hurry about warning their isolated warships it
was their own lookout and
they have no cause to complain because their
dilatoriness cost them two war
vessels, one of which was among their fastest cruisers.
But under any
circumstances, granting, for the sake of argument, that
Japan acted with undue
promptness, what business has Russia to try to hold
Japan to the letter of the
law when she herself has broken every canon of
international justice in her
dealings with Manchuria? The proverb that people who
live in glass houses
should not throw stones applies with peculiar force at
this point; and while we
do not believe that Japan overstepped
[page 53]
the rules of international propriety by her promptness
we are free to confess that there would have been some
excuse if she had.
The Battle of
Chemulpo.
It was on the
sixth and seventh that reports circulated in Seoul that
the Japanese were
landing large bodies of troops at Kunsan or Asan or
both. These rumors turned
out to be false, but beneath them was the fact that a
fleet was approaching
Chemulpo. The question has been insistently asked why
the Russian Minister did
not inform the commanders of these Russian vessels and
see to it that they were
clear of the harbor before these rumors were realized.
The answer as given is
that the Russian Minister had no control over these
boats. They had their
orders to remain in Chemulpo and there they must stay.
One would think that
there would be at least enough rapport between
the
civil and military (or naval) authorities to use the one
in forwarding the
interests of the other.
Even yet the Russians did
not appreciate the seriousness of the situation, but
they decided that it was
time to send notice to their authorities in Port Arthur
of what was rumored at
Chemulpo. So the small gunboat Koryetz made
ready to move out. Her captain, Belaieff proposed to the
Russian Consul that
the Russian steamship Sung’ari, which
was in port, should go with the Koryetz
and thus enjoy her protection, but the agent of the
company which owned the steamship
strongly objected to her leaving the neutral port at
such a time. He evidently
realized in part the acuteness of the situation. So the
Sungari remained at her anchorage and the
Koryetz steamed out of port at two o’clock
in the afternoon. Now,
the harbor of Chemulpo is a somewhat peculiar one, for
in one sense it is
land-locked and in another it is not. It is formed by
islands between which
there are many openings to the open sea, but most of
these are so shallow that
ships of medium draught do not dare attempt them. There
is but one recognized
entrance and that is from the southwest, or between that
and the south. This
entrance is several miles wide and in the center of it
lies Round Island. When
the Koryetz[page 54]
arrived at the exit of the harbor she suddenly found
herself surrounded by
torpedo-boats. The only witnesses of what occurred at
this point are the
Japanese and the Russians and we can only give their
accounts. The Russians say
that the Japanese launched four torpedoes at the Koryetz, none of which took effect. One
man affirms that a torpedo
came straight toward the Koryetz and
when within ten feet of her side sank. Another statement
is that a shot was
fired on board the Koryetz but it
was
a mere accident! The Japanese claim that the Koryetz fired first. If we try to weigh
the probabilities it seems
impossible that the torpedoes of the Japanese should
have missed the Koryetz
if the torpedo-boats were as
near as the Russians claim. On the other hand the
admission on the part of a
single Russian that the first gun was fired on the Koryetz even though by accident, is rather
damaging, for it is more
than singular that an accident should have happened at
that precise time. As
the cow-boy said, “Accidents don’t happen in the West —
leastways not with
guns.”
In any care it makes little
difference who began the firing. The Japanese had
already seized the Russian
steamer Mukden
in the harbor of Pusan
and the war had begun. The Japanese doubtless held with
Polonius, as quoted by
Terrence Mulvaney, that if it is necessary to fight it
is well to hit the enemy
“fur-rst and frequint.”The Koryetz
turned back to her anchorage and the Russians became
aware of the extreme
precariousness of their position. Whatever attitude one
may take toward the
general situation it is impossible not to extend a large
degree of sympathy to
these Russians personally. Through no fault of their own
they were trapped in
the harbor and found too late that they must engage in a
hopeless fight in
order to uphold the honor of the Russian flag. But even
yet it was not sure
that the neutrality of the port would be ignored by the
Japanese. Lying at
anchor among neutral vessels in a neutral harbor, there
was more or less reason
to believe that they were safe for the time being.
About
four o’clock in the afternoon of February eighth, which
fell on Monday, three
Japanese transports [page 55]
entered Chemulpo harbor from the south, convoyed by
cruisers and torpedo-boats.
They seemingly took no notice of the two Russian boats
lying at anchor and were
evidently sure that the Russians would not fire upon the
transports. It would
be interesting to know whether the Japanese were relying
upon the declared
neutrality of the port in thus venturing or whether they
felt sure that their
own superior strength would keep the Russians still, or
whether, again, they
were certain that the Russians had orders not to fire
the first gun. But it is
bootless to ask questions that can never be answered.
Here is where the
assailant has the advantage. He can choose the time and
method of his attack.
We may surmise that had the Russians divined the
intentions of the Japanese and
had foreseen the outcome they would have acted
differently, but divination of
Japanese intentions does not seem to be Russia’s strong
point.
As soon as the Japanese
came to anchor preparations were made for the immediate
landing of the troops,
and the cruisers and torpedo-boats that had convoyed
them in, left the port and
joined the fleet outside. This fleet consisted of six
cruisers and several
torpedo-boats. The Asama and the Chiyoda were
the most powerful of the
cruisers, the former being nearly half as large again as
the Variak.
Night
came on, and throughout its long hours the Japanese
troops, by the light of
huge fires burning on the jetty, were landed and marched
up into the town. When
morning came everyone was in a state of expectancy. If
there was a Japanese
fleet outside they doubtless had other work on hand than
simply watching two
Russian boats. Nor could they leave them behind, for one
of them was Russia’s
fastest cruiser and might steam out of the harbor at any
time and destroy
Japanese transports. Knowing, as we do now, that an
immediate attack on Port
Arthur had been decided upon we see it was impossible to
leave these Russian
boats in the rear. Japan had never recognized the
neutrality of Korea, for she
knew that the declaration was merely a Russian move to
embarrass her, and [page
56] she
never hesitated a moment to break the thin shell of
pretense.
About ten o’clock a sealed
letter was handed to Captain Rudnieff of the Variak. It was from the Japanese Admiral
and had been sent through
the Russian Consulate. It was delivered on board the Variak by the hand of Mr. N. Krell, a
Russian resident of the port.
This letter informed the Russian commander that unless
both Russian boats
should leave the anchorage and steam out of the bay
before twelve o’clock the
Japanese would come in at four o’clock and attack them
where they lay. Captain
Rudnieff immediately communicated the startling
intelligence to Captain
Belaieff of the Koryetz
and to the
commanders of the British, American, French and Italian
war-vessels. We are
informed that a conference of the various commanders
took place and that the
Russians were advised to lie where they were. The
British commander was deputed
to confer with the Japanese. This was done by signal and
it is said a protest
was more against the proposed violation of neutrality of
the port and that the
neutral boats refused to shift their anchorage. But all
complications of this
nature were avoided by the determination of the Russians
to accept the
challenge. This they deemed to be due their flag. It is
not improbablethat they
now foresaw that the neutrality of the port would not
avail them against the
enemy. By remaining at anchor they could only succeed in
involving France,
Italy, Great Britain and the United States and there
would be sure to be those
who would charge the Russians with cowardice. If this
was to begin the war it
must at least prove the dauntless courage of the
servants of the Czar. So the
commander of the Variak
ordered the
decks cleared for action. It has been stated that he
would have preferred to
have the Koryetz
stay at her
anchorage, for by a quick dash it was just possible that
the swift Variak
alone might be able to evade the
Japanese and run the gauntlet successfully. But the
commander of the Koryetz
refused to listen to any such
preposition. If the only honor to be gotten out of the
affair was by a [page
57]
desperate attack he was not going to forego his share of
it. He would go out
and sink with the Variak,
So the Koryetz
also cleared for action. It was
done in such haste that all moveables that were
unnecessary were thrown
overboard, a topmast that would not come down in the
usual manner was hewn down
with an axe and by half past eleven the two vessels were
ready to go out to
their doom. It was an almost hopeless task— an entirely
hopeless one unless the
Japanese should change thier minds or should make some
grave mistake, and
neither of these things was at all probable. The
Russians were going to certain
destruction. Some call it rashness, not bravery, but
they say not well. The
boats were doomed in any case and it was the duty of
their officers and crews
to go forth and in dying inflict what injury they could
upon the enemy. To go
into battle with chances equal is the act of a brave
man, but to walk into the
jaws of death with nothing but defeat in prospect is the
act of a hero, and the
Japanese would be the last to detract from the noble
record that the Russians
made. Time has not yet lent its glamor to this event, we
are too near it to see
it in proper proportions, but if the six hundred heroes
of Balaclava, veterans
of many a fight, gained undying honor for the desperate
charge they made how
shall not the future crown these men who, having never
been in action before,
made such a gallant dash at the foe? Nor shall we wonder
that when they weighed
anchor and turned their prows toward the overwhelming
power of the enemy a
cheer was torn from the very throats of the men on board
the neutral ships,
whether those men sympathized with Japanese or Russian.
And herein lies the
intrinsic damnableness of war, that causes which will
not bear the search-light
of abstract justice can marshall to their support the
noblest qualities of
which men are capable.
It
was a cloudless but hazy day and from the anchorage the
Japanese fleet was all
but invisible, for it lay at least eight miles out in
the entrance of the
harbor and partly concealed by Round Island which splits
the offing into two
channels. The two boats made straight for the [page 58]
more easterly of the channels, their course being a very
little west of south. When they had proceeded about half
the distance from the
anchorage to the enemy’s fleet the latter threw a shot
across the bows of each
of the Russian boats as a command to stop and surrender,
but the Russians took
no notice of it. The only chance the Russians had to
inflict any damage was to
reduce the firing range as much as possible for the Variak’s guns were only six inches and
four-tenths in caliber and
at long range they would have been useless. This was at
five minutes before
noon. The Japanese fleet was not deployed in a line
facing the approaching
boats and it was apparent that they did not intend to
bring their whole force
to bear upon the Russians simultaneously. We are
informed that only two of the
Japanese vessels, the Asama and the Chiyoda, did
the work. It was not long
after the warning shots had been fired that the Japanese
let loose and the roar
that went up from those terrible machines of destruction
tore the quiet of the
windless bay to tatters and made the houses of the town
tremble where they
stood. It beat against the bare hills like the hammer of
Thor and startled the
denizens of distant Seoul with its muffled thunder. As
the Variak advanced she swerved to the
eastward and gave the Japanese
her starboard broadside. All about her the sea was
lashed into foam by striking
shot and almost from the beginning of the fight her
steering-gear was shot away
so that she had to depend on her engines alone for
steering. It became evident
to her commander that the passage was impossible. He had
pushed eastward until
there was imminent danger of running aground. So he
turned again toward the west
and came around in a curve which brought the Variak much nearer to the Japanese. It was
at this time that the
deadly work was done upon her. Ten of her twelve
gun-captains were shot away. A
shell struck her fo’castle, passed between the arm and
body of a gunner who had
his hand upon his hip and, bursting, killed every other
man in the fo’castle.
Both bridges were destroyed by bursting shell and the
Captain was seriously
wounded in the left arm. The watchers on shore and on
the shipping in the [page
59]
harbor saw flames bursting out from her quarter-deck and
one witness plainly
saw shells drop just beside her and burst beneath the
water line. It was these
shots that did the real damage, for when, after three
quarters of an hour of
steady fighting, she turned her prow back toward the
anchorage it was seen that
she had a heavy list to port which could have been
caused only by serious
damage below the water-line. As the two boats came
slowly back to port, the Variak so
crippled by the destruction of
one of her engines that she could make only ten knots an
hour, the Japanese
boats followed, pouring in a galling fire, until the
Russians had almost
reached the anchorage. Then the pursuers drew back and
the battle was over. The
Koryetz was
intact. The Japanese had
reserved all their fire for the larger vessel. The Variak was useless as a fighting machine,
for her heavy list to
port would probably have made it impossible to train the
guns on the enemy, but
all knew that the end had not yet come. The Russians had
neither sunk nor
surrendered. The threat of the Japanese to come in at
four o’clock was still
active. As soon as the Variak dropped
anchor the British sent off four hospital boats to her
with a surgeon and a
nurse. Other vessels also sent offers of aid. But it was
found that the
Russians had decided to lie at anchor and fight to the
bitter end and at the
last moment blow up their vessels with all on board.
What else was there for
them to do? They would not surrender and they could not
leave their ships and go
ashore only to be captured by the enemy. They would play
out the tragedy to a
finish and go down fighting. Upon learning of this
determination the commanders
of the various neutral vessels held another conference
at which it was decided
that the Russians had done all that was necessary to
vindicate the honor of
their flag and that, as it was a neutral port, the
survivors should be invited
to seek asylum on the neutral vessels. The invitation
was accepted and the
sixty-four wounded on board the Variak
were at once transferred to the British cruiser Talbot and the French cruiser Pascal,
As the commanders of the neutral vessels knew that the Variak and Koryetz were
to be sunk by the Russians [page 60] they
paid no particular attention to the reiterated statement
of the Japanese that
they would enter the harbor at four and finish the work
already begun. The
passengers, crew and mails on board the steamship Sungari had already been transferred to
the Pascal and an attempt had been made to
scuttle her but she was
filling very slowly indeed. It was about half-past three
in the afternoon that
the officers and crew of the Koryetz
went over the side and went to the Pascal.
A train had been laid by which she would be blown up and
it is supposed that
she was entirely abandoned, but some spectators assert
that they saw several
men on the forward deck an instant before the explosion
took place.
It was generally known
throughout the town that the Koryetz
would be blown up before four o’clock and everyone
sought some point of vantage
from which to witness the spectacle. Scores of people
went out to the little
island on which the light-house stands, for this was
nearest to the doomed
ship. It was thirtyseven minutes past three when the
waiting multitude saw two
blinding flashes of light one following the other in
quick succession. A
terrific report followed which dwarfed the roar of
cannon to a whisper and
shook every house in the town as if it had been struck
by a solid rock. The
window-fastenings of one house at least were torn off,
so great was the
concussion. An enormous cloud of smoke and debris shot
toward the sky and at
the same time enveloped the spot where the vessel had
lain. A moment later
there began a veritable shower of splintered wood, torn
and twisted railing, books,
clothes, rope, utensils and a hundred other belongings
of the ship. The cloud
of smoke expanded in the upper air and blotted out the
sun like an eclipse. The
startled gulls flew hither and thither as if dazed by
this unheard of
phenomenon and men instinctively raised their hands to
protect themselves from
the falling debris, pieces of which were drifted by the
upper currents of air
for a distance of three miles landward where they fell
by the hundreds in
peoples’ yards.
[page 61]
When the smoke was dissipated it was discovered that the
Koryetz had sunk, only her funnel and some
torn rigging appearing
above the surface, if we except her forward steel deck
which the force of the
explosion had bent up from the prow so that the point of
it, like the share of
a huge plow, stood several feet out of water. The
surface of the bay all about
the spot was covered thickly with smoking debris and
several of the ship’s
boats were floating about intact upon the water.
The
Russians were intending to blow up the Variak
as well, but the magnitude of the explosion on board the
Koryetz led the commanders to suggest that
the Variak be allowed to sink where she lay.
She was already in a
sinking condition and was burning freely. It was evident
that she could not
become a Japanese prize, so she was simply, abandoned
and left to the elements.
The forty-one dead could hardly have been carried on
board the friendly ships,
so they were, with a few exceptions, placed in a cabin
together and the ship
for which they had fought and died became their fitting
tomb. As viewed from
the deck of the United States Gunboat Vicksburg
she was lying far over to port at an angle of nearly
thirty degrees at five o’clock
in the afternoon. The fires in her after part would
break out and then subside
while every few moments came the detonation of a
cartridge which the fire had
reached. Two of her four funnels were partly shot away
and her deck presented a
scene of wild confusion. Just before dark, when it
seemed that any moment might
be her last, a boat was seen putting off from the Pascal and manned apparently by five or
six naval men. They went
straight to the Sungari
and remained
on board for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then they pushed
off but they had not
left her side by more than a half dozen lengths before a
tongue of flame
appeared from the region of her cabin and it was quite
apparent that she had
been deliberately fired. But soon all eyes were again
centered on the Variak.
She was preparing for the final
plunge. Slowly she dipped, further and [page 62]
further to port— now her rail is under water — an
excited murmur arises from the men who crowd the side of
the Vicksburg
to see her go. And now she
begins visibly to lie over on her side; slowly and
majestically she turns until
at last her funnels touch the water and with a great
surging, choking groan she
goes to her resting place like some mighty leviathan
that has received his
death wound. As the water reaches the fires a cloud of
steam goes up which,
illuminated by the dying flash of fire forms her signal
of farewell. It was
expected that the Japanese would demand as prisoners of
war the men who had
been taken on board the neutral ships, but it would have
been refused on the
plea that the men had been rescued off sinking ships in
a neutral harbor; but
it was recognized that these rescued men had become
noncombatants by seeking
asylum, and so it was subsequently arranged that the
British vessel should
carry to a British port those whom she had rescued and
guarantee their parole
until the end of the war. The French are carrying theirs
to Saigon while those
on the Italian boat will be disposed of in a similar
manner.
This
wholly unexpected annihilation of the Russian boats
naturally caused
consternation among the Russians of Chemulpo and Seoul.
The Russian Consulate
was surrounded by Japanese troops and the Consul was
held practically a
prisoner. The Japanese Minister in Seoul suggested to
the Russian Minister
through the French Legation the advisability of his
removing from Seoul with
his nationals and every facility was given him for doing
this with expedition
and with comfort. A few days later all the Russians were
taken by special train
to Chemulpo and there, being joined by the Russian
subjects in Chemulpo, they
all went on board the Pascal. This
vessel
must have been crowded, for it is said that when she
sailed she had on board
six hundred Russians, both civilians and military men.
Twenty-four
of the most desperately wounded men on board the neutral
ships were sent ashore
and placed in the Provisional Red Cross Hospital. For
this purpose the English
Church Mission kindly put at the disposal of [page 63]
the Japanese their hospital at Chemulpo. Several of
these wounded men were suffering from gangrene when they
came off the Pascal
but with the most sedulous care
the Japanese physicians and nurses pulled them through.
The Ajun.
The ajun is
one of the most important social and governmental
factors in Korea. He is the
man who brings the administration of the Government into
direct contact with
the populace, the individual, the political unit. This
word is of pure Korean
origin and is not a Chinese importation. It is true that
the Chinese characters
used to express the word are 衙前
which mean “before the yamen” and are in some sense
descriptive of this class
of men, but this is only a transliteration of the word.
The Koreans were
fortunate enough to strike two characters pronounced a
and jun which at the
same time had meanings in Chinese which, put together,
are partially
descriptive of the office. There is no real Chinese word
ajun. The idea is always expressed in
China by the character 吏 yi. The fact that this
pure Koreanword has survived while almost every other
official term has been
borrowed from the Chinese argues that this was the term
used in Korea before
the great influx of Chinese ideas and words which took
place during the days of
the Tang Dynasty 627-905 a. d. Another thing that would
make this more probable
is that the ajun is the official who comes in close and
daily contact with the
common people and his name becomes a household word
which could be changed only
with great difficulty. The Chinese character yi was commonly used in official documents
in the place of ajun
from the year 680 a. d. or thereabout but the common
word was two strongly
intrenched in the habit of the people to be eradicated.
We
must first determine just what the ajun is before we can
discuss his duties.
Some have the notion that [page 64]the
word is synonymous with “yamen
runner” but this is an error. Every prefect in the land
is an ajun. Whenever a
prefect refers to himself in an official note he calls
himself a 吏 or ajun. The term Chang-yi
or “Chief Ajun” is a common one for a prefect among the
common people in the
country. The word sa 使 is
simply the word for ajun with the radical for man placed
before it. This is
used in the words Kam-sa,
“govemor”
and Sa-sin,
“Envoy.” The term ajun
itself means an agent or factor and the prefect is an
agent of the King just as
the ajun is the agent of the prefect. At the time when
this office came into
use and for many centuries thereafter society was not
divided into upper and
lower classes as it is now. The yangban sprang up in the
days of Koryu 7181392
A. D. So the ajun was at first a real officer but after
the segregation of the
classes the position of ajun failed to acquire the
dignity of an official rank
of p’yu-sal (or paysil, pesil or pestle according to
various foreign
pronunciation). It is therefore called “doing Government
business without rank.”
In former times the office of prefect was to some extent
hereditary and stayed
for generations in some local family of high repute, but
at that time there had
not entered the caste spirit which was fostered later by
the close imitation of
the Chinese. The prefect was only a higher sort of ajun.
When, therefore, the
spirit of exclusiveness took hold upon the Koreans and
certain men found that
they could secure greater distinction by holding
themselves aloof from the
common people it was inevitable that they should seize
the opportunity. It was
the same movement that put an end to the early Roman
republic, the natural
human weakness for personal distinction. The line of
demarcation was drawn
between the prefects and the ordinary ajuns, the former
being enrolled in the
upper class. At the same time this caste feeling tended
toward a rapid
centralization of power and every man who wanted a
position had to seek it at
the capital. This broke up the monopoly of the
hereditary prefectural families
and resulted in the appointment of prefects directly
from the capital, men who
in most cases knew nothing about the conditions prevailing [page 65] in the prefectures to
which they were sent. It is easy to see what a
demoralization this would
effect. In former times each prefect was a son of the
soil. His family and clan
were native to the prefecture where he governed and so
became hostages to his
good behavior. He simply dared not oppress the people
beyond a “reasonable”
limit. His family’s reputation was at stake as well as
his own. But when the
new order was established and an unknown and unconnected
individual would
appear upon the scene and assume the prefectural ermine
there was no reason why
he should be careful to protect the interests of his
people. He could squeeze
them to the limit of their endurance and then gracefully
resign and leave for
the capital or for his native place without any
particular odium attaching to
his family.
But there is one saving
element in this new order of things. The ajuns did not
secure a footing in the
upper class and therefore have retained much of their
old hereditary status. In
addition to this, their influence is increased by the
fact that each prefect
who comes is utterly ignorant of local conditions and
usages and is forced to
depend entirely upon them for his information. In fact
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 this
resemblance carried out that each prefect has his six
ministers, namely of the
interior, of finance, of ceremonies, of war, of
agriculture and of law. It was through
these that all prefectural business was done. It is
these men who come into
direct contact with the people. Besides the six leading
ajuns there are others
under them varying in number according to the size and
importance of the
prefecture, but all of them are native to the soil and
their families are
rooted in local traditions. It is this one thing that
has held the body politic
together. Foreigners wonder how the Korean people have
endured this form of
government for so many centuries, but they judge mostly
from the gruesome tales
told of high [page 66]
officials at the capital or of rapacious prefects. The
reason of it all lies
with the ajuns who like anchors hold the ship of state
to her moorings. We
choose this figure deliberately. A ship is supposed to
sail across the sea but
Korea has long since been content to lie in harbor. Even
this is dangerous
unless the anchor holds. The ajuns are this anchor and
have held Korea to her
moorings in spite of the tides which periodically sweep
back and forth and
threaten to carry her on the rocks. It will seem strange
to some that anything
good should be said for the ajun. The general impression
is that they are a
pack of wolves whose business it is to fleece the people
and who lie awake
nights concocting plans for their further spoliation.
This idea is radically
wrong. The Koreans put the matter in a nutshell when
they say that a high
official will escape censure for his evil acts and
receive fulsome adulation
for small acts of merit but that a small man’s good acts
are taken for granted
and his smallest faults are exaggerated. So it is that
the ajun is the
scape-goat for everyone’s sins, the safety valve which
saves the boiler from
bursting. It is right to pile metaphors on him since
everyone uses him as a
dumping-ground for their abuse. There is no manner of
doubt that the ajuns
abuse the people frequently but if they were the fiends
that they are painted
the people would long since have exterminated them. They
are fixtures in their
various districts and having forfeited the good will and
forbearance of the
people there theycannot move away to “pastures new.”
Their families and local
interests are their hostages to fortune and their normal
attitude is that of a
buffer between the rapacity of the prefect and the
exasperation of the people.
They must be friends with both if possible. The prefect
wants to get as much as
he can and the people want to give as little as they
may. It is the ajun’s
business to steer between this Scilla and Charybdis,
disappoint each party as
little as possible, since neither can be satisfied, and
all the time uphold his
own prestige with the prefect and preserve the good [page 67]
will of the people. Is it any wonder that we hear only
evil of the ajun?
Another
mistaken idea is that the ajun is simply a yamen-runner
in the sense of an
official servant who with his own hand arrests people,
hales them before the
magistrate and inflicts punishment in person. The ajun
is much higher in the
social scale than this. He superintends the doing of
these things but he does
not do them with his own hand. He holds the place of an
upper servant and gives
more orders than he takes. That he has no special dress,
no livery, also
indicates his superiority to the common servant.
Another and more important
consideration is found in the literary culture of the
ajun. It is very
uncommonto
find one who is not skilled
in the use of the Chinese character. He is necessarily
so, for he has to do all
the writing at the prefectural headquarters and he has
to handle deeds,
mortgages and all sorts of documents. It often happens
that among the ajuns
will be found the best Chinese students in the
prefecture. Looking at them from
this side they are the clerks of the office and as such
are far removed from
the ordinary yamen-runner.
Perhaps
the most interesting thing about the ajun is the
peculiar system called the
i-tu which requires a word of explanation. When the
Chinese language and
literature were introduced into Korea in the seventh and
eighth centuries it
was the official class, of course, that first cultivated
the new and
fashionable art. At that time the ajuns formed the great
bulk of the official
class ^ and they became the clerks, just as in England
during the middle ages
it was not the highest officials but the clerks who
could read and write. At
that time it was found that the Chinese and Korean
languages were so different
that Koreans found great difficulty in reading the
Chinese text, owing to the
absence of verbal and nominal endings. In order to
overcome this difficulty the
great scholar Sal-ch’ong invented a system whereby these
endings were
interpolated in the Chinese text and reading became
comparatively easy. This
system he called the i-tu (吏讀) or “ajun’s
talk.’’ This very name shows that the ajuns were [page 58]
the first to become familiar with the Chinese as the
official language. But gradually as education spread
among the upper classes
and became the rule rather than the exception, the
higher officials and the
wealthy who had more leisure than the ajuns learned to
read Chinese without the
aid of the i-tu, and the pride of letters speedily
relegated this system to the
clerks in the government offices. At last there came the
segregation of the
classes caused in large part by this very pride of
letters and so the i-tu
became the sole possession of the same official ajun
class. But all this time
it had become stereotyped so that by the time the
present dynasty began, the
language of the ajuns, this official language, had been
left in the rear by the
ordinary language of the people just as colloquial
English outstripped the
stereotyped language of the law and left the latter
cumbered with obsolete
forms or at least forms that were peculiar to itself. To
this very day the
ajuns use this stilted official language in their
records and reports and such
peculiar endings as sal-che, olka, sinji, iogo and many
others abound in them
just as the words to wit, escheat, and such like terms
are used in English
legal documents. This i-tu system is the oldest literary
relic of Korea and is
of great value in determining the history of the Korean
vernacular.
The number of ajuns in any
district depends upon the size and wealth of the
community. There are some prefectures
that have only six ajuns, enough to represent the six
departments already
mentioned. In others there will be ten, twenty, fifty or
even a hundred ajuns.
However many there may be, they form a class by
themselves, a sort of little
guild in each prefecture. It is very seldom that this
guild in any place
contains a member who was not born and brought up in
that same district. The
position is an hereditary one and any ajun’s son may
follow in his father’s
footsteps if he will. Of course they may elect to become
farmers or merchants
or join some other craft but the ranks of the ajuns are
recruited almost wholly
from their own number. As a rule they are looked up to
by the people of their
respective communities as being almost equivalent to the
veritable yangban or
gentleman. This [page 69]
is because of their literary attainments as well as
their political position.
It is the ajuns who influence most largely the popular
taste and feeling. They
come into such close contact with the people that the
latter copy after them.
As a rule the way to reach the people is through the
ajun. He holds in his
hands the greatest possibilities for good or for evil.
If he is good it will be
practically impossible for an evil prefect to oppress
the people. If he is bad
it will be almost equally difficult for a good prefect
to govern well. Without
doubt the ajun is the most important factor in practical
government in Korea.
In almost every case he can keep the prefect informed or
misinformed and thus
can influence the prefectural commands, and when
commands have been issued it
is he who has the execution of the orders. The saving,
clause in the whole
system is the fact that the ajun is a fixture in the
community and he stakes
not only the rep-, utation and welfare of himself but
also that of his family.
In other words he gives hostages to the public and if
ever the time comes when
he oversteps the limits of the people’s endurance he is
sure to see his family
suffer with him.
The
temptations of the ajuns are very great. The whole
revenue of the district
passes through their hands. In a sense they have to work
against both the
people and the prefect. The latter wants all that he can
get and watches the
ajuns closely for it and the ajuns are ever trying to
make the people give, up to
the limit of their ability. Much is said about the way
the ajuns squeeze the
people and this is doubtless true but the people are
forever trying to evade
their taxes and use every subter* fuge to jump their
revenue bills. It is a
case of diamond cut diamond and the people realize it as
well as the ajun. The
qualities necessary 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 yet gentle with the people; resourceful
in emergencies;
masterful in crises : quick to turn to his advantage
every event and in fact he
must have all the qualities of the successful
politician. One of his most
brilliant attainments is [page 70]
the ability to make excuses. If the people blame him for
extortion he spreads
out expostulatory hands and says that the prefect orders
it and he has no
option. If the prefect blames him for shortage in
revenue returns he bows low
and asserts upon his honor that the people have been
squeezed dry, and can
endure no more.
Editorial
Comment.
Political and
international situations are like leaves on the trees in
that no two of them
are alike. Each one must be separately interpreted in
the light of large and
general laws, and each one helps to define the
application of these laws. The
recent fight at Chemulpo will do not a little to define
the bearing and
application of the laws which govern the action of
belligerents in a neutral
port. We are not competent to pass upon these delicate
questions but we note
the factors in the problem. The first is as to the
actual neutrality’ of Korea.
Neutrality does not consist simply in the declaration of
neutrality. Many a man
declares himself to be well when he is ill or viceversa.
But even if a
government is not neutral at heart it is legally neutral
if it commits no acts
that give the lie to its declaration. And no power has
the right to deny to the
said government the benefits and immunities of
neutrality so long as that
government preserves the spirit as well as the letter of
its declaration.
At
the time when the Korean Government published its
declaration of neutrality,
the officials who guided the imperial action were
notoriously pro-Russian in
their sympathies. It is of no consequence now what their
names are, but of the
fact there can be no doubt. It is generally understood
that the Foreign Office,
at the time, was shorn of all real power and was only
the mouthpiece through
which these friends of Russia spoke, in order to make
their pronouncements
official. The Japanese were well aware that this
declaration of neutrality was
only a Russian move to embarrass Japan and put her in
the wrong before the
world in case she should find [page 71]
it necessary to land troops on the peninsula. It was
already known that two of
these pro-Russian officials had strongly urged that
Russia be asked for troops
to protect the palace in Seoul and the Japanese were on
the lookout for
evidences of bad faith in the matter of declared
neutrality. When, therefore,
the ubiquitous Japanese picked up a boat in the Yellow
Sea and found on it a
Korean carrying a letter to Port Arthur asking for
Russian’ troops and
discovered that this letter, while unofficial in form,
had come from the very
men who had caused the promulgation of the declaration
of neutrality, it became
clear that while the strict letter of the law had not
been broken the spirit of
neutrality was non-existent. This letter was seized
about the ninth of February
and must therefore have been written before Japan had
done anything to impair
the neutrality of the Korean Government. We do not
pretend to pass judgment
upon this phase of the question. That must be left to
the international
lawyers. We merely state some of the facts which will
enter into the problem.
Another
question is in regard to the neutrality of the port of
Chemulpo. If Korean
neutrality was genuine the action of Japan in forcing
the Russian vessels out
could be made a casus belli on the part of Korea, but as
Korea has no power to
prosecute such a war the Japanese were physically safe
in ignoring the
neutrality of the port. As between Russia and Japan the
harbor of Chemulpo was
the same as the high sea. Korea was the only power that
could by international
right shoot a gun in the defence of its neutrality.
Others might protest, as
they did, but they could go no further. It is the duty
of neutral powers to say
to belligerents in their ports “You shall not fight in
my ports, and you shall
not leave the harbor within twenty-four hours of each
other,” but if there is
no power with which to enforce the demand, then the two
belligerents will be
answerable to any neutral powers whose shipping they
injure. The neutrality of
the harbor of Chemulpo was genuine as regards the
shipping of neutral powers
and this is why the British, French and other commanders
refused to shift [page
72]
their anchorage at the suggestion of the Japanese. It
was the privilege of
these neutral commanders to say “This is a neutral port
and you will come in
and cause injury to our shipping at your peril, even
though such injury should
be unintentional.” And if the Japanese had come in and
attacked the Russians
where they lay they would have been answerable for any
injury done to neutral
ships whether by their own guns or by those of the
Russians, since the latter
would be acting in self-defense. We do not presume to
make the above statement
as a definite interpretation of international law in the
premises but only as a
possible explanation of the actions of both the Japanese
and the neutral
commanders.
The next question is in
regard to the reception of the Russians on board the
neutral ships. We already
said that as between the Japanese and the Russians the
port was the same as the
high sea and this appears from the fact that had the
Russians abandoned their
vessels and gone ashore they would have fallen into the
hands of the Japanese
as surely as if the shore had been another Japanese
vessel on the high sea. The
land was already held by the Japanese and was to all
intents and purposes
hostile soil to the Russians. But to the neutral vessels
the port was not the
high sea and they felt at liberty to act toward the
Russians exactly as if
there were no belligerent force outside—that is, as they
would act, for
instance, if these Russian boats had come into port in a
sinking condition due
to any accident at sea. The neutral commanders would not
have invited these
Russians on board their boats if it had been on the high
sea, for that would
have been an act of interferance hostile to Japan for
which they would have had
to answer before the bar of international law; but in a
neutral port they
recognized no war. The Variak was in
a sinking condition but the Koryetz
was intact, nevertheless the neutral commanders had a
perfect right to take
every one of the men on board their vessels if they saw
fit. The Russian ships
had not struck their flags to the Japanese nor had they
indicated any intention
to surrender. They had not compromised themselves by
asking for a truce. They [page
73]
had simply withdrawn from the fight, technically
unbeaten, and had entered a
neutral port where, according to the letter of
international law, they were
safe. They could blow up or scuttle their vessels if
they pleased and they
could visit other vessels at their pleasure. Such seems
to have been the basis
of the action of the neutral commanders, and it was
sound, or they would not
have acted as they did.
Some
question has been raised as to the legality of the
action of the French in
letting a boat go from the Pascal to
set fire to the Sungari,
This act was
plainly seen by competent witnesses. The question is
whether, after the
Russians went on board the French boat, they did not
immediately become
noncombatants and thereby incapacitated for any act of
war. But even so the
further question arises whether the burning of that
merchant vessel was an act
of war. It may be that it was done by the officers of
the ship and not by
Russian naval men. In any case this is one of the
questions raised by the
event. That the neutral commanders look upon these
refugees as noncombatants is
seen from their subsequent action.
In
the final adjustment of the matter the neutral
commanders engaged to take these
men to ports belonging to their respective countries and
there guarantee their
parole till the end of the war. It is hard to see how
this could be done
without keeping them in confinement. If this is to be
the outcome of it all
there are some who will think that it would have been
more soldierly to
surrender at discretion and become Japanese prisoners of
war whereby they would
have stood some chance of an exchange of prisoners. They
did not want to
surrender, for that would have impaired their honor; but
some will ask whether
by becoming virtual prisoners to neutral powers and
causing them annoyance and
expense they did not impair their honor more than they
would have done by
surrendering. It is universally recognized that to
surrender to overwhelming
odds is an honorable proceeding for it saves useless
shedding of blood; but
circumstances alter cases and it must be left to those
who are expert in [page
74]
the technicalities of martial etiquette to determine to
what extent these
Russians preserved the luster of their nation’s fame by
accepting the offer of
the neutral commanders.
Another
phase of the matter appears when we attempt to surmise
what the Japanese would
have done had the situation been reversed. It is our
opinion that if they had
gone forth to a hopeless fight they would have fought it
to a finish and when
their vessels sank under them they would either have
gone down with them or
they would have abandoned ship and been picked up by the
Russians as prisoners
of war.
On
the twenty-third of February the Korean and Japanese
governments through their
proper representatives signed a treaty of offensive and
defensive alliance. Of
course there is no use in discussing the degree of
spontaneity with which the
Korean government entered into this compact. It was, as
the Koreans say, a case
of halsu epso; but if we look at it from a democratic
standpoint and ask what
the majority of the Korean people think about it we
shall get another aspect of
the question. The present chaotic state of the national
finances and of popular
discontent show something of what Russian influence has
accomplished in Korea;
and the people are coming to realize the fact. They are
passionately attached
to the theory of national independence. We say theory
advisedly. This word
independence is a sort of fetich to which they bow, but
they think that
independence means liberation from outside control
alone, forgetting that
genuine independence means likewise a liberation from
evil influences within,
and that liberty so far from being carte blanche to do
as one pleases is in
truth the very apotheosis of law. What Korea wants is
education and until steps
are taken in that line there is no use in hoping for a
genuinely independent
Korea. Now, we believe that a large majority of the best
informed Koreans
realize that Japan and Japanese influence stand for
education and enlightenment
and that while the paramount influence of any one,
outside power is in some
sense a humiliation, the [page 75]
paramount influence of Japan will cause far less genuine
cause for humiliation
than has the paramount influence of Russia. Russia
secured her predominance by
pandering to the worst elements in Korean officialdom.
Japan holds it by
strength of arm, but she holds it in such a way that it
gives promise of
something better. The word reform never passed the
Russians’ lips. It is the
insistent cry of Japan. The welfare of the Korean people
never showed its head
above the Russian horizon but it fills the whole vision
of Japan; not from
altruistic motives mainly but because the prosperity of
Korea and that of Japan
rise and fall with the same tide.
Korea
has reached a definite crisis in her history. If Russia
wins, Korea will become
a small fraction of that heterogeneous mass called the
Holy Russian Empire, for
by signing an offensive and defensive alliance with
Japan Korea becomes the foe
of Russia and this will be all the excuse Russia needs
for seizing the whole
peninsula in case the war terminates favorably for her.
Having made this
alliance, therefore, it is the business of all Koreans
both official and
non-official to bend every energy to the securing of a
Japanese victory.
Korea
has never had a better chance than the present to
disprove the statements of
those who say that the Koreans are a decadent people and
lacking in stamina.
Those who know best are aware that with a proper
incentive and proper
leadership the Koreans of the northern and eastern
provinces would fight
magnificently. They have not had an opportunity to show
what they are made of
since the days of the Tai-wun-kun when in 1866 they
defeated the French in
Kang-wha and in 1871 when they held a little fort on
that Island against an
overwhelming force of Americans and died every man at
his post rather than give
up their position. It should be remembered that there
are some twelve or
fifteen million people in Korea. From this number an
army of two hundred thousand
could be raised. Such an army properly fed, clothed,
paid and led would prove a
powerful weapon in the hands of the Japanese. Korea
produces [page
76]
enough rice and other food stuff to feed both the Korean
people and the
Japanese army and when once the Russians were driven out
of Manchuria the
Japanese army could leave behind them a competent Korean
army to safeguard the
frontier. This army at first under Japanese leadership
would be a better
military school than any built in Seoul, it would
inspire the Koreans with
selfrespect and would soon break down the prevalent
notion that military rank
is inferior to civil rank.
What
is meant by a decadent people? We say the North American
Indian is decadent
because he is unable to adjust himself to the changed
conditions of life and is
fast becoming extinct, but the Korean people are no more
decadent than the
Chinese. They are physically virile and can be proved to
be cowards only when
put to proper tests. These have never been applied
during recent years excepting
in the instances cited, which go to prove the opposite.
Why does the Korean
allow himself to be cuffed about at the pleasure of the
alien when a Japanese
would leap to his own defense? It is because the Korean
knows that he has no
means of proper redress, no consul to appeal to, no
Government which considers
the physical and property rights of its subjects its
main objects for being.
Give a Korean the right and the ability to summon his
assailant before an
unbiased tribunal and do the readers of this Review imagine the people even of Seoul
would not leap to avenge
themselves of the cuffs and kicks which are so freely
bestowed upon them? That
court would have to sit night and day for the first few
weeks, until it should
be discovered that Koreans have personal rights which
people are bound to
respect.
The
coming of the Japanese troops has prevented the bringing
of rice up to Seoul
from the country, for the country-people are uncertain
as to the safety of
travel; and for this reason it will not be many weeks
before Seoul is face to
face with a very serious proposition. If the rice should
give out there would
be many deaths in [page 77]
Seoul in a very short time. It should be one of the
first things for the
government to attend to. There is plenty of rice in the
country, and ways and
means for bringing it up to Seoul should be immediately
considered. It would be
a great pity if the coming in of the Japanese should
even indirectly cause such
a calamity. The one thing that Yi Yong-ik is praised for
is the fact that he
brought in Annam rice and relieved Seoul from
starvation. If now there should
be a scarcity here it would do much to cause
disaffection against the Japanese.
We hope that this important matter is already under
consideration.
News Calendar.
On January
24th the Korean Government sent to various Powers a
declaration of her
neutrality. This was done without the knowledge of the
Foreign Office. The
announcement was made to the various legations in Seoul
at a late date.
On Jan. 24 the
contract of the Belgian adviser to the Home Department
was signed. It was dated
from June 1904 and for a term of three years.
On the same
day there came one hundred and forty-seven men to
superintend the pushing of
the construction of the Seoul-Pusan railway.
On Jan. 26 Pak
Che-sun was appointed Foreign Minister; being in Peking
he was immediately sent
for. Min Yong-chul was appointed Minister to China in
his place.
Pak
Chung-yang, was appointed Minister of Education late in
Jan. but as his duties
in connection with the royal funeral demanded his
attention Han Kang-ho was
appointed Acting Minister.
About Jan. 27
Russia, France, Germany, and England formally commended
the declaration of
neutrality. The other powers reserved their opinion.
All through
the latter part of January the Korean soldiers and
police levied blackmail on
all wealthy houses in Pyeng-yang and the foreigners
there were rather uneasy.
Threats had been made against them by the tonghak
and many of the natives were leaving the city, but on
the 26th it was learned
that one hundred Japanese residents of that city had
formed a home guard and
that all there were safe.
Because of the
general uneasiness several foreigners in the employ of
the government were
asked to go to the palace and act as a sort of
body-guard to His Majesty,
beginning from about the 26th of January.
Tales of
robberies all over the country came in to Seoul in rapid
succession but we have
not space to give them in detail. It is sufficient to
say that great
disaffection was evident throughout the country. There [page 78]
were the tonghaks in the north, the nanihak in the south
and at the same time the ajuns throughout the country
threatened to lead the
people in a general insurrection.
All through
January the Japanese were busy arranging military
stations every forty li
between Seoul and Pusan. In various places small
buildings were erected
sufficient to house twenty or thirty men.
On the 22nd of
January Gen. Ijichi arrived in Seoul and became the
military attaché of the
Japanese legation. On the 26th he asked the Foreign
Office what the position of
the Korean Government actually was as between Russia and
Japan and he demanded
some definite statement. The Foreign Minister of course
answered that Korea
favored neither exclusively but was neutral.
On the 28th.
ult. the Japanese brought in a large quantity of barley
to Kunsan and landed it
there. It appeared as if they intended to land troops
there instead of at some
more northerly port.
On Jan. 29 the
Foreign Office complained to the Russian Legation of the
disorderly actions of
Russian soldiers in the street, who caught Korean women
and forcibly kissed and
otherwise insulted them. The Russians took steps to stop
the outrages.
On Jan. 29 all
military students in Japan were recalled by the Korean
Government.
Instructions
were sent to Min Yong-chan to attend the Red Cross
Society’s convention in
Switzerland this Spring.
The Peddlars
began their real work in January by levying on all the
wealthy people in Seoul
except high officials, under the pretense that was it
payment for protection.
By the
beginning of February it began to be plain that trouble
was brewing. Hopes of
peace which had up to that time been held out were
withdrawn and the general
feeling that Russia would back down at the last moment
were shown to be false.
Reports came continually of Russian movements toward the
Yalu and the tone of
the negotiations between the two countries became
distinctly more
uncompromising. The Korean people watched events with
great interest but not so
as to interfere with the annual stone fights which began
rather earlier than
usual this year.
On Feb. sixth
a very unpleasant collision took place between Korean
gendarmes and Russian
soldiers. Two of the latter seized a woman on the street
near the Japanese
quarter and insulted her. A crowd gathered and assumed a
most threatening
attitude. The Russians drew their weapons and held the
crowd at bay but some
gendarmes came along who, after a brisk fight, succeeded
in disarming the
Russians and taking them to the Russian Legation.
Out of 154
pawnshops in Seoul there are now only 70 in operation.
This is a good gauge of
the feelings of the people as to the security of
property in war times.
The race of
counterfeiters is not extinct. Japanese have lately been
counterfeiting the Dai
Ichi Ginko notes and passing them at Chemulpo. One
culprit was caught and
imprisoned for eight months, another for six months and
another for three.
[page
79]
In the town of Chungju about 130 miles South from Seoul
the Tonghaks gathered
in force in January and declared that they were no
longer Korean subjects and
would not listen to the commands of the government.
Pak Che-sun
the newly appointed Foreign Minister started from Peking
on his way to Korea on
Feb. 2nd but having come as far as Chin-whang Island
near Port Arthur he put
back to Tientsin because of the beginning of
hostilities.
On Feb. 1st
twenty-nine more Koreans started for Hawaii. We learn
that recently the Koreans
sent jen 500 of their earnings home to Korea in a single
draft.
There is said
to be a shortage in taxes from South Chulla Province of
some $370,000, due to
excessive rains and other causes.
On Feb. and
the Russians stored 1,500 tons of coal in their
storehouses on Roze Island,
also 100 bags of barley and other food stuffs.
About the
middle of February Mr. W. F. Sands left Korea on his way
to America.
On the eighth
the Japanese authorities posted notices in Seoul saying
that what Japan was
about to do was dictated by motives of righteousness and
that the property and
personal rights of Koreans would be respected. If any
Korean was ill-treated by
a Japanese he must report the case and justice would be
done him.
On the eighth
persistent rumors of the approach of the Japanese were
verified by the
appearance of a large fleet of Japanese transports and
war vessels off
Chemulpo. The Russian Gunboat Koryetz attempted
to
leave for Port Arthur but was stopped by the Japanese
fleet at the mouth of
the bay and turned back. A shot was fired from the Koryetz but it is claimed by the Russians
that it was by accident.
The Japanese fired two torpedoes at the Koryetz
neither of which took effect. Thereupon the Russian boat
put back to her
anchorage. At four o’clock three Japanese transports
came into the harbor
convoyed by two cruisers and three torpedo-boats The
work of disembarkation
began almost immediately and continued all night by the
light of huge fires
built on the jetty. The cruisers and torpedo-boats went
out the same day and
rejoined the fleet, commanded by Admiral Urui, his
flagship being the Naniwa,
Early in
February the people of Yichun seventy-two miles north of
Seoul arose in revolt
and drove their prefect away because of his extor,
tions.
On Feb. 7th
the government received a despatch from the prefect of
Wiju saying that 8,000
Russians were approaching the border and that the
Japanese were preparing to
flee.
From the
eighth of February the port of Chemulpo was in a sense
blockaded by the
Japanese, only by their consent could boats go in or
out.
On the seventh
the Foreign Office sent to all the Korean ports ordering
that news should be
immediately telegraphed of any important movements.
[page
80] On the seventh the Japanese
authorities posted up a notice in various parts of Seoul
saying that the people
must not be disturbed if Japanese troops should arrive;
on the same day
telegraphic connection with Pyongyang, Sungjin, Taiku,
Chungju, Fusan and
Masanpo was broken. The Japanese took possession of
Prince Euiwha’s house in
Seoul and set a guard, but about the twentieth they gave
it back again. It is
said that the seizure was because of a debt and that
when this was liquidated
the house was again given up. The same day the Osaka
Shosen Kaisha suspended
their regular schedule of steamers to Korea.
On the ninth
occurred the Battle of Chemulpo which we have described
elsewhere. The troops
which had landed during the night came up to Seoul by
rail. A large number of
Japanese officials and others were at the South Gate
Station to welcome them.
It was not known whether there would be any popular
demonstration against the
entrance of the troops into the city but all such fears
were groundless for
everything remained perfectly quiet and the entrance
took place without any
excitement at all. Even the Korean crowd that gathered
to witness the event was
comparatively small. His Majesty was considerably
disturbed by this coming of
the Japanese in force but no Japanese went near the
palace nor was there any
cause for alarm. At twelve o’clock the noise of the
cannonading at Chemulpo was
plainly heard in Seoul and people listened in awe to the
distant thunder of
battle wondering what it portended. There was no such
exodus from the city as
might have been expected but it is said that a
considerable number of wealthy
men sent their families and their valuables out of the
city. It was on this
same day that the Japanese took possession of the Korean
telegraph offices at
Masanpo and Fusan. Immediately after the battle the
Japanese authorities put a
guard about the Russian Consulate in Chemulpo and no one
could see the Russian
Consul without first securing a pass from the Japanese
Consul. Some understand
that this was for the purpose of protecting the Consul.
A guard was also put
over the offices of the Eastern Steamship Company of
which Mr. Sabatin was
agent, and other Russian houses were also guarded. This
same day the Japanese
began coaling the Korean war-vessel the Yang-mu-ho,
This boat had been partially paid for by the Korean
government. The beginning
of active hostilities immediately affected exchange and
the price of a yen fell
from $2.30 to $1.60 in Korean money.
Great
uneasiness is said to exist in Pyengyang among the
natives and many are fleeing
to the country because of the near approach of the
Russians. One thing is
certain, the Koreans feel very differently toward the
Japanese than toward the
Russians.
On the twelfth
of February at half past seven in the morning the
Russian Minister and all the
other members of the Legation Staff and all Russian
residents in Seoul went to
the West Gate Station and took a special train for
Chemulpo. They were attended
by about eighty Russian soldiers. Many of the other
Foreign Representatives
were on the station platform to bid the Russian Minister
and his suite good bye
but not a single Korean official was there.
On Feb. 2tid
the Russian Minister replied to a protest of the Korean
Government against the
cutting of timber at Pyuk-dong, some distance back from
the Yalu, saying that
the concession covered not only the banks of that river
but of all its
tributaries!
On Feb. 2nd
Dr. Furuichi the new president of the Seoul-Fusan
Railway arrived at Fusan and
a few days later he reached Seoul.
On Feb. 5th
the Japanese Minister ordered all Japanese subjects to
remove from Wiju and
Sungjin.
About the 23rd
inst Dr. Takaki of the First Japanese Bank started for
Tokyo. His departure was
due to a difference of opinion as to the policy to be
adopted by the bank in
Seoul. It may not be generally known that the Seoul
Branch of the Dai Ichi
Ginko is the third largest one, only Chemulpo and
Yokohama exceeding it in
size. Dr. Takaki will soon be back in Seoul.
On the
eleventh Yun Ung yul was made Minister of War.
The prefect of
Nam-won in Chulla Province telegraphed on the eleventh
saying that Japanese had
demanded 1,000 bags of rice, 1,000 loads of firewood and
300 telegraph posts.
That same evening the only places that were still
connected with Seoul by
Korean telegraph were Haiju, Songdo, Chemulpo and
Wonsan.
A goodly number
of war-correspondents have arrived on the scene and more
are expected. They are
having difficulty in securing their credentials from
Tokyo. Several of them
have gone north without their papers, trusting,
probably, that these will come
on later. Horse flesh is soaring, one Korean refusing to
sell his animal for
less than Yen 400. Japanese interpreters have been in
brisk demand, some
getting as high as Yen 200 a month for following the war
with correspondents.
Mr. Jack London who represents the Hearst syndicate had
a hard time in getting
here. He succeeded in making Mokpo in small coasting
steamers but from there he
had to come in a sampan. He made Kunsan in twenty-seven
hours but from there to
Chemulpo occupied five days, owing to strong head winds
and rough seas.
All through
the month persistent rumors have been circulating to the
effect that the
Russians had crossed the Yalu. About the 20th of
February Major Togo together
with six gendarmes and two interpreters were seized by
the Russians at Wiju. These
Japanese were on a scouting tour but were not
technically within the Russian
lines, so they will doubtless be treated as prisoners of
war. Then it was
reported that the Russians were in Chongju some two
thousand strong while 400
more were in Kasan. Then scouts were seen opposite the
river from Anju and at
last reports Russian videttes were seen by Japanese
between Pyengyang and Anju
but both sides retired without attacking. The telegraph
wires were cut between
Pyengyang and Anju. It is the thought that the Russians
will attempt to impede
the progress of Japanese toward the Yalu so as to gain
time and prevent the
Japanese utilizing ice to cross that river. In her
unprepared state every day’s
delay means much to Russia and this policy is quite easy
to understand. In [page
82] spite of the Russians being in Anju
the Americans at the Unsan mines came down to Pyengyang
on the 24th. It is not
known yet whether they got out before the Russians
appeared in the vicinity or
whether they came through the Russian lines.
At midnight
of the 23rd of February the final seal was put upon
the Korea-Japan alliance, whereby, among other things,
Korea grants Japan leave
lo use her territory in the present campaign against
Russia, Japan guarantees
Korea her independence subject to certain conditions
necessary under the
circumstances. There are those who claim that Korean
independence is a thing of
the past, and it is true that for the time being it is
slightly adumbrated by
the coming of the Japanese but it remains to be seen
whether, after the present
crisis is over. Japan will not accord to Korea the same
degree of genuine
independence as the United States has granted Cuba. It
will depend much upon
Korea herself whether this desirable goal is ever
reached. If she proves that there
are Koreans capable of carrying on an enlightened
administration here her
chances of real independence may be good, but the future
alone can decide this.
Of one thing there can be little doubt, that the present
action of Korea gives
promise of better things in the future than any other
action could have done.
It is a right step if rightly followed up. It may not be
a satisfactory
situation for the Koreans to contemplate but it is a
necessary result of
coquetting with Russia, from whom she has nothing to
hope and every thing to
fear.
It is said,
with what truth we do not know, that when a person is
being fascinated by a
snake it causes him an unpleasant shock when a third
party comes in and breaks
the spell. Whether the simile applies we leave it for
our readers to determine.
The need for
Japanese barracks has caused some commotion in Seoul.
Every Japanese house is
full, half the Government barracks and nineteen other
public buildings are
crowded, among them all the Government schools.
On the night
of theYi Yong-ik was taken to
Chemulpo by the Japanese and put on board a boat bound
for Japan. The country
is thus rid of a man who though possessed of a certain
degree of ability has
done very much to bring the Korean government into
difficulties. He was
detested by the common people and hated by officials. It
shows his ability
that, without any family backing, he held his own so
long against the almost
unanimous opposition of the official class. We will give
a resum6 of his his
career later.
About the 26th
Yi Keun-tak, one of the leading pro-Russians, left Seoul
for the country,
having seen all his promises of Russian help fall to the
ground. Hyun Sang-geun
is said to be in asylum in one of the Foreign Legations.
He is probably safer
there than in his own home at this juncture. It is a
credit to the Japanese
that this radical change has been effected without
bloodshed among Korean
officials. In time these men who have deceived the
Emperor so long may be
brought to book but if so it will be by proper process
of law.
The peddlars
guild dropped to pieces like a house of cards. They were
evidently a pack of
cowards intent only upon plunder, if the opportunity
should come.
As a rule the
Japanese soldiers are very orderly but we were sorry to
hear that an American
lady while passing through the Japanese quarter on the
25th was struck
violently in the back by a Japanese soldier who was off
duty. It seems to be
best for foreign ladies to go about either in chairs or
rickshas rather than on
foot at such a time as this. There is no doubt that the
Japanese authorities
have every intention of keeping exemplary order among
the troops but it is the
best thing to give as little opportunity as possible to
the Japanese soldiers
to show incivility, by refraining from walking about
among them more than is
absolutely necessary.
We were sorry
to learn that Dr. O. R. Avison’s two youngest children
were bitten by a pet dog
which died later under very suspicious circumstances. It
is not absolutely
certain that the dog was rabid but Dr. Avison has taken
the children, to
Nagasaki to be treated at the Pasteur Institute there.
It has been
repeatedly stated that the Korean troops are to join the
Japanese in the
present campaign and as the month draws to an end it
begins to look as if it
were true. On the 27th, it was stated that
after the funeral of the
Queen Dowager several thousand will go north.
Telegraphic
news from the north on the 27th stated that Russian
forces crossing Ma-jun Pass
in the north were opposed by Korean soldiers and several
of the latter were
killed.
On the
twenty-sixth the Japanese asked the Korean government to
permit them to build a
railroad between Seoul and Wiju. Up to the time of going
to press the reply had
not been given but there can be no doubt that it will
be given. It is believed that the Japanese contemplate
beginning the
construction of the road very soon.
Koreans of
certain classes are reaping a golden harvest by the
coming of the Japanese.
Coolies who received about thirty sen a day are now
receiving Yen 3 per day for
carrying loads north. From this amount thirty sen are
deducted and given to the
foreman of each gang. There are certain other fees to be
paid out of it but at
the very least they get Yen 2 a day for their labor. The
sudden demand for
Korean money to use in the country is what has driven
exchange to its present
figure. It will spell ruin to many a Korean who receives
his twenty or thirty
Korean dollars a month, for prices remain at the point
where they were when
exchange was double what it is now. It is easy to push
prices up but hard to
pull them down again.
One of the
Korean refugees in Tokyo has given Yen 10,000 to the
Japanese war fund.
The Japanese
seem to be prepared for every contingency. They are
masters of detail and they
may be depended upon to know what their resources are
and how to utilize them
at any moment. It is this ability to handle large bodies
of men with ease and
facility that augurs well for their success Someone put
it very well the other
day when he said that the Russians are stubborn fighters
but each man must be
given a definite command at every move while with the
Japanese each man, while
thoroughly amenable to orders, is an intelligent fighter
and uses his head as
well as his muscles.
It has been
said that when the Americans in Pyengyang find it
necessary to remove from that
place they will be sent to Shanghai rather than to
Seoul, for if the need
should arise of foreigners leaving Seoul as well there
would be double work. It
is to be hoped that war will work northward rather than
southward.
All Russian
property in Seoul was put in care of the French when the
Russians left Seoul.
For a few days
it was rather difficult to get mail out of Korea but as
soon as the landing of
troops began in earnest, the returning transports began
to carry mail nearly
every day to Japan.
The Chief
Eunuch, Kang Suk-ho, who has been strongly pro-Russian
in his sympathies is reported to be about to make a
protracted visit to the
country.
Min Sang-ho,
the popular chief of the Postal and Telegraph Bureau has
resigned and Yi
Ha-yong has taken his place.
On Feb. 28th
the rather startling news arrived in Seoul that fifty
Russian cavalrymen
appeared outside the north gate of Pyeng-yang near the
tomb of Kija. They were
fired upon by the Japanese guards at the gate. They
returned the fire but soon
retired in the direction they had come. Only a part of
the Americans living in
Sun-chun arrived in Pyang-yang before this skirmish took
place and there is
some anxiety as to their condition. It is said the
Russians are treating the
natives very well in the north and there is very little
danger that these
foreigners will be molested.
[page
81]
KOREAN HISTORY.
If a Chinaman
or a Manchu should come here and do as your people did
they would be treated in
the same manner as we did your people. In fact, we did
put to death a Chinaman
because he came here in disguise and changed his
costume; and the Chinese
government never said a word about it, for they knew
this to be our law. Even
had we known their nationality, their actions were so
contrary to our laws that
we could hardly have spared them, how much less then
when we did know it. This
matter hardly needs more explanation. Your letter was
sent without the proper
formalities and we are not bound to answer it. This is
not a matter that a mere
provincial governor can handle. As we are China’s vassal
it is our duty to
consult the court at Peking on all foreign matters. Tell
this to your chief and
do not be surprised that in order to show the true state
of the case we have
been led to speak thus plainly.”
One
needs but to read this to see that it is an unanswerable
argument. From a
merely political and legal point of view the Korean
government had all the
facts on her side, though from the standpoint of
humanity they were wrong. It
is strange that they omitted the strongest argument of
all namely, that they
asked the Frenchmen to leave and they refused. It is
evident that by so doing
they made themselves amenable to Korean law, and took
the consequences, good or
bad. One cannot admire enough the heroism which they
displayed in staying to
suffer with their coreligionists, though the opportunity
was given them to save
themselves by departure. It cannot be doubted that the
rapid spread of Catholicism
in Korea is due in large measure to the heroic
self-sacrifice of those men and
others like them, who literally gave their lives to the
work. It would be wrong
however to say that the government was wholly without
excuse.
This
answer was not accepted as satisfactory by the French
government and a
rejoinder was sent saying that thereafter French
subjects who should be taken
on Korean soil must be sent to Peking, otherwise the
Korean government would
lay itself open to grave evils. But soon after [page 82]
this the revolution of 1848 took place in France and
these eastern questions were all forgotten for the time
being.
In
1849 the king died without male issue and his
grandmother Kim nominated his
nephew, the son of a banished brother. The young man
entered upon the duties of
his office at the age of nineteen and he is known by his
posthumous title of Ch’ul-jong
Tawang. This reign of fourteen years beheld some
important reforms. The law was
reaffirmed that the families of banished men might
follow them into exile.
Gambling was severely interdicted. The merchants’
monopolies were broken up. A hard fight was made
against bribery and peculation in high places. Country
gentlemen were forbidden
to seize and beat any one belonging to the lower orders.
This
king was the son Prince Chun-gye by a slave woman named
Kang. He was the
great-grandson of the Crown Prince, Sado, whom his
father nailed up in the box.
His
reign was an important one in two respects. First the
very rapid spread of
Roman Catholicism and second the settled policy which
was adopted toward all
outside influences. When the reign began there were
about 11,000 Christians in
Korea and when it closed in 1863 there were in the
vicinity of 20,000, or
almost double. Everyone knew that to combat it there
would be need of a king of
a different calibre from Ch’ul jong; and so during these
years the work of
propagating the new faith went on steadily and without
any considerable
drawbacks. The picture of the country as drawn by the
French is indeed a sad
one. They say the king had shown himself quite incapable
and had become a mere
debauche. The highest officials were fattening off the
people and the latter
were frequently consulting the books of prophecy which
foretold the disolution
of the dynasty. And now foreigners began to enter the
country in greater
numbers. Maistre, Janson, Berneux followed each other in
quick succession in
the early fifties. The latter became Bishop of Korea.
About
the end of 1860 came the news of the fall of Peking
before the combined French
and English forces, the flight of the Emperor and the
burning and looting of
the Summer Palace. The news was that thousands of
foreigners had come [page
83]
to overthrow the empire. The utmost consternation
prevailed in Seoul. An
official memorialised the throne giving three causes for
lively concern.
(1) The
Emperor, fleeing before his enemies, might wish to find
asylum in Korea, or at
least might take refuge in some Manchu fortress just
beyond the border. Every
possible approach ought to be strictly guarded so that
the Emperor might not
dare to force his way into Korean territory. (This shows
the depth of Korea’s
loyalty to China.)
(2) The outlaw
bands that infested the neutral strip between Korea and
China might attempt an
invasion of Korea and forts ought to be built to prevent
such an enterprise.
(3) Worst of
all, there might be a possible invasion of Korea by the
foreigners. Korean
cities would be wrecked, the morale of the people would
be lowered, a depraved
religion would be established. As the foreigners were
strong only on the sea or
on level ground the mountainous character of Korea would
be of material
advantage to her. The army .should be reorganised, and
forts should be built
along the principal approaches to Seoul; also at
Tong-na, Nam-yang, Pu-byung
and In-ju. A fort should be built on high ground
commanding the passage of the
narrows at Kang-wha. Western boats could not of course
ascend the Han River. As
the foreign religion spread rapidly in the provinces
every precaution should be
taken to prevent the foreign priests communicating with
their countrymen
abroad.
The ministry
and the people all applauded this plan and the
memorialist was made a judge and
given power to carry out his scheme. But news came thick
and fast telling of
the killing of thousands of Chinese soldiers, and the
returning embassy in
February 1851. gave definite news of the flight of the
Emperor and the treaty
wrested from the great Chinese empire. This news
electrified the people. All
business was suspended. The well-to-do people all fled
to mountain retreats,
the doughty memorialist among the first. The ministers
sent away their families
and their goods. Many of the high officials asked the
protection of the Roman
Catholics, and tried to procure Roman Catholic books or
badges of any kind, and
many wore these at their belts in broad daylight. The
yamen-runners were loud
in their protestations that they had [page
84]had nothing to do with the
persecution of the Catholics. It was believed by the
French in Korea at the
time that a most favorable treaty could have been
concluded just at that time;
but no effort in that direction was made by the French.
Gradually, the excitement
abated and preparations for war were pushed, the wealthy
classes supplying the
money for the same. Old arms were resurrected, and
cannon were cast on the
model of one obtained from the French wrecks. At this
time there were nine
Frenchmen in Korea.
The
year 1861 was a hard one for the people. They were taxed
to the last farthing
and local riots were exceedingly common. The French give
us an amusing
incident, where the widows of a certain prefecture were
taxed. They rose up en
masse and mobbed the prefect’s office, caught his
mother, tore off all her
garments and left her well nigh naked. This of course
meant that the prefect
was disgraced for life.
Chapter XIV.
Beside the
death-bed of King Ch’ul-jong. . . .a bold woman . . . .
rise of the Tong-hak .
. . . its founder killed. . . .the King’s father becomes
regent. . . .his two
mistakes . . .he selects a Queen . . . Russian request .
. . . the Regent
pushed by the conservative party . . . . death-warrant
of .... Bishop Berneux .
. . .French priests executed . . . priceless manuscript
lost . . . . a French
priest escapes to China and tells the news . . . .China
advises Korea to make
peace . . . shipwreck of the “Surprise” . . . face of
the “General Sherman” . .
. . persecution renewed . . . French reconnoitering
expedition . . . blockade
of the Han announced . . . . French expedition under
Admiral Roze . . .preparations for defen.se correspondence. . .
.French defeat. . . .the French retire . . .Koreans
exultant . . . .
persecution redoubled . . . . the Kyung-bok Palace
rebuilt . . . . American expedition
under Admiral Rodgers . . . . American victory on
Kang-wha . . . . the fleet
retires . . . . monument erected in Seoul.
The events of
the present reign, which began in January 1864, are
fresh in the memory of many
still living, and the account here given is taken
largely from statements of
eyewitnesses of the scenes therein described. A detailed
history of the present
reign would fill a volume in itself and of course we can
but briefly touch upon
the leading events in it.
[page 85]
The circumstances which ushered in the reign are
graphically described by
Dallet and are substantially as follows. King Ch’ul-jong
had been suffering for
some time with a pulmonary affection, but in January of
1864 he seemed better
and he began to walk about a little. On the fifteenth,
feeling greater uneasiness
than usual, he went into his garden for a walk. There he
was suddenly taken
with faintness and was just able to drag himself back to
his room, where he
fell in a dying condition. The Minister Kim Choa-geun,
his son Kim Pyung-gu and
three other relatives were immediately in attendance. As
they were
deliberating, the nephew of the Dowager Queen Cho, widow
of the King Ik-jong,
happened to pass, and seeing what was going on, he
hastened to his aunt’s
apartments and exclaimed, “What are you doing here? The
king is dead.” He
advised her to hasten to the king’s apartments, gain
possession of the royal
seals and nominate to the throne some one of her choice,
declaring him to be
the son and heir of King Ik-jong, her husband. This
woman thereupon hastened to
the side of the expiring king where she found the
attendants, as we have said,
and with them the queen, who held the royal seals in a
fold of her skirt. The
Dowager Queen peremptorily demanded these seals, and
when the queen demurred
she snatched them violently from her. No one dared
oppose the determined woman
who thus took fortune by the forelock and in the course
of a moment turned the
course of empire. She then made proclamation in the name
of the king, saying “The
king says the royal seals shall be in charge of Queen
Cho. The throne shall go
to Myungbok, second son of Prince Heung-sung (whose name
was Yi Ha-eung).
Minister Chong shall be executor of the king’s will and
Minister Kim shall go
and find the newly appointed king.” The Dowager Queen
Cho thus became Regent
and the queen’s party, the Kim family, had to retire
from power.
It
was at the very beginning of the reign that the peculiar
sect called the
Tong-hak arose in the south. Its founder was one Ch’oe
Pok-sul of Kyong-ju in
Kyung-sang Province. The great formula of the sect was
the mysterious sentence Ch’un Ju cho a
chung yung se bul mang man sa
eui, which means “May the Lord of Heaven aid our
minds that we may ever [page
86]
remember, and may He make all things turn out according
to our desire.” The
adherents of this sect would sit and sing this formula
by the hour. They would
also dance, brandishing swords in a sort of frenzy, and
pretend to be rising to
heaven. The name Tong-hak or “Eastern Sect” was given by
themselves to
distinguish themselves from the Su-hak or “Western
Sect,” namely Roman
Catholicism. So at least some affirm. Its rise was
exceedingly rapid and soon
it had enrolled an enormous number of people. The
government was at last
obliged to take cognizance of it, and a body of troops
was sent south, who
captured and put to death the founder of the sect. This
put an end for the time
to its active propagandism but it was by no means dead,
as we shall see.
The Dowager Queen Cho was a
violent opponent of Christianity and filled all the
offices with enemies of the
Roman Catholics. But she was not to hold the reins of
power long. The king’s
father in view of his son’s elevation to the throne had
received the title
Prince Ta-wun, or Ta-wun-gun as he is usually called. He
was a man of
commanding personality and inflexible will and on the
whole he was the most
striking character in modern Korean history. He has been
variously estimated.
Some have considered him the greatest statesman in
Korea; others have taken him
for a mere demagogue. His main characteristic was an
indomitable will which
took the bit in its teeth and swept toward the goal of
its desire irrespective
of every obstacle, whether of morals, economics,
politics or consanguinity. He
was withal unable to read the signs of the times. The
two great mistakes of his
life were, first in supposing he could eradicate Roman
Catholicism by force,
and second in supposing that he could prevent the
opening of Korea to treaty
relations. The regency naturally passed into his hands
and he tacitly agreed to
uphold the principles of the conservative party that had
raised him to power.
His
first act was to order a remeasurement of the tilled
land of the country with a
view to the increasing of the revenue. The treasury was
empty and he had plans
in mind that would require money. One of these plans was
the erection of a new
palace on the ruins of the Kyung-bok Palace, an
enterprise which the finances
of the country by no means [page 87] warranted.
His next act was to betroth his son the king to his
wife’s niece. His wife had
two brothers one of whom was living but the other had
died leaving one
daughter. It was this daughter of Min Ch’i-rok who
became queen. She was the
king’s senior by four years. As her father was dead she
became the foster child
of her uncle Min Ch’i-gu. In this union, as everyone
knows, the Regent sought
to cement his own power, but, as everyone likewise
knows, he made a serious
mistake.
In
January 1866 a Russian gunboat dropped anchor in the
harbor of Wun-san and a
letter was sent to Seoul asking for freedom of trade
with Korea. The answer
given was that as Korea was the vassal of China the
matter must be negotiated
at Peking, and an envoy was dispatched for that purpose.
It
is said that Roman Catholic adherents made use of the
great uneasiness which
prevailed in government circles respecting Russia to
compose a letter urging
that the only way to ward off Russia was by making an
alliance with France and
England. It is said that the Regent received this
communication and gave it
special and, as some believe, favorable attention. We
are told that the Roman
Catholics were all in a most hopeful state of mind,
fully believing the hour
had come for the awakening of Korea. In the light of
subsequent events it is
difficult to determine whether the Regent’s interest in
the plan was real or
whether it was a ruse whereby to make the final coup all
the more effective.
All things considered, the latter theory fits the facts
more perfectly. The
French themselves believed the Regent was pushed on to
the great persecution of
1866 by the violent anti-Christian party that had put
him in power, and that it
was simply another case of “If thou do it not thou art
not Caesar’s friend.”
They found fault with him for harboring the idea of a
combination with this foreign
element and demanded the death of the foreign priests
and a general
persecution. It is said the Regent reminded them of the
burning of the Summer
Palace at Peking and the taking of that Imperial
Capital, but that they
answered that they had killed Frenchmen before without
harm resulting, and they
could do it again.
Whatever
may have been the pressure brought to bear on him, he
finally signed the death
warrant of all the foreign [page 88]
priests in the land, and on February 23rd Bishop Berneux
was seized and thrown
into the common jail, but two days later he was
transferred to the prison where
noble prisoners were confined. On the 26th he was
brought before the tribunal
where he gave his name as Chang. He said he had come to
save the souls of the
Koreans and that he had been in the country ten years.
He refused to leave
except by force. As the government had made up its mind
as to its course, his
death warrant was then made out, and it ran thus: “The
accused, Chang, refuses
to obey the king. He will not apostatize. He will not
give the information
demanded. He refuses to return to his own country.
Therefore, after the usual
punishments, he will be decapitated.” While he was
awaiting his end,
Bretenieres, Beaulieu, and Dorie were taken, and after
similar trial were
condemned to death. All four of these heroic men were
decapitated at the public
execution ground near the river on the eighth of March
and their bodies were
buried together in a trench, from which they were
recovered six months later
and given burial by Roman Catholic adherents. Four days
later two more priests.
Petitnicolas and Pourthie, were executed at the same
place. It was the latter
who lost at this time not only his life but his
priceless manuscripts, a Korean
Grammar and a Latin-Korean-Chinese Dictionary, on which
he had been at work for
ten years. Three more of the priests, Daveluy, Aumaitre
and Huin were seized
soon after this and put to death, but not till the
latter had despatched a
letter to China, which was destined to turn up long
afterward. There were three
priests left, Calais, Feron and Ridel. The last of these
was selected to
attempt the journey to China and give information of
these terrible events.
After almost incredible labors he succeeded in getting
away from the shore of Whang-ha
Province in a junk together with eleven native
believers, and made his way to
Chefoo. From there he hastened to Tientsin and informed
Admiral Roze of the
death of his fellow-countrymen. The Admiral promised to
hasten to the rescue of
the remaining two and the avenging of those who had been
slain; but a revolt in
Cochin-China prevented him from redeeming his promise
until the following
September. .
The
Chinese government, through the annual embassy, [page 89]
informed
the king of Korea that the killing of foreigners
was an exceedingly foolish proceeding and that he had
better make peace with
France on the best terms possible, for if China could
not withstand her surely
Korea could not. The Regent replied, however, that it
was not the first time
French blood had remained unavenged in Korea.
On
June 24th an American sailing vessel, the “Surprise,”
was wrecked off the coast
of Whang-ha Province. Her captain and crew were
hospitably treated and
conducted to the Chinese border with great care, by
order of the Regent, who
thus illustrated the truth of the assertion that Korea
would do no harm to men
who were ship-wrecked on her coast. Even in the midst of
an anti-foreign
demonstration of the most severe type, these men were
humanely treated and sent
upon their way.
Early in September the
sailing vessel “General Sherman” entered the mouth of the
Ta-dong River. She carried five white foreigners and
nineteen Asiatics. Her
ostensible object was trade. The governor of P’yung-au
Province sent, demanding
the cause of her coming and the answer was that they
desired to open up trade
with Korea. Though told that this was impossible, the
foreign vessel not only
did not leave but. on the contrary, pushed up the river
until she reached a
point opposite Yangjak Island not far from the city of
P’yungyang. It was only
the heavy rains in the interior and an exceptionally
high tide that allowed her
to get across the bar, and soon she was stuck in the
mud, and all hopes of ever
saving her were gone. This rash move astonished the
Koreans above measure.
Something desperate must be the intentions of men who
would drive a ship thus
to certain destruction. After a time word came from the
Regent to attack her if
she did not leave at once. Then the fight began, but
without effect on either
side until the Koreans succeeded in setting fire to the
“General Sherman” with
fire-rafts. The officers and crew then were forced to
drop into the water,
where many of them were drowned. Those that reached the
shore were immediately
hewn down by the frenzied populace. The trophies of this
fight are shown today
in the shape of the anchor chains of the ill-fated
vessel, which hang in one of
the gateways of P’yung-yang. No impartial student of
both sides [page
90]
of this question can assert that the Koreans were
specially blame-worthy. The
ship had been warned off but had rashly ventured where
no ship could go without
being wrecked even were all other circumstances
favorable. The Koreans could
not know that this was a mere blunder. They took the
vessel, and naturally, to
be a hostile one and treated her accordingly.
In
September the persecution of Roman Catholic adherents
was resumed. This is said
to have been caused by a letter from one of the
Christians to the Regent urging
a treaty of peace with France. But by this time Admiral
Roze was ready to
redeem his promise, and on the tenth of that month
Bishjp Ridel boarded his
flag-ship at Chefoo. The French authorities had already
informed the Chinese at
Peking that France did not recognise the suzerainty of
China over Korea and
asserted that the land about to be conquered would be
disposed of as France
wished without reference to the Pekin government. It was
decided to send the
corvette la
Primauguet, and the
aviso, leDeroulede, and the gunboat, Tardif,
to make a preliminary survey of the approaches to Seoul.
Bishop Ridel
accompanied this expedition in the capacity of
interpreter. Arriving off
Clifford Islands on the twentieth, the little fleet
entered Prince Jerome Gulf,
and the following day leDeroulede was
sent to explore the
entrance to the Han River. Finding the channel between
Kang-wha and the main
land satisfactory, she returned to the anchorage and
together they steamed up
the river the only casualty being the loss of the false
keel of the Primauguet.
These vessels steamed up the
river as far as the river towns opposite the capital,
silencing a few forts on
the way. Bishop Ridel used all his powers of persuasion
to induce the commander
to leave one of these boats here while the others went
to China to report, but
without avail. They all steamed away together.
Meanwhile there was panic
in Seoul. The end had come, in the estimation of many of
the people. A general
stampede ensued and nearly a quarter of the citizens of
Seoul fled away,
leaving their houses and goods. We will remember that
when Ridel escaped from
Korea he left two companions behind. These made a
desperate attempt to
communicate with the French boats on the river, but so
fierce was the
persecution [page 91] and
so watchful were the authorities that they were quite
unable to do so. They
finally escaped, however, by means of junks which
carried them out into the
Yellow Sea, where they fell in with Chinese boats that
carried them to China.
Before
the surveying expedition sailed back to China Bishop
Ridel was informed by
native Christians of the burning of the “General
Sherman” and the fate of her
crew, the renewal of the persecution and the order that
all Christians be put
to death after only a preliminary trial. He urged the
commandant to stay, but
the fleet sailed away and reported in China, where the
real punitive expedition
was rapidly preparing. On October eleventh the blockade
of the Han River Was
announced to the Chinese authorities and to the various
powers through their
representatives at Peking, and then the French fleet
sailed away to the
conquest of Korea. The flotilla consisted of the seven
boats Querriere,
Laplace, Primauguet, Deroulade,
Kienchan, Tardif and Lebrethom,
But
while these preparations were going on, other
preparations were going on in
Korea. The total complement of troops throughout the
peninsula was called into
requisition. Arms were forged and troops drilled. The
Japanese government,
even, was invited to take a hand in the war that was
impending, but she did not
resppnd. Japan herself was about to enter upon a great
civil war. and had no
force tospare for outside work, even if she had had the
desire.
On October thirteenth the
French fleet reached Korea and three days later the
attack on Kang-wha
commenced. In an hour’s time the town was in the
possession of the French and
large amounts of arms, ammunition and provisions were
seized, besides various
other valuables such as treasure, works of art, books
and porcelain. This
reverse by no means disheartened the Koreans. Gen. Yi
Kyung-ha was put in
charge of the forces opposed to the “invaders.” This
force was led in person by
Gen. Yi Wunheui who found the French already in
possession of the fortress. The
Koreans were in force at Tong-jin just across the
estuary from Kangwha, and,
fearing that the vessels would attempt to ascend the
river, they sank loaded
junks in the channel. This channel must have been much
deeper than it is today.
[page 92]
The Regent swore that any man who should suggest peace
with the enemy should meet
with instant death. A letter was sent to the French
saying that the priests had
come in disguise and had taken Korean names and had
desired to lay their hands
on the wealth of the land. It declared that the priests
had been well killed.
In reply the French said they had come in the name of
Napoleon, Sovereign of
the Grand French Empire, who desired the safety of his
subjects, and that since
nine of his subjects had been killed, it must be
explained. They also demanded
the three ministers who had been foremost in the
persecution and in the killing
of the priests should be handed over to them and that a
plenipotentiary be
appointed for the ratifying of a treaty. To this letter
no answer was received.
Meanwhile
Gen. Yang Hon-su had led 5,000 men to the fortress of
Chong-jok on Kang-wha
where a celebrated monastery stands. These men were
mostly hardy mountaineers
and tiger-hunters from Kang-gye in the far north, the
descendants of those same
men who in the ancient days of Koguryu drove back an
army of Chinese 300,000
strong and destroyed all but 700 of them. This fortress
is admirably situated
for defense, lying as it does in a cup formed by a
semi-circle of mountains and
approachable from only one direction, where it is
guarded by a crenellated wall
and a heavy stone gate.
The
great mistake of the French was in supposing this place
could be stormed by a
paltry 160 men. The whole French force could not have
done it. No sooner had
this little band come well within range of the concealed
garrison than it was
met by a withering fire which instantly put half of them
hors de combat. After some attempts to
make a stand in the shelter
of trees, huts, rocks and other cover, a retreat was
called and the French
moved slowly back carrying their dead and wounded. They
were closely pursued
and with difficulty made their way back to the main
body. The result would
probably have been much more serious had not the
retreating party been met by a
body of reinforcements from the main body. The next day
orders were given to
fire the town and re-embark. This caused great surprise
and dissatisfaction
among the men, but we incline to the belief that [page 93]
it
was the only thing to do. The number of men that had
been mustered to effect the humiliation of Korea was
ridiculously small compared
with what was necessary. Six thousand French might have
done it, but six
hundred — never. We need seek no further than this for
the cause of the
abandonment of the enterprise. To be sure, it had done
infinitely more harm
than good, and if it had been possible to succeed even
at a heavy cost of life
it would have been better to go on; but it was not
possible.
The
effect of this retreat upon the Regent and the court may
be imagined. Peking
had fallen before these “barbarians” but the
tiger-hunters of the north had
driven them away in confusion. If the reader will try to
view this event from
the ill-informed standpoint of the Korean court, he will
see at once that their
exultation was quite reasonable and natural. The last
argument against a
sweeping persecution of Christians was now removed and
new and powerful
arguments in favor of it were added. The fiat went forth
that the plague of the
foreign religion should be swept from the land. No
quarter was to be given.
Neither age nor sex nor quality were to weigh in the
balance. From that time
till 1870 the persecution was destined to rage with
unabated fury and the
French estimated the number killed at 8,000. The
hardships and sufferings of
this time are second to none in the history of religious
persecutions. Hundreds
fled to the mountains and there starved or froze to
death. The tales of that
terrible time remind one of the persecutions under the
Roman Emperors or the no
less terrible scenes of the Spanish Inquisition.
But
to return to 1866. There were other events of interest
transpiring. The pet
scheme of the Regent to build his son a new palace was
being worked out. The
palace was in process of erection, when suddenly the
funds gave out. Here the
Regent committed his next great blunder. This time it
was in the realm of
finance. He entertained the fallacy that he could meet a
deficit by coining
money. Of course the only way to meet a deficit in this
way was to debase the
currency. He did it on a grand scale when he once
determined upon it, for
whereas the people had from time immemorial used a
one-cash piece, he began to
mint a hundred-cash piece [page 94]
which was actually less than fifty cash in weight. One
of these was given as a
day’s wage to each of the workmen on the palace. This
coin bore on its face the
legend “The great Finance Hundred Cash Piece,” but it
proved to be very small
finance indeed, for of course its issue was immediately
followed by an enormous
rise in the price of all commodities, and rice went up
two hundred per cent.
The government was thus plunged deeper in the mire than
ever; but the Regent
had set his will on this thing and was determined to
carry it through at any
cost. His next move, taken in the following year, was to
bring in old,
discarded, Chinese cash literally by the cart-load,
across the border. This he
had bought in China at auction prices and forced on the
people as legal tender.
At the same time he forced the people to work in gangs
of 300 at a time on the
palace without pay. In this way the work was finished,
but it is safe to say
that to this day the country has not recovered from the
effects of that mad
financiering. Wealthy citizens were called upon to make
donations to the
building fund, and this gained the soubriquet of “The
Free-will Offering.”
The
year 1868, which meant so much for
Japan, was not otherwise signalised in Korea than by a
demand on the part of
Russia that Korean refugees beyond the border be
recalled. It also beheld the
publication of the work “The Six Departments and their
Duties.” In September alone
2,000 Christians were killed, five hundred of them being
residents of Seoul.
The
United States had not forgotten the fate of the “General
Sherman.” She had no
intention of letting the matter drop. In the early
spring of 1871 minister
Frederick F. Low, at Peking, received instructions from
his government to go in
company with Rear admiral Rudgers to the shores of Korea
and attempt to
conclude a treaty relative to the treatment of American
seamen who might be
cast upon the shores of that country. He was also
instructed to try to make a
trade convention with Korea looking toward the opening
of Korea to foreign
commerce. The fleet consisted of the war vessels Colorado, Alaska, Bernicia, Monocacy and Palos, These vessels rendezvoused at
Nagasaki and on May sixteenth
they set sail for Korea. Minister Low’s correspondence
with his [page
95] government
shows that he had accurately gauged the probabilities of
the situation. A long
acquaintance with the Korean could not have rendered his
diagnosis of the case
more accurate than it was. From the very first he
considered it to be a
hopeless case, and he was right. But this in no way
lessened the care he
exercised in doing everything in his power to render the
expedition a success.
After fourteen days of struggle against dense fogs,
tortuous channels and swift
tidal currents the fleet dropped anchor off the islands
known as the Ferrierre
group, not far from Eugénie Island. This was on May
30th. They had not been
there long before they were boarded by some small
officials with whom Minister
Low was of course unable to treat, but through them he
sent a friendly message
to Seoul asking that an official of equal rank with the
American envoy be sent
to confer with him on important matters. The Koreans had
already received through
the Chinese an intimation of what the Americans desired
but they argued that as
their policy of carrying ship-wrecked mariners safely
across the border was
well known abroad and as they did not care to open up
relations with other
countries, there was no call to send an envoy to treat
with the Americans. The
Regent shrewdly, though mistakenly, suspected that the
“General Sherman” affair
was at the bottom of this, as the death of the French
priests had been the
cause of the French expedition and he decided to
garrison Kang-wha and deal
with the Americans as he had with the French. Gen.
OYo-jun was sent with 3.000
troops to Kwang Fort on the island of Kang-wha. A part
of this force was
stationed as garrison at Tokchin, a little fort at the
narrowest part of the
estuary between Kang-wha and the mainland, where the
tide runs through with
tremendous force and a dangerous reef adds to the
difficulty of navigation.
Thus
it was that when the Monocacy and Palos steamed
slowly up the channel on a
tour of inspection they were fired upon by the guns of
this little fort. No
special damage was done, and as soon as the gunboats
could be gotten ready to
reply to this unexpected assault they opened fire upon
the little fort and
speedily drove its garrison out. The Koreans supposed
these gunboats were
approaching for the purpose of assault. Indeed, as no
intimation had been given
the Korean government [page 96]
that such a reconnoitering expedition was planned, and
as this narrow passage
was considered the main gateway of approach to the
capital, the Koreans argued
strictly from the book and the American contention that
the attack was
unprovoked was groundless, for to Korean eyes the very
approach to this
stronghold was abundant provocation.
When the fort had been
silenced, the two gunboats steamed back to the main
anchorage and reported. It
was instantly decided that an apology must be
forthcoming from the government,
but as none came, retaliation was the only thing left to
vindicate the wounded
honor of the United States. A strong force was
despatched, which, under cover
of the ship’s guns was landed near the fort, and after a
hard hand to hand
struggle in which every man of the garrison was killed
at his post the place
was taken. Thus was the tarnished honor of the Great
Republic restored to its
former brightness. But mark the sequel. The Admiral
plainly was entirely
unequal to the task of pushing the matter to the gates
of Seoul, and so he
withdrew and sailed away to China exactly as the French
had done. The great mistake
in this lay in ignorance of the Korean character. The
government cared little
for the loss of a few earth-works on Kang-wha. In fact,
even if the Americans
had overrun and ravaged half the peninsula and yet had
not unseated the king in
his capital or endangered his person, their departure
would have left the
Koreans in the firm belief that the foreigners had been
whipped. In the last
decade of the twelfth century the Japanese overran the
country, forced the King
to flee to the very banks of the Yalu, killed hundreds
of thousands of the
people and for seven years waged equal war in the
peninsula, and yet when
Hideyoslii died and his troops were recalled Korea
claimed that the Japanese
had been defeated; and it was true. The approach of
United States gunboats up
to the very walls of the “Gibraltar” of Korea was
nothing less than a
declaration of war, and the paltry loss of the little
garrison was a cheap
price to pay for their ultimate triumph in seeing the
American ships “hull down”
in the Yellow sea.
When
this glad news was published in Seoul the already
plethoric pride of the Regent
swelled to bursting. Another briliant victory had been
scored.
THE KOREA
REVIEW
MARCH, 1904.
The
Russo-Japanese War.
As can be seen
at a glance, it will be some time before there can be a
general engagement
between the Russian and Japanese forces. The question is
now being eagerly
asked what tactics the Russians will pursue. Will they
come forward and
stubbornly contest every foot of ground beyond the Yalu
or will they mass their
forces at some strategic point and risk their whole
cause upon a single great
battle? It is the opinion of some that they will try to
draw the Japanese
further and further north as they did the French in
Napoleon’s time, but this
is hardly credible, for even the novice in war will see
that the Japanese will
reconstruct the railway in their rear and so be able to
withdraw at any time.
And in addition to this, the Russians have no great
towns and cities to retire
to, as they had in Europe. It would even be worse for
them than for the
Japanese.
The
last month has given some evidence of their intentions.
We hear that they are
throwing up strong redoubts at Andong, just across the
Yalu, and it seems more
than likely that they will try to defend that line. The
few bands of Russian
horsemen that are this side the Yalu amount to little;
in fact they aid the
Japanese cause, for they commit excesses which
exasperate the Koreans and are
making them rise in defense of their homes. .News came
from the north lately
that a hundred or more Russians entered the far northern
town of Kang-gei [page
98]
and took people’s grain and other food and offered
insults to the women of the
town. The prefect called together a strong force of
tiger-hunters, who form a
regular guild throughout the north, and set upon the
Russians and inflicted
severe injuries. We do not yet know which side suffered
the more but it seems
that the Koreans drove the obnoxious intruders across
the Yalu. News of such
things enrages the Koreans all over the country and the
officers in the army
are asking that they be sent to aid the Japanese. One
difficulty that the
Russian meets in the north of Korea is that he has no
money excepting Russian
paper roubles with which to pay for provisions. These
notes are quite useless
to the Koreans and therefore the Russians can live only
by bringing all their
supplies or by stealing from the people. Now that the
Korean government has
made an alliance with Japan, the Russians doubtless feel
at liberty to treat
Korean territory as hostile ground, and levy whatever
supplies they may want.
If food was all they extorted it might fall within the
limits of civilized
warfare, but they take other liberties which are
entirely outside the pale of
modern military methods.
Meanwhile,
the Japanese are moving steadily northward and in a
short time will have the
Russians all the other side of the Yalu, That the
Japanese recognize the
seriousness of the situation and the probability of a
long and exhausting war,
is seen in the fact that they have already begun the
building of a railway from
Seoul to the Yalu River. At the same time the road from
Fusan up to Seoul is
being pushed to completion and when the two are finished
there will be a
continuous line from Fusan to the northern boundary of
Korea. This road will
serve a double purpose, for besides supplying a ready
means of transport for
troops, it will be still more useful as a means for
carrying Korean food stuffs
from the southern districts, the “garden of Korea,” to
the north, where the
Japanese army is at work.
The
past few weeks have witnessed the last dying flurry of
the “peddlar’s” guild.
This was once a simple mercantile society composed of
travelling merchants or [page
99] peddlars,
but they disbanded long ago and in their place there
arose a so-called peddlar’s
guild which was in truth a gang of desperadoes who under
cover of the name “private
police” were prepared to do any dirty work that
unscrupulous officials in high
places saw fit to give them. They have been the most
dangerous element in Seoul
all these weeks, and the only anxiety of the foreigners
in Seoul was lest this
gang of hoodlums should break out in some manner before
the arrival of Japanese
troops. Now that the Japanese are in power here they
have caused a royal edict
to be promulgated doing away with the Peddlar’s Guild.
This naturally was not
pleasant to the peddlars and they began plotting against
the officials who had
injured them. A few weeks ago a man armed with a sword
climbed the wall of the
Foreign Minister’s house and searched the place, but as
the Minister was
fortunately spending the night elsewhere the assassin
could not find him.
Enraged at his failure, the felon struck the door-sill
of the Minister’s
private room a vicious blow with his sword and then
decamped. The same night
three other houses were attacked with explosive bombs
but the material with
which they were charged was of such poor quality that
they could do little
damage. Since that time it has been found out that the
ring-leaders in these
cowardly assaults were officials who lately held high
power on the Russian side
of the fence and at the present moment these men are
being sought for and
arrested as rapidly as possible. It is certain that when
the Russians were
influential in Seoul they used the very worst elements
in the government and
among the people to effect their ends. The real head of
this “Peddlar’s Guild’’
was an official high in the favor of the Russians.
Nothing
could exceed the moderation and good sense of the
Japanese in handling the
delicate question of nominal Korean independence and
virtual Japanese
domination in Korea. We believe that Japan fully intends
to preserve the
independence of the country but at the present crisis it
is manifestly
impossible to let the Koreans do just as they please;
nor would it be for their
[page
l00]
own best interests. Many people have predicted that the
Japanese would secure
the decapitation, or at least the execution, of the
leading pro-Russian
officials in the Korean government; but so far from
this, the Japanese have
taken one of them, and the leading one, in safety to
Japan lest Korean people
should fall upon him and tear him to pieces as they
would have been glad to do.
It is a wise policy of conciliation that the Japanese
have adopted and not one
of spite or revenge, and they will gain by it in the
end. Just now the Koreans
are complaining that the Japanese do not kill the
pro-Russian officials, but
they will come to see that it is better to make a friend
of an enemy than to
kill him. Many of these pro-Russians honestly believed
that they were working
in the interests of the country and all they need is to
have their eyes opened
to the truth. This is what is happening now and it is
safe to say that most of
them are converted already.
Since
the above was written we learn that the Korean
tiger-hunters in the north are
taking things into their own hands. Most foreigners
imagine that the Koreans
are a mild people who have no fight in them, but if so
they have either never
heard or have forgotten how these hunters stood their
ground against the French
on the island of Kang-wha in 1866 and against the
Americans in 1871. They
fought with conspicuous bravery and in the fight with
the Americans they stood
their ground until every one of them was killed. The
reports that are coming
from the north at the present time show that these
hunters have lost none of
their old-time prowess, and though poorly armed and
without anything that could
be called proper military training they are attacking
the Russians wherever
they can get at them on Korean soil.
In
the town of Yung-byun a band of Russian cavalry attacked
and seized the Korean
telegraph office, but the Korean hunters rallied and
surrounded the Russians,
and in the fight that followed they drove the intruders
out, although the
Koreans suffered heavier losses than the Russians. This
was doubtless due to
the [page
101] fact
that the Russians are so much better armed than the
Koreans.
The
coming of Marquis Ito to Korea as a special Envoy from
Tokyo is the most
important subject of conversation at present. His
mission is ostensibly a
merely complimentary one but it is as clear to the
Koreans as to the foreigners
that there underlies it a very important move on the
part of the Japanese. The
Koreans are to be congratulated on the coming of a man
so eminently fitted, in
every way, to help the Korean government over this
crisis. The Marquis is a man
who has been intimatety connected with the whole process
of Japan’s national
regeneration and his wide experience, his advanced age,
his wise conservatism
and his conciliatory tendencies make it almost sure that
the Korean people of
every class will welcome him here.
It
may be that Marquis Ito will not stay here but that
Count Aoki will come to aid
the Korean Government during these transition days. Some
such statement is
abroad. We wish the Marquis might stay but in Count Aoki
Korea will have an
adviser thoroughly capable of handling the situation.
The
impossibility of foretelling anything with accuracy is
illustrated by the fact
that, even as we write this, news comes that the
Russians have crossed the Yalu
in force and occupied the Korean port of Yongampo.
Whether this is true or not
it is too early to say, but it is not at all improbable.
It looks as if the Japanese
were waiting till all Korean territory as far as the
Yalu is cleared of
Russians before throwing in their main force, which
would land at this same
port of Yongampo, thus saving a long and costly march
over-land. This the
Russians seem to have foreseen, and they apparentlywish
to stop it if possible
by the occupation of Yongampo. How they can hope to hold
it against a combined
attack by land and sea on the part of the Japanese does
not appear and time
alone will tell.
The
foreign war correspondents seem to be having a hard
time, or at least a slow
time, securing their credentials from the Japanese
authorities to proceed to
the front. [page 102]
It seems likely that they will be provided with their
papers only when the time
comes to send the main body of Japanese troops to the
scene of war. As yet only
a few Japanese, comparatively, have come to occupy Korea
and prepare the way
for the coming of the main army. The permits have not
yet been issued to the
war correspondents, but they are so eager to get to the
front that they have, a
few of them, gone north hoping that their papers will
follow them. As the
Japanese have control of all the telegraph lines in
Korea it will be hard to
get news out of the north except such as the Japanese
authorities wish should
come. We imagine that it would be very wise to consult
the wishes of the
Japanese so far as possible, for it is sure that if
information detrimental to
the interests of the Japanese transpires, those
responsible for it will have
small chance of success at the front when the real
fighting begins.
There
was a busy scene about the hotels when these
correspondents were bidding on
horses and other necessary things for their trips to the
north. Horseflesh
naturally soared in price until it nearly got out of
sight of even the
plethoric purses of the representatives of the
journalist magnates. One
correspondent was offered a beast at the fancy figure of
Yen 400. Another
found, when he had secured his mount, that it was
unfortunately blind in both
eyes. Japanese who could speak a smattering of English
and who had considered
themselves happy at a salary of twenty yen a month held
themselves cheap at a
hundred yen, and one interpreter secured a position at
two hundred. But then,
one naturally wants a little more if he is expected to
stand and watch a fight
without being able to take a hand in it.
As
the month of March draws to a close, we see that there
has been some little
development in the war situation. The number of Japanese
troops in the
peninsula has not yet materially increased but the
Korean territory is
gradually being cleared of Russians troops, except along
the Yalu. Just how
many there are in that vicinity it is impossible to
tell, but there may be
three or four thousand. There is no evidence as yet that
they intend [page
103] to
attempt to hold any of the Korean soil against the
Japanese. If there had been
any large number of Russians this side of the Yalu we
would surely have heard
of it. It is not certain as yet even that they intend to
try to prevent the
Japanese crossing that historic stream. If, as has been
intimated, the Russians
are massing at Harbin, it is more than likely that the
Japanese will have to
penetrate Manchurian territory some distance before
touching any real army. At
this stage of the game it is useless to attempt any
surmise as to what will
happen. If authentic information should come that large
detachments of Russians
were approaching the Korean border by different roads it
would then be time to
predict that the Japanese will have to fight soon, but
at the present moment no
forecast can be made. Of course, we catch at every straw
of evidence which
would help to decide this important question. A few days
ago the rumor
prevailed that a prominent Russian has said that the
Japanese would be crushed
within four months. This may be true, but if the boast
that Port Arthur was
impregnable be taken as a criterion it will be well to
add a few months to this
estimate, or even to substitute the word Russian for
Japanese.
The Royal
Funeral.
Meanwhile
Seoul has been entertained with a royal pageant. The
funeral of the late Queen
Dowager was a very spectacular event. She was the queen
of King Honjong who
reigned from 1835 to 1850. She was married in 1844 at
the age of thirteen and
was left a widow at the age of eighteen.
We
have given a sketch of her life in a former issue of
this magazine, but we will
try to give a brief account of the funeral pageant.
According to the usual
custom, this funeral would not have come for two months
yet, but for reasons of
state it was thrown forward and occurred on March 14.
Royal funerals always
take place early in the morning, sometimes before light.
It was still dark when
the main part of the procession took their places along
the wide street which
runs through the center of the city, but they [page 104]
had to wait some hours before the final ceremonies at
the palace were completed and the royal catafalque was
borne out to take its
place in the long line.
All
night long the streets were made picturesque with
flaring lanterns, hurrying
messengers, impatient horses in gay trappings, groups of
soldiers and grooms
warming their hands by little fires built along the
sides of the great street
and by companies of guild-men bringing out their
streaming banners and getting
in place for the march in the morning. And around and
among it all poured a
constant stream of white-clad Koreans of every class, to
whom this was a
festive rather than mournful occasion.
The Queen Dowager’s tomb is
on a beautiful hill-side about ten miles outside the
East Gate, near the spot
where, as a young widow, she saw her husband buried. The
road thither had been
specially prepared for the occasion and it offered a
wide and smooth avenue for
the impressive cortege that was soon to wind its slow
way to the Queen’s last
resting place. The procession was about two miles in
length, for it stretched
from the Big Bell, which has tolled the curfew for every
king of the dynasty,
to the Great East Gate. Down the center of the broad
street there was laid the
usual line of red earth which intimates that royalty
cannot tread the common
way but must have a new road to traverse. On either side
of the road, all the
way to the tomb, huge brush torches were placed at
intervals of eighty or a
hundred feet. These were a foot in diameter and about
eight feet high. When the
funeral starts on time and the procession goes out
before the light has come,
these huge flaming torches add just the necessary touch
of wierdness to the
impressive picture.
First
in the procession come the great embroidered banners of
the guilds, which make
one think of the guilds of medieval Europe. They
represent the industries in
silk, linen, shoes, paper, tobacco, silver, furniture,,
fruit, rice, fish,
furs, bronze, wedding outfits, cord, figured silk, and
the river towns of
Han-gang, Su-gang, No-dol, Kungduk-yi, Sam-ga, Yong-san,
Su-bing-go, Tuk-sum
and [page
105] Wang-sim-yi.
Each of these great banners, hanging from a cross-piece,
bears the name of the
guild that furnished it, and the guilds vie with each
other in making the
banners as conspicuous as possible.
Behind
the banners come gaily ornamented litters borne high on
the shoulders of four
men, and in the litters are placed the toilet articles
and other utensils of
the dead queen; such as mirrors, cosmetic dishes,
writing utensils, jade
ornaments and other jewelry. All these are to be
deposited in her grave. This
represents an ancient idea that the spirit of the dead
will use the utensils in
the other world.
Third
in the procession come some more four-man litters in
which are carried all the
diplomas and other written honors that the dead queen
received during her
life-time. What use they can be, it is hard to say; for
it is hardly to be
believed that the dead can use these as passports at the
gate of paradise. If
so a good many queer people have gotten in.
After
these come a crowd of small officials in chairs or on
horse-back. They are the
people who have charge of the mere manual part of the
funeral arrangements.
They are all dressed in deep mourning which consists of
linen roughly woven and
of the natural color, a very light brown.
A
body of Korean troops, about 200 in number, comes next.
They carry muskets with
fixed bayonets, but not reversed. These soldiers are
dressed in what is intended
as foreign uniform, but it is a rather queer imitation.
All the suits seem to
be made on a single pattern, whether the wearer be five
foot two or six foot
one. Perhaps it helps to give a semblance of uniformity
but it is sometimes
accomplished only with an inordinate exhibition of neck
and shank. In the old
days, say 1889, these soldiers, in their long flowing
skirts, with red sleeves,
looked far more imposing than they do in this painful
attempt at foreign
uniform. On each side of this body of troops walks a
line of lantern-bearers.
These are fortunately dressed in the old-time Korean
garb, with long skirts,
flowing sleeves and horse-hair plumed hats. The [page 106]
lanterns are simply oval iron frames two feet long by a
foot wide, over which blue and red silk gauze is draped.
The candle is attached
to the’ point where the iron ribs join and the whole is
carried by a long
wooden handle from the end of which the lantern hangs
like the lash of a whip.
The whole ensemble is remarkably picturesque to those
who have not seen it too
many times.
Then
come some forty or fifty banners inscribed, in Chinese
characters, with
eulogistic biographical notes on the dead queen.
Sometimes, in the case of an
exceptionally renowned man, the number of these
flattering banners runs up into
the hundreds. We now jump from the sublime to the
ridiculous, for these stately
banners are followed by four men of low birth who are
hidden under the ugliest
masks that human ingenuity could invent. The wildest
fancy can imagine nothing more
grotesque and hideous. We have here a manifestation of
one phase of the real
underlying religion of the Korean, stripped of all its
Confucian and Buddhistic
embellishments. These repulsive figures are intended to
scare away all
malignant spirits, who at such times make special
endeavors to play their
malicious pranks upon helpless humanity. The Korean has
his own peculiar brand
of devil, whose abilities along certain lines are so
great and along others so
circumscribed that it requires a careful study to really
place him.
But
even more interesting and striking are the six great
paper horses that are
trundled on carts behind these devil-scarers. The beasts
are cast in heroic
mould and are of various colors, gray, white and spotted
red. The carts are drawn
by means of ropes, and a dozen or more of the Seoul
shop-keepers supply the
tractive power. In some countries, among savage tribes,
a horse is killed at
the grave and its spirit follows the dead man to the
land of shades, where he
rides it as of yore; but in Korea they carry these paper
horses instead. It is
cheaper and satisfies the requirements as well. Besides,
it is more
spectacular, and that is a paramount consideration.
All
these things are the preliminaries, the grand overture.
[page
107] But
now comes the real thing. It is led off by the Grand
Marshal, an official of
the highest grade, who is master of ceremonies. He is
dressed in a well-fitting
foreign uniform and is mounted on a fine horse. His
appearance is tame compared
with the flaunting splendor of an official of his grade
in the olden times, but
with his large retinue of soldiers flanked with
lantern-bearers he is
sufficiently imposing. The curious mixture of modem and
medieval in this
procession adds an element of humor which was lacking in
the old-time pageant.
The Marshal is followed by
the great chair of state in which the queen was wont to
be carried in her
lifetime. It is draped in gaudy colored trappings and is
carried high on the
shoulders of thirty-two men. Behind it comes what is
called the “Small
Catafalque” or Soyu. The casket is not in it, but in the
Great Catafalque which
follows. It is a curious custom, that of always carrying
two of each royal
vehicle. Whenever the Emperor goes out, an empty litter
is carried in front and
the Emperor follows in another. To the foreigner it
looks as if there might be
fear of a possible break-down, but the Korean would be
horrified at such a
suggestion. As the smaller catafalque is almost the same
as the great one
except in size we will describe but one. The Great
Catafalque is formed of a
heavy frame-work carried on the shoulders of 108
bearers. Thick transverse
poles support the framework and stout padded ropes are
run fore and aft between
these poles so that the shoulders of the bearers shall
not be galled. On the
high frame-work is a structure like a little house ten
feet long six feet high
and five feet broad. The roof and sides of this little
pavilion are painted and
draped in the most highly colored paints and silks. All
the tints of the rainbow
compete for the supremacy in the war of colors. It is
open at the front and
rear, and the casket containing the remains of the queen
is drawn in by a large
number of men by means of ropes. When it had been
carefully deposited the
silken curtains which had been rolled up were let down
and a crowd of palace
women came to mourn for the last time beside the body of
the queen whom they
had served so [page 108]
many years. They stood behind the bier and wept volubly,
bending the body and
wiping their faces with their skirts. When this
lamentation was over the
catafalque was ready to proceed. Two men took their
stand on the platform, one
in front of the casket and one behind it. These were to
guide the bearers. The
one in front held a hand bell which he rung as a signal.
After
a good deal of running about and confusion the 108
bearers took their places
with the heavy padded cords over their shoulders and
with a rhythmic sort of
chant lifted the catafalque from the wooden horses on
which it rested and
slowly forged ahead. Four long ropes led forward from
the catafalque and two
others led back. These were held by some seventy men
each. Those in front were
supposed to help it forward and those behind to ease it
down a hill. As the
catafalque passed down the street it had on either side
a sort of screen or
curtain of black cloth behind which some women walked or
rode. This was perhaps
the most curious part of the whole procession from an
historical point of view.
It is well known that in ancient Korea two or more
people were buried alive
with the body of a king. We find it expressly stated in
the history of one of
the kings about twelve hundred years ago that he gave
specific directions to
omit this ceremony in connection with his funeral.
During a part at least of
the dynasty which existed in Korea between 918 and 1392
A. D. it was customary
to bury kings in vaults which had several apartments. In
one the body was
placed and in the others three or four persons
voluntarily took their place,
provided with a small amount of food. Then the whole
structure was covered deep
with earth and the buried persons died of starvation or
lack of air.
On
the platform in front of the casket stood a man in full
mourning dress, and
behind the casket, facing backwards, stood another. The
one in front held a
bell in his hand with which he enforced his commands to
the bearers. Beside him
was a great brush pen such as the Koreans use in
writing, but enlarged a
hundred fold. It was a bamboo pole on the end of which
was a huge [page
109] brush
and when the “driver” saw any man shirking his
work he would dip this brush in a bowl of paint and
touch the shoulder of the
miscreant with it. This would make it possible to single
him out for punishment
later. This man standing in front of the casket is the
chief of the carpenters
who have had the work of making the casket and other
paraphernalia of the
funeral. The man behind is the chief of the painters who
have decorated the
bier and the casket.
Immediately
behind the catafalque comes a crowd of soldiers in the
midst of whom rides the
Emperor, when he attends in person. And behind all comes
a mass of police and
various kinds of messengers, servants and hangers-on.
A New Book on
Korea.
Korea, by
Angus Hamilton, London, William Heinemann, 1904, pp.xiii
and 309. Illustrated.
We have
received this new volume on Korea and have read it with
great interest. Mr.
Hamilton, as correspondent of the Pall
Mall Gazette spent three or four months in Korea
during which time he
secured a considerable amount of information. The book
is printed on extremely
fine and heavy paper and although much of the type used
was old and broken the
general get up of the work is good. Mr. Hamilton excels
in descriptions of
scenery, and the accounts of travel in the country are
admirable. He has been
able to catch the spirit of the occasion in a most happy
manner and we consider
this to be the best thing in that line that has yet
appeared. But speaking of
the Korean archipelago which he passed through on the
regular steamers he says.
The
coral beds display many violent tints and delicate
shades forming in their
beautiful colorings a sea garden of matchless splendor.
Many varieties of
cactus grow side by side with curious ferns, palms and
creepers. In passing
from group to group shoals of whales are to be seen
blowing columns of spray
aloft or sleeping idly on the surface.
[page 110]
With all regard for Mr. Hamilton’s correct intentions we
must still be left to
wonder where these coral beds form a sea garden of
matchless splendor. His
description is that of some tropic island, for it is
quite sure that Korea
produces neither cacti nor palms. The writer was
peculiarly fortunate in
getting such a good view of the whales, for in twenty
voyages or more between
Chemulpo and Fusan we have never been able to see one,
and it is difficult to
realize how whales can haunt the tide-swept estuaries of
the southern coast. We
had supposed that the whales were found mostly off the
eastern coast.
The
writer however, had a correct eye for natural beauty and
in his description of
inland scenery he is specially felicitous. For this,
reason it is much to be
regretted that the book should be marred by an
occasional sentence like the
following :
From
Pak-tu-san to Wiju there is one mighty and natural
panorama of mountains with
snow-clad cloud-wrapped summits, and beautiful valleys
with rich crops and
quaintly placed, low-thatched houses, through which
rivers course like angry
silver.
We
may safely say that this happens only when the rivers
are swollen with the
summer rains and is not a permanent phenomenon. On
another page he speaks of
practically this same region in the following terms :
Cut
off from the eastern division of the Kingdom by ranges
of mountains and
extending from near Chinnampo to the northern frontiers
of the Kingdom, is a
stretch of country, partly inhabited. It is frequented
by bands of Korean
robbers and Chinese bandits — the haunt of the wild
beast, barren and almost
impenetrable. It is almost untouched by western
civilization. Its groves of
pines and firs recall the time when Korea was one vast
forest. The soil is
productive and the time is ripe, &c., &c.
This
leaves us in grave doubt as to the author’s meaning. It
is a land of beautiful
valleys, rich crops, the haunt of the wild beast, barren
and almost
impenetrable and infested with Korean robbers and
Chinese bandits. No doubt all
these conditions prevail in different sections of the
north but unfortunately
the author has failed to segregate the favorable and the
unfavorable aspects of
the country.
[page 111]
He gives us a very fine description of Yongampo, and
what appears to be a
correct account of the methods by which it was taken and
held by the Russians.
We have seen nowhere else so vivid a description of the
monastery region of
Diamond Mountains. He gives us not so much a physical
description but
reproduces the feelings inspired by a visit to those
venerable institutions. We
may differ with him as to the statement that the pillars
upholding the temple
roofs are of teak wood, which must have come from
Singapore or that vicinity,
but we draw from his whole account the feeling of being
on the spot and sharing
the experience with him.
When
we turn to his account of actual conditions as
prevailing in Korea we see at
once that three or four months is not long enough to
make a correct estimate.
Speaking
of the opening of Korea and the attitude of China he
makes the following
statement :
It was in 1876
that Korea made her first modern treaty. It was not
until three years later that
any exchange of envoys took place between the
contracting party and herself.
Despite the treaty Korea showed no disposition to profit
by the existence of
the new relations until the opening of Chemulpo to trade
in 1883 revealed to
her the commercial advantages which she was now in a
position to enjoy. All
this time China had been in intercourse with foreigners.
Legations had been
established in her capital: consuls were in charge of
the open ports :
commercial treaties had been arranged. She was already
old and uncanny in the
wisdom which came to her by this dealing with the people
of Western nations.
But, in a spirit of perversity without parallel in
constitutional history,
China retired within herself to such a degree that
Japan, within one generation,
has advanced to the position of a great power, and even
Korea has become,
within twenty years, the superior of her former liege.
How
it happened that Japan’s advance was dependent upon
China’s retrogression and
in what genuine particulars Korea is the superior of
China the writer leaves
entirely to the imagination of the reader.
Mr.
Hamilton draws the most flattering picture of Korea’s
progress toward
enlightenment which we vainly wish was a true one. He
says :
In less than a
decade Korea has promoted works of an industrial and
humanitarian character
which China, at the present time, is bitterly opposing.
It is true that the
liberal tendencies of Korea have been [page
112]
stimulated by association with the Japanese. Without the
guiding hand of that energetic country the position
which she would enjoy today
is infinitely problematical. The contact has been wholly
beneficial.
We understand
by “infinitely problematical” that the author don’t
know. Compare this fulsome
praise of the Japanese and their influence upon Korea
with what the author says
on a subsequent page:
The extraneous
evidence of the power of the Japanese irritates the
Koreans, increasing the
unconquerable aversion which has inspired them against
the Japanese through
centuries, until, of the various races of foreigners in
Korea at the present,
none are so deservedly detested as those hailing from
the Island Empire of the
Mikado. Nor is this prejudice remarkable, when it is
considered that it is the
scum of the Japanese nation which has settled down upon
Korea. It is, perhaps,
surprising that the animus of the Koreans against the
Japanese has not died out
with time, but the fault lies entirely with the Japanese
themselves. Within
recent years so much has occurred to alter the position
of Japan and to flatter
the vanity of these island people that they have lost
their sense of
perspective. Puffed up with conceit, they now permit
themselves to commit
excesses of a most detestable character. Their
extravagant arrogance blinds
them to the absurdities and follies of their actions,
making manifest the fact
that their gloss of civilization is the merest veneer.
Their conduct in Korea
shows them to be destitute of moral and intellectual
fiber. They are debauched
in business and the prevalence of dishonorable practices
in public life makes
them indifferent to private virtue. Their interpretation
of the laws of their
settlements, as of their own country is corrupt. Might
is right; the sense of
power is tempered neither by reason, justice nor
generosity. Their existence
from day to day, their habits and manners, their
commercial and social
degradation, complete an abominable travesty of the
civilization which they
profess to have studied. It is intolerable that a
government aspiring to the
dignity of a first class power should allow its
settlements in a friendly and
foreign country to be a blot upon its own prestige and a
disgrace to the land
that harbors them.
And
yet he says distinctly that the contact has been wholly
beneficial! In view of
the publicity given to these strange and extravagant
statements we cannot pass
them by without a strong protest. It is the purpose of
this Review
to discuss everything bearing
upon Korea in a fair spirit and it would be unjust to
the public to allow such
preposterous charges to pass unchallenged. We do not
think that they are true.
We appeal to the whole foreign community who have spent
some years in [page
113]
Korea to say whether in this tirade the occasional illtreatment
of a Korean by a Japanese has not been made the ground
for a sweeping
condemnation of the whole Japanese community, a thing
which turns the writer’s
charge of unreason and injustice upon his own head. We
deny his charge that the
Japanese settlement is the curse of every treaty port in
Korea. We deny that
the modesty, cleanliness and politeness so
characteristic of the Japanese are
conspicuously absent in this country. We deny the
sweeping charge that the
Japanese merchant is a rowdy and that the Japanese
coolie is more prone to
steal than to work. In the same breath he says that
contact with the Japanese
has been only beneficial and that it has been a
disgrace. Both these statements
are gross exaggerations.
Speaking
of Chemulpo and its relative importance he remarks :
Chemulpo,
however, the center in which an important foreign
settlement and open port have
sprung up, does not suggest in itself the completeness
of the transformation
which in a few years has taken place in the capital. It
is twenty years since
Chemulpo was opened to foreign trade and to-day it
boasts a magnificent bund,
wide streets, imposing shops and a train service which
connects it with the
capital. The sky is threaded with a maze of telephone
and telegraph wires,
there are several hotels conducted on western principles
and there is also an
international club From small and uncertain beginnings
four well-built,
well-lighted settlements have sprung up expanding into a
general foreign, a
Japanese, a Chinese and a Korean quarter. The Japanese
section is the best
located and the most promising.
This
in spite of the fact that “the Japanese settlement is
the curse of every treaty
port in Korea.” What the writer means by saying that
Chemulpo does not suggest
in itself the completeness of the transformation which
in a few years has taken
place in Seoul becomes evident in his decription of
Seoul.
A few years
ago it was thought that the glory of the ancient city
had departed. Now,
however, the prospect is suggestive of prosperity ...so
quickly has the
population learned to appreciate the results of foreign
intercourse that, in a
few more years, it will be difficult to find in Seoul
any remaining link with
the capital of yore, . . . Improvements which have been
wrought also in the
conditions of the city— in its streets and houses, in
its sanitary measures and
in its methods of communication have replaced these
ancient customs. An
excellent and rapid train [page 114]
runs from Chemulpo and electric trains afford quick
transit within and beyond
the capital. Even electric lights illuminate by night
some parts of the chief
city of the Hermit Kingdom. Moreover an aqueduct is
mentioned; the police force
has been reorganized, drains have come and evil odors
have fled. . .Old Seoul
with its festering alleys, its winter accumulations of
every species of filth,
its plastering mud and penetrating foulness, has almost
entirely vanished from
within the walls of the capital. The streets are
magnificent, spacious, clean,
admirably made and well drained. The narrow, dirty lanes
have been widened,
gutters have been covered and roadways broadened, until,
with its trains, its
cars, its lights, its miles of telegraph lines, its
Railway Station Hotel,
brick houses and glass windows, Seoul is within
measurable distance of becoming
the highest, most interesting and cleanest city in the
east. It is still not
one whit Europeanized. for the picturesqueness of the
purely Korean principles
of architecture have been religiously maintained, and
are to be observed in all
future improvements.
Will
our friends of Chemulpo accept this as a valid reason
for granting that
Chemulpo does not suggest in itself the completeness of
the transformation that
has taken place in Seoul? But in the very next sentence
the author says:
The shops
still cling to the drains, the jewellers’ shops hang
over one of the main
sewers of the city, the cabinet makers occupy both sides
of an important
thoroughfare their precious furniture half in and half
out of filthy gutters.
It
is very difficult for anyone to write an interesting
book on Korea, from superficial
observation merely, without exaggeration. We read in
this book that there are
innumerable palaces in the city, that at all hours
processions of chairs are
seen making for the palace, that the pounding of clothes
with sticks is the
sole occupation of the women of the lower classes. He
gives us to understand
that the exposure of the breast is the rule with women
on the street but he
says it is not an agreeable spectacle as the women seen
abroad are usually aged
or infirm. The fact is that not one per cent of the
women on the street are
thus exposed. It is only the slave women and a few
others of which this can be
truly said, and these never wear the chang-ot
over the head so that his remark that “the effect of the
contrast between the
hidden face and the naked breast is exceptionally
ludicrous” is wholly
imaginary. We are told that “the girls of the poorer
orders are sold as
domestic slaves and become attached [page
115]
to the households of the upper classes.” It is very
uncommon for a parent to sell a daughter in this way.
One would think from the
text that it was the rule rather than the rare
exception.
The
author gives six pages of the book to the dancing girl,
ending with the
following, which will be a surprise to those who have
witnessed the inanity of
the Korean dance and the execrable shriek of the
accompanying native band :
The little
figures seemed unconscious of their art; the musicians
unconscious of the
qualities of their wailing. Nevertheless the masterly
restraint of the band,
the conception, skill and execution of the dancers made
up a triumph of
technique.
Many
foreigners who have listened to native music have
wondered how those men could
possibly endure the strident sounds they drew from their
crude instruments, but
if it is true that “they are unconscious of the quality
of their wailings” it
is all right. The riddle is solved.
The
next chapter is on the Korean Court but we must decline
to quote some things
that the writer says about the Emperor. The mere
quotation would be a discourtesy,
but we fancy that the gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps
will hardly agree that
the Emperor is “now almost a cypher in the management of
his Empire,” which is
one of the author’s milder statements. The chapter is a
curious mixture of fact
and fiction. On the whole the facts predominate though
the description and
history of Lady Om are given in the most “popular” modem
journalistic style.
A
bright spot in this book is the chapter devoted to a
sketch of J. McLeavy
Brown, C.M.G. LL.D.. and the question of the Customs.
Here the author was
exceptionally well informed and he pays a most graceful
and deserved tribute to
the man and the system which have played perhaps the
most important part in
contemporary Korean history. The chapter is well
written, thorough and
conclusive.
The
chapter on education, arts, punishments, marriage and
divorce, concubines,
children and government [page 116] contains
much that is true and interesting though the statements
that “the Mandarin
dialect of China is considered the language of polite
society” and “it is the
medium of official communication at Court” will be read
with a smile. The
Chinese character is the official medium for documents
and letters but the
Mandarin dialect is not spoken in Korea.
We
are told that the cause of the Japanese invasion of 1592
was that the King of
Korea refused to renew a former condition of vassalage.
No mention is made of
the desire of Hideyoshi to invade China. It was Korea’s
refusal to help Japan
invade China, or even to give the Japanese a free
passage through the peninsula
for that purpose that brought on the war. Korea was
never the vassal of Japan
so far as can be discovered in history.
We
must protest against the implication that the Japanese
government was directly
responsible for the death of the late Queen. That
implication is found in the
following words :
Before she
(Japan) had realized the potentialities of her position
she had committed
herself to a design by which she hoped to secure the
King and Queen and direct
herself the reins of Government; but her coup d’etat was
to recoil disastrously
on her own head The Queen fell a victim to the plot and
although the King was
imprisoned, he, together with the Crown Prince contrived
in a little time to
find refuge in the Russian Legation.
What
we object to in this is the claim that Japan formed and
carried out that plot,
rather than a few Japanese on their own initiative and
in defiance of what they
must have known their government would approve.
In
dealing with the religions of Korea the writer says that
Statements of
ancient Chinese and Japanese writers, and the early
Jesuit missionaries, tend
to prove that the worship of spririts and demons has
been the basis of national
belief since the earliest times. The god of the hills is
even now the most
popular deity. Worship of the spirits of heaven and
earth, of the invisible
powers of the air, of nature, of the morning star, of
the guardian genii of the
hills and rivers, and of the soil and grain, has been so
long practiced that,
in spite of the influences of Confucianism and the many
centuries in which
Buddhism has existed in the land, the actual worship of
the great mass of the
people has undergone little material alteration.
[page 117]
This, in the main, is quite true, for Confucianism is
merely a code of
etiquette and Buddhism has been rather assimilated by
the native demonolatry
than otherwise. For this reason we do not understand the
concluding sentence in
which he says that Korea must be classed among the
Buddhist countries of the
world.
Of
the native Korean servants he makes the following
remarks :
The Korean
does not approach the Chinaman as a body-servant; he has
neither initiative nor
the capacity for the work, while he combines
intemperance, immorality and
laziness in varying degrees. The Master usually ends by
waiting on his man.
There is, however, an antidote for this state of things.
If sufficient spirit
be put into the argument and the demonstration be
further enforced by an
occasional kick, as circumstances may require, it is
possible to convert a
first-class, sun-loving wastrel into a willing, if
unintelligent servant. Under
any circumstances his dishonesty will be incorrigible.
In
the concluding pages of the book he gives us an
illuminating account of how
this kicking argument worked in his own case. He says :
The day had
come at last, the horses were pawing in the courtyard.
My effects, my guns and
camp-bed, my tent and stoves, were picked and rolled.
The horses had been
loaded; the hotel account had been settled, when my
interpreter quietly told me
that my servants had struck for ten dollars Mexican
monthly increase in the
wages of each. I offered to compound with half : they
were obdurate. It seemed
to me that a crisis was impending. I was too tired and
cross to remonstrate. I
raised my offer to eight dollars; it was refused—the
servants were dismissed.
Uproar broke out in the court-yard which my host
pacified by inducing the boys
to accept my last offer — a raise of eight dollars, my
head servant, the
brother of my interpreter, repudiated the arrangement,
but the significance of
this increase had assumed great importance. It was
necessary to be firm.
Nothing more would be given. The interpreter approached
me to intimate that if
his brother did not go he also should stay behind. I
looked at him a moment, at
last understanding the plot, and struck him. He ran into
the court-yard and
yelled that he was dead — that he had been murdered. The
grooms gathered around
him with loud cries of sympathy. I strode into the
compound. The head groom
came up to me demanding an increase of thirty dollars
upon the terms he had
already accepted. I refused and thrashed him with my
whip. The end of my
journey had come with a vengeance. The head groom came
at me with a huge
boulder, and as I let out upon his temple the riot
began. My baggage was thrown
off the horses and stones flew through the air. I hit
and slashed at my
assailants and for a few minutes became the center of a
very nasty situation.
In the end my host cleared the court-yard and recovered
my kit, but I was cut a
[page
118]
little upon the head and my right hand showed a compound
fracture — native
heads are bad things to hammer. Postponement was now
more than ever essential,
my fears about my health were realized. By nightfall
signs of sickness had
developed, the pain had increased in my hand and arm, my
head was aching, my
throat was inflamed. I was advised to leave at once for
Japan; upon the next
day I sailed, etc , etc., etc.
In describing the necessary
outfit for travelling in Korea the author gives a
valuable list. Among other
things he says :
Fresh mint is
useful against fleas if thrown about near the sleeping
things in little heaps.
It is an invaluable remedy and usually effective though
by the way I found the
fleas and bugs in the houses of New York and
Philadelphia infinitely less
amenable to such treatment than any I came across in
Korea.
The
author evidently went to New York by way of Ellis
Island; and, so far as we are
aware, no mint is cultivated there for the use of
immigrants.
This
volume is made up, apparently, of a series of articles
written at different
times and under different conditions and one article
contradicts another in
such an amusing way that it is impossible to get at the
facts of the case. In
different parts of the book he speaks in almost
diametrically opposite terms of
the Japanese, the missionaries, the king, the
government, the topography of the
country. The best picture in the book is that of a
Russian riding a reindeer
somewhere north of the Amur River, but there are a
number of other good
pictures, especially the one of the raft on the Yalu
River.
A. B.
Stripling, Esq.
It was on
Monday March 21st that the foreign community of Seoul
was summoned to attend
the funeral of one of the oldest foreign residents of
Seoul, in the person of
Mr. Stripling. The very great measure of respect in
which he was held was
evinced by the large number of friends and acquaintances
who gathered to pay
their last sad offices to the dead. The prominent [page 119]
part which he played in Korean affairs demands more than
a passing notice.
It
was some forty years ago that he first came to the Far
East as a young man. For
some years he held an important post on the Shanghai
police force. He
afterwards held the position as Chief of the Shanghai
Water Police and he was
well known among all classes in that city for his
absolute fearlessness. He was
a man of powerful build and an expert swordsman.
It
was in June 1883 that he came to Korea under Herr von
Mollendorf as
Commissioner of Customs at Chemulpo, a post which he
filled until the
retirement of von Mollendorff from the post of Chief
Commissioner in 1885.
He
then spent some time travelling in the interior
prospecting for gold and other
minerals; it is believed by some that he was the one who
first discovered the
gold deposit at Eunsan which an English syndicate are
now working.
After
the Japan-China War Mr. Stripling was appointed Adviser
to the Police
Department in Seoul, a post which he filled most
acceptably for some time. But
he found it impossible to get his ideas carried out in
connection with the
prisons and jails and consequently he resigned and
retired to private life.
Some
three or four years ago both his eyes were afflicted
with cataract and he went
to England to have an operation performed. This was
partially successful and
became back to Korea with one eye fairly restored. For
the past year or two his
health had been gradually giving way. A shock of
paralysis did much to hasten
the end and he passed away on the 19th of March.
He
was a man of noble nature and generous instincts, of
broad education and great
literary taste. Even those who knew him best were aware
of comparatively only a
small part of the kindly acts which he performed among
the Koreans. He used to
buy medicines in large quantities and give them to needy
Koreans without
charge. One of those who knew him best says of him that
“His kindness of heart
has rarely been surpassed. He was [page
120]
absolutely unselfish and always gave a large part of his
income to needy friends and even to strangers.”
No
one could come in contact with him even incidentally and
for a short time
without discovering the intrinsic warmth of his nature.
And those who knew him
best are loudest in their praise of him.
Rev.
A. B. Turner read the burial service at the residence of
the deceased after
which the body was taken to the foreign cemetery at
Yang-wha-chin for
interment.
News Calendar.
Ch’oe Sok-cho
has been appointed Director of the Imperial Mint in
place of Yi Yong-ik.
The following
are the terms of the Protocol signed by Japan and Korea
about the end of
February last.
Mr. Hayashi
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His
Majesty the Emperor of
Japan and Major-General Ye Chi-yong Minister of State
for Foreign Affairs ad
interim of His Majesty the Emperor of Korea being
respectively duly empowered
for the purpose have agreed upon the following Articles
:
Article I. For
the purpose of maintaining a permanent and solid
friendship between Japan and
Korea and firmly establishing peace in the Far East, the
Imperial Government of
Korea shall place full confidence in the Imperial
Government of Japan and adopt
the advice of the latter in regard to improvement in
administration. Article
II. The Imperial Government of Japan shall in a spirit
of firm friendship
ensure the safety and repose of the Imperial House of
Korea. Article III. The
Imperial Government of Japan definitely guarantees the
independence and
territorial integrity of the Korean Empire. Article IV.
In case the welfare of
the Imperial House of Korea or the territorial integrity
of Korea is endangered
by agression on the part of a third Power or by internal
disturbances the
Imperial Government of Japan shall immediately take such
necessary measures as
circumstances require, and in such case the Imperial
Government of Korea shall
lend its efforts to facilitate the action of the
Imperial Japanese Government.
The Imperial
Government of Japan may for the attainment of the above
mentioned object,
occupy when the circumstances require it, such places as
may be necessary from
strategic points of view.
[page
121]
Article V. The Governments of the two countries shall
not in future without
mutual consent conclude with a third Power such an
arrangement as may be
contrary to the spirit of the present Protocol.
Article VI.
Details in connection with the present Protocol shall be
arranged as the
circumstances may require between the Representative of
Japan and the Minister
of State for Foreign Affairs of Korea.
Late in
February the Home Office sent a Korean to the north to
report on the movements
of the Japanese.
On 22nd of
February the Korean Government threw open the border
town of VViju to foreign
trade.
Pak Chung-yang
was appointed Minister of Finance on Feb. 24.
The Korean
authorities at Pyeng-yang wired on the 23rd of Feb. that
2,000 Russian soldiers
had arrived at Kasan, 400 at Pak-chun, and that 50 were
on the way toward
Pyeng-yang from Ch-ing-ju. On the 24th they wired that
Japanese soldiers
arrived at Pyeng-yang and were guarding the gates. Many
officials in the towns
along the line deserted their posts and came up to
Seoul.
Min Pyung-sak
was appointed Household Minister on Feb. 29.
At the
beginning of March reports from the north indicated that
there were fifty
Russians at Anju, 1,400 at Chung-ju and 500 at Kasan.
On Feb. 28 a
squad of Russian cavalry appeared near the Chil-sung
Gate on the north side of
Pyeng-yang. They were promptly fired upon by the
Japanese guards at the gate.
The range was about 700 yards. No great damage was done.
The Russians returned
the fire but soon withdrew carrying away, it is said,
one wounded man.
It was on the
same day that His Majesty gave Y 100,000, the Crown
Prince Y50,000, and Prince
Yung-chin Y30,000, to the Japanese as a present for the
soldiers.
About March
1st Yi Pom-chin the Korean Minister to Russia was
ordered by his government to
leave St. Petersburg. He went to Paris.
The Japanese
are paying the Korean government Y 5,000 a month as
charter money for the
Korean man-of-war Yang-mu-ko.
The
Superintendent of Trade at Chemulpo reported on Mar. 1st
that 28,000 Japanese
troops had landed at that port up to date.
There has been
a great reform in the promptness with which officials go
to their offices. Of
late, the ministers have fallen into the habit of
attending to business at
half-past twelve or one o’clock instead of at ten. Now
they attend on schedule
time and this forces all the lesser officials to do
likewise.
The Japanese
made a sort of bridge across the ice at Pyengyang.
On Mar. 1st
news came that Japanese were buying much property on
Ko-je Island in the mouth
of Masanpo harbor and preparing to build fortifications.
The privilege
of memorializing the Throne has been extended to all
officials of any grade
instead of being confined to those of high grade only.
[page
122]
It was on March 1st that the unsuccessful attempt was
made by an assassin on
the life of Yi Chi-yong the Foreign Minister. This we
have described elsewhere.
The same night several other houses were attacked with
bombs but without
success.
On March 4th
by Royal edict the organization known as the “Peddlars
Guild” was once, and
forever, it is hoped, done away with. The edict applied
to the whole country.
The taxes from
mining franchises, butchers and crown lands have been
again put into the hands
of the Agricultural Department. The Household, under Yi
Yong-ik, had long held
them.
On March 5th
the Japanese Minister advised the Korean Government to
arrest and try Kil
Yung-su, Choe Nak-chu, Yi Kyu-hang and Yi Chai-wha. Some
of them were arrested
but the chief rascal, Kil Yung-su, “hid somewhere” as
the Koreans say.
About March
6th the convalescent Russians in the hospital at
Chemulpo were taken to Japan.
Dr. O. R.
Avison has received from Nagasaki a supply of the virus
of rabies and is
prepared to treat a dozen or more patients by the
Pasteur treatment. The virus
will be good until about April l0th. It is his intention
to arrange for the
culture of the virus here so that people bitten by mad
dogs can be treated at
once. If there are any suspicious cases of dog bite it
would be well to consult
him at once.
Early in March
several hundred Russians are said to have appeared at
Kang-gye in the far north
and to have committed excesses there. The local soldiers
rose against them and
drove them out.
Yi To-ja
became Home Minister about the eighth inst.
The prefect of
Yong-chun reported on the eighth that 200 Russian troops
left Yongampo for the
Chinese side of the Yalu.
On the eighth
Min Yung-sun, the son of Min Yung-ik attempted to leave
Chemulpo by boat but
was stopped by the Japanese. It was suspected that he
was carrying messages to
Mr. Pavloff in Shanghai.
The British
gunboat Phoenix
went to Sung-jin early
in March and brought the British subjects from that
place to Wonsan.
Min Yong-whan
became Minister of Education on the 9th inst. Soon after
taking this position
he issued a statement bearing on this long neglected
department. Among other
things he said that government appointments should be
given only to graduates
of the government schools. And that graduates of other
schools should be
eligible to government positions upon examination. It
will have to be done
gradually but in three or four years this rule ought to
be in running order. He
advises that all children should attend the common
schools and, having
graduated, should attend the middle school and that a.
college or university
should be established for higher education.
Prince Yi
Cha-sun died on the 1st. So far as can be learned the
cause of death was
pneumonia but as he unfortunately did not have a foreign
physician this cannot
be verified. He was the great, great-grandson of Sa-do
Se-ja, the unhappy son
of King Yong-jong, 1724-1777, whom his father nailed up
in a box and starved to
death [page 123]
but who was raised posthumously to royal honors. It was
from the second son of
this prince that Yi Chi-sun was lineally descended. As
he was the fifth
generation of the collateral line he was not a prince in
his own right. That
title expires with the fourth generation as it did in
the case of the Tai Won-kun,
father of the present emperor. But Yi Chi-sun was
a prince because he became the adopted son of the elder
brother of the king who
preceded the present emperor. His official title was
Prince Ch’ung-an. He was
still in the prime of life, fifty-four years of age,
when he died. Very many of
the foreigners of Seoul will remember him as one of the
most affable Koreans
they ever met. Those who could not remember his Korean
name called him the Fat
Prince but without casting the least reflection upon him
as a genial and
courteous gentleman. We remember once when he was taking
tea at the Seoul Union
one of the little urchins who chase tennis balls
happened to pass. The boy had
a hare lip, and the Prince called him up, gave him some
money and told him to
go and have a foreign physician treat his lip. This
showed the kindliness of
his nature. He will long be remembered by those who knew
him, as a man who would
make friends wherever he went.
One of the
most brilliant social events that Seoul has ever
witnessed was the reception
given to Marquis Ito, the special envoy from Japan to
the Korean Emperor, at
his temporary residence in Seoul, on the evening of the
24th inst. A large
number of people were up from Chemulpo and it was quite
evident that Seoul had
turned out in force to grace this final reception to,
perhaps, the greatest
Japanese statesman, one who has been identified so
perfectly with the whole
process of Japan’s modern evolution that he may in a
sense be said to epitomize
it. We trust that the results of his visit to Korea may
be as lasting as they
are sure to be salutary.
The Japanese
Board of Trade in Fusan has petitioned the Japanese
Government and the Minister
in Seoul to secure the adoption of the following
measures :—
( 1 ) A
revision of the treaty between Korea and Japan.
(2) The
issuance of permanent deeds to real estate.
(3) The
management of the Imperial Customs by that power whose
trade interests are
largest in Korea.
(4) A reform
of the agricultural methods in Korea.
(5) Permission
for foreigners to reside anywhere in the interior of
Korea.
(6) The
establishment of four or more Japanese agricultural
stations in each of the
thirteen provinces as object-lessons to the Koreans.
(7) Permission
for Japanese boats to visit and trade along the entire
coast of Korea.
(8) The
establishment of numerous branches of Japanese banks
throughout Korea.
(9) The
reorganization of the Korean monetary system so as to
effect an equilibrium in
exchange.
[page
124]
If we examine these nine articles carefully we will see
that it is impossible
to grant them under existing circumstances. The Japanese
ask for
extraterritorial rights without any provision being made
for their government.
It cannot be supposed that the Japanese or any other
foreigner would be willing
to submit to Korean rule, and yet, under any other
conditions, it would be
impossible to grant extraterritorial rights. A foreigner
in the far interior of
Korea must be under some authority. The comparatively
few who travel on
passport cause little or no trouble, but if large
numbers of Japanese should
settle in the interior the government must pass into the
hands of the Japanese,
which would be a violation of the treaty and of the new
protocol. Perhaps it is
for this reason that the Fusan people ask that the
treaty be revised. This
desire on the part of the Japanese to spread out over
Korea generally seems to
us to be the most perplexing question before the
Japanese authorities. This
desire cannot be gratified, so far as we can see,
without seriously impairing
Korean sovereignty. The time may come when, under the
elevating influence of
education and careful guidance, the Korean government
will command such a
degree of respect that Japanese and other foreigners
will be willing to submit
to Korean jurisdiction, even as they have in Japan; but
that time is evidently
not yet.
The
meaning of the article dealing with the Imperial Customs
is quite evident. It
is a request that it be taken out of the hands of the
present Customs Service
and be put under Japanese control. It seems to us as if
this article were quite
enough to make the Japanese government ignore the entire
petition. If the
Customs Service were in native hands and were corrupt
and inefficient, or if it
were in hands inimical to Japanese interests, this
request would be
intelligible; but the Customs Service is one of the few
departments of Korean
administration that is practically beyond criticism both
in its personnel and
its workings. Moreover it is in the hands of Japan’s
friends. The wish to take
it over can be prompted neither by a desire for the
betterment of the service
nor the advantage of the Korean government but simply
for the sake of the
salaried positions it would give the Japanese. Our
surprise at this request
grows when we remember that the famous contest over the
Customs Service, which
occurred a few years ago and in which England scored a
conspicuous victory over
Russia, made the service of worldwide prominence; so
that any attempt by the
Japanese to tamper with it at such a time as this is
almost inconceivable. We
are positive that nothing can be further from the
intention of the Japanese
authorities and we can only wonder that any Japanese
subjects have the temerity
to suggest such an obvious absurdity. Our entire
confidence in the correct
intentions of the Japanese authorities is confirmed by
the news that we have
heard that the Foreign Office in Seoul has been advised
by the Japanese
Legation to pay no attention to any applications for
concessions on the part of
Japanese subjects or companies unless they are made
through the Japanese
authorities. We feel sure that the government of [page 125]
Japan will make it clear to its subjects that the
present conditions in Korea do not constitute an open
door whereby Japanese
subjects can overrun the country and exploit its
resources for their own
benefit, irrespective of the rights and interests of the
Korean government and
people. We are told that a large Japanese syndicate
offered ¥5,000,000 a year
with an immediate bonus of Y 1,000,000 for certain
monopolies; this is a
considerable amount of money, but when we note that the
permanent monopolies
asked for cover the best resources of the Korean
government we see that it
would be selling her birthright for a mesa of pottage
We
believe in Japanese influence in Korea for we believe it
will be rightly
exercised, on the whole. At the same time it is going to
de mand the best
statesmanship of which Japan is capable to hold in check
the impetuousness of
the acquisitive faculty in a certain class of Japanese.
We believe this will be
one of the most searching tests, if one were needed, to
prove the genuineness
of the claim, which Japan puts forth, to being an
enlightened as distinguished
from a merely civilized power. Of her ability to stand
this test we have no
doubt whatever.
Kim Ka-jin was
appointed Minister of Agriculture, Commerce and Public
works on March 9.
Yi Yong-jik
has been appointed governor of South Ch’ung-ch’ung
Province.
Since March 8
Japanese gendarmes have been stationed in various parts
of Seoul, notably
Chong-dong and Chong-no.
On the evening
of the 26th inst. Mr. Jack London gave a most
interesting reading from his own
works at the Y. M. C. A. building for the entertainment
of American and British
soldiers and a few other friends. We are promised a
public reading by this same
gifted author, at some not distant date, for the benefit
of the Y. M. C. A.
Notice will be given in due time.
The governor
of North Ham-gyong wired on the 7th of March that 2500
Russians had come to
Kyong-sung.
Beginning with
March 9 the Law Office began the active prosecution of a
large number of actual
and supposed offenders. Thirteen of the Koreans who had
been military students
in Japan were arraigned on the charge of having
conspired to overthrow the
Government. Three of them were decapitated in the prison
and ten were banished
for life except two who received a lighter sentence. The
Japanese, it is said,
interfered, or many more would have been executed. It is
said the charges were
proved conclusively.
There were
fifteen robbers in prison awaiting execution. Four of
them met their fate but
the other eleven broke jail and escaped. For this reason
two officials were
cashiered.
Beginning with
March 9 the Japanese began the construction of redoubts
on the island of Ko-je
near Masanpo.
On Mar. 7th a
Buddhist priest from the celebrated Sin-heung monastery
bought a bull-load of
wood but killed the driver threw his body into a ditch
and sold the bull. He
has been caught.
[page
126]
Yi Ching-ha has been made Governor of South Pyeng-an
Province.
Min Yung-geui
has been made Governor of North Pyeng-an Province
There is a
discount of 11 percent on the notes issued for use in
the Japanese army.
On March 2nd
assassins attempted to lay hands on the Foreign Minister
and three other
officials. Armed only with a sword. one of the rascals
climbed the wall of the
Foreign Minister’s compound and searched for him, but
without success. At the
same time the houses of three other officials were
partly wrecked by explosive
bombs. It is generally supposed that these acts were
committed by, or at least
at the instigation of ex-pedlars who had been rendered
desperate by the
overthrow of their hopes through the coming of the
Japanese. These acts have no
special political significance, nor do we think there
need be any uneasiness
for fear of their repetition.
Yun Chi-ho has
been made vice-minister of Foreign Affairs. This is a
very hopeful sign. It is
evident that a salutary change is gradually being made.
With Min Yong-whan, Kim
Ka-chin. Yi To-chai, Yun Pyung-yul, Sim Sang-hun and a
few more men of their
stamp in the foremost places there cannot but be a
change for the better in
political and social conditions throughout the country.
Col Nodzu, who
is so well and favorably known in foreign circles in
Seoul, has been appointed
adviser to the Korean War Department. His knowledge of
Koreans and of local
conditions generally will add much to the value of his
services. The
comparatively large sum that is spent upon the army
makes it specially
appropriate that a man of experience be employed to see
that the money so spent
brings the maximum returns to the government. What Korea
wants of a large army
it is hard to discover. If half the money devoted to the
army were spent on.
education we believe the net results would be far
greater. It is not an
encouraging sign that education is held in a sort of
contempt at the present
time This is because the government gives little
encouragement to the student.
For this reason the new Minister of Education has struck
the right note in
urging a plan whereby in a few years official positions
will open only to those
who have graduated from some reputable school.
Marquis Ito
has come and gone. It would be pleasant to describe all
the festivities that
accompanied his visit but these are not the Kernel of
the matter. The various
social functions must have bored him more or less but
they are unavoidable in
the case of a man of his standing. What interests us
most is the list of
twenty-eight suggestions which he made to His Majesty,
but the purport of which
has not transpired. We shall look eagerly for the real
fruits of this visit,
feeling that the advice of the Marquis, if followed,
must be of great value to
this people.
The
exaggerated accounts which circulated regarding the
accident which Mr. McKenzie
of the Daily Mail met in the north were fortunately
dispelled when that
gentleman returned from the north and reported [page 127]
that he only slipped on some stone stairs in Pyeng-yang
and suffered a slight sprain.
We learn that
M. Takaki, Ph. D., who recently went to Japan, has
resigned his position as
Manager of the Dai Ichi Ginko. The reason for this lay
in the fact that the
authorities of the Bank in Tokyo forbade the loaning of
money to merchants in
Korea. This singular action caused consternation among
mercantile circles here
and it was opposition to their policy that caused Dr.
Takaki’s resignation. We
have the best of reasons for believing that he will soon
be back in Seoul in a
position of equal or greater importance. His intimate
knowlege of monetary and
financial conditions in the peninsula will surely be
utilized in some important
post. We shall welcome him back with great pleasure.
The Wiju
Railway is definitely under way. This will become
evident if one goes to Yong
San and sees the great cutting that is being made there
to carry the line
through the hills westward. Work is going on briskly
each way from Song-do and
we expect to see the time soon when the wearisome
journey to Pyeng Yang will
become an easy six or seven hours run by rail.
Wiju and
Yongampo have both been opened at last. It was only the
stress of war that brought
this about. The Russian Minister succeeded, so long as
he was here, in blinding
the Government to its own best interests but now the
thing has been
accomplished, and with the opening of these ports of
course the Russian Timber
Concession falls to the ground. How many millions this
will save to the Korean
Government it is hard to say but the Korean people are
to be congratulated on
having escaped so easily.
On March 12th
the U.S. war vessel Cincinnati went
north to Chinnampo to bring away ladies and children who
might wish to get out
of the zone of active war. But by the time the boat
arrived there, conditions
had so changed that it was found necessary to send only
a few. This, however,
does not detract from the credit due to the American
authorities for their
prompt and energetic action.
The sending of
the Cincinnati to
Chinnampo and the Phoenix
to Sung-jin for the sake of a
few nationals inspires awe in the mind of the Korean,
who marvels that a great
government like America or England would spend thousands
for the sake of the
convenience of a mere handful of their subjects. Not
until the Koreans realize
the reasonableness of such action will they be fitted
for the higher reaches of
constitutional government.
We learn that
the Russians are recruiting the Koreans who have settled
on Russian soil north
of the Tuman River. It is something of an experiment, we
should think, but it
is evident that the Russians will have to press into
their service every agency
possible to ward off the “peril” which in her case is
quite real.
On March 28th
the Russians and Japanese came again in touch with each
other near the town of
Chong-ju. This is about half way between Anju and Wiju
and the first large town
this side of Sun-ch’un [page 128]
where Dr. Sharrocks and his family are still stopping.
One Japanese cavalry
company and one company of infantry were engaged. One
Japanese officer and
three men were killed and about a dozen wounded. The
Russian force is not
definitely known but some say it amounted to 600 men.
The result, as given by
the Japanese, was a retreat on the part of the Russians.
It is evident that the
Japanese are pushing steadily on toward the Yalu without
any serious
opposition.
We notice in a
recent issue of the Kobe Chronicle
a
review of a book by one George Lynch who, according to
the Chronicle, quoted
the Korea Review
in support of some
abusive statements against missionaries in Korea. It is
a sample of the
dishonest tricks to which men have recourse in attacking
missionaries, for
after quoting the statement in the April number of the Review, to the effect that hundreds of
Koreans apply to the
Christian churches each year for admission, with the
idea of escaping official
oppression, the writer omits the accompanying statement
that extreme care is
exercised by Protestant missionaries in preventing the
entrance of these people
into the churches and on his own authority and in utter
ignorance of the facts
asserts that all such people readily find entrance to
the church and
thenceforward are backed up by the foreign missionary.
We wish to state very
plainly that so far as Protestant missions in Korea are
concerned this is the
very opposite of the facts.
During the
past month a son has been born to Mr. and Mrs. B. C.
Donham and one also to Mr.
and Mrs. Devose.
We find it
necessary this month to enlarge the Review
by the issue of a supplement, which we think will prove
of great interest to
our readers. It gives us a very welcome glimpse of
conditions in the north. It
is told in a very modest way and one is left to imagine
the feelings inspired,
for instance, by arriving at night at a Tong-hak village
and being ordered out
instanter. As there was only one gentleman in the party
it must have been a
fairly exciting moment. The experiences of the party
from the American mines
were also very interesting. The two estimates of the
Russian cavalry horses
will be compared with interest.
[page
129] KOREAN
HISTORY.
Another of the
great powers of the West had been humbled. Korea could
show her great patron China
how to handle the barbarians. He immediately ordered the
erection in the center
of the city of a monument which had been in preparation
since 1866. The
inscription ran as follows.
“The
Western Barbarians have attacked and injured us, with a
view either to making
war upon us or to forcing treaties upon us. If we
consent to the latter it will
mean the betrayal of the country. Let our descendants to
the ten thousandth
generation bear this in mind. Made in the Pyong-in Year
and set up in the
Sin-mi Year.’*
Chapter XV.
The “Frontier
Guard” . . . . Japanese attempts at making a treaty . .
. . agent at the palace
. . . the Regent’s power on the wane . . . a
“Combination” . . . the Regent
retires . . a puppet . . “infernal machine”. . . .
reforms . . . . a dangerous
memorial . . .fight with the Japanese . . . . two
parties in Japan . . .
Japanese commission . . . negotiations . . . .treaty
signed . . a mysterious
conflagration . . . . Japanese minister. . . .French
priests released . . . . a
curious book. . . .anti-Christian policy abandoned . .
.commission to Japan. .
. .conspiracy. . liberal party hopeful outlook . . . the
Min policy split
between the Min and liberal factions . . .Minister to
Japan . . . military
students . . . .regular troops neglected . . . emeute of
1882 . . . .Japanese
legation attacked . . . the palace entered . . . the
Queen escapes . . . . the
ex-Regent
quiets the soldiers a mock funeral.
In order to
understand the interesting train of events that
transpired in 1873 it will be
necessary to go back and review the relations that
existed between Korea and
Japan.
At
the close of the Japanese invasion an arrangement had
been arrived at between
Japan and Korea by the terms of which the Japanese
placed a number of traders
at Fusan. The popular belief of the Koreans that the
government [page
130] accepted
these as hostages in place of an annual tribute of three
hundred Japanese
female hides is an amusing fiction which is intended to
offset the ignominy of
the ear and nose monument in Kyoto.
This
colony was called the Su-ja-ri or “Frontier Guard.” The
Korean government
appropriated ten million cash a year to its support. The
Japanese claim that
these people were not hostages but were merchants and
were placed there to form
a commercial point d’appui between the two countries.
That the money paid for
their support was of the nature of a tribute is neither
claimed by the Japanese
nor admitted by the Koreans; in fact the terms always
used in describing these
payments implies the coordinate degree of the recipient.
This Japanese colony was
continued up to the year 1869 without intermission but
it was not destined to
remain undisturbed. No sooner had the Imperial
government become established in
Japan than the Emperor appointed a commission to
approach the Korean government
through the timehonored avenue of approach, namely Fusan
and the prefect of
Tong-na, with a view to establishing closer commercial
and diplomatic
relations. This commissioner transacted the business
through the Daimyo of Tsushima
who sent the Imperial letter to the prefect of Tong-na
and asked that it be
transmitted to the capital. After reading it the prefect
refused to send it, on
the plea that whereas Japan had always addressed Korea
in terms of respect she
now adopted a tone of superiority and called herself an
Empire. The envoy urged
that Japan had recently undergone a complete change,
that she had adopted
Western ideas and had centralised her government, and
urged that the missive
must be sent on to Seoul. The prefect was prevailed upon
to copy the letter and
send it on to the Regent but the reply came back
forthwith “We will not receive
the Japanese letter. Drive the envoy away.” The
following year the annual grant
of rice was suddenly discontinued without a word of
warning and the Japanese in
Fusan were greatly exercised thereby. They made a loud
outcry and their
government made repeated attempts to come to an
understanding with the Korean
government but without success.
It
was in 1870 that the Japanese Hanabusa, called [page 131]
Wha-bang Eui-jil by the
Koreans, came with an urgent request that a treaty of
commerce be signed, but
he was likewise unsuccessful. The King, however, was
nearing the age when the
Regent must hand over to him the reins of power and the
Queen, a woman of
natural ability and of imperious will, was gathering
about her a faction which
was wholly inimical to the plans and the tactics of the
Regent. The latter
found to his chagrin that the woman whom he had placed
on the throne with his
son with special reference to the cementing of his own
power was likely to
become the instrument of his undoing. Sure it is that in
spite of the hatred
which the Regent evinced against the Japanese this same
Hanabusa came to Seoul
in 1871 or early in 1872, in a quite unofficial manner,
and was given quarters
at the palace where he was in constant communication
with the Queen and the
members of her faction, and where, by exhibiting curious
objects of western
manufacture, such as a toy telephone and the like, he
amused his royal
patroness and won his way into the favor of the party
that was shortly to step
into the place made vacant by the retiring Regent.
The
queen’s faction were diametrically opposed to the most
cherished prejudices of
the Regent. They favored, or at least looked with
complacency upon, the growth
of Roman Catholicism, they favored the policy of
listening to China’s advice in
the matter of foreign relations. They were doubtless
urged in this direction
partly by pure opposition to the Regent and partly by
the representations of
the Japanese who had gained the ear of royalty. The
palace was the scene of
frequent and violent altercations between the heads of
these two factions, but
an open rupture did not occur until the year 1873 when
an official named Ch’oe
Ik-hyun memorialised the throne speaking disparagingly
of the presence of the
Japanese in the palace and, toward the end, charging the
Regent with
indirection in the use of the public funds. The king had
for some time been
growing restive under the control of the Regent, being
led to some extent by
the new party of which the queen was the patroness and
at whose head stood her
brother, Min Seung-ho. The memorial was received with
marks of approval by the
king and he immediately cut off a large part of the
revenues of the Regent. At
the same time Min Seung-ho [page
132]
approached the Regent’s son, Yi Cha-myun, elder brother
to the king, and
suggested that if the Regent could be removed they two
might share the
leadership of affairs. The young man accepted the offer
and ranged himself in
line with the opposition. The Regent was now in great
straits. The combination
against him had proved too strong, and in the last moon
of 1873 be shook off
the dust of Seoul from his feet and retired to
Ka-p’yung, thirty-five miles to
the east of the capital. After five months of residence
there he returned as
far as the village of Ko-deung, ten miles to the
north-east of Seoul,
Among
the people there was still a strong element that favored
the ex-Regent. They
missed a strong personality at the helm of state, for
the Koreans have always
preferred a strong even if tyrannical leadership. In
recognition of this
sentiment it was deemed wise to put the ex-Regent’s
brother, whom he had always
kept severely in the back-ground. in the prominent if
not necessarily important
position of Prime .Minister. He proved as was intended a
rare puppet in the
hands of the Min party who by this time had absorbed the
whole power of the
government. He was allowed, in compensation for this, to
control the sale of
public offices to his own profit, but always under the
vigilant eye of the
dominant faction.
A
new era in the metamorphosis of Korea had now begun.
Public affairs in the
peninsula took a new direction. Min Seung-ho was court
favorite and it looked
as if matters would soon settle down to something like
their former
tranquility. But the latter days of the year were
destined to bring a severe
shock to the leaders of the new party. One day Min
Seungho received a letter
purporting to be from a certain party with whom he was
on intimate terms, and
with it came a casket wrapped in silk. He was requested
to open it only in the
presence of his mother and his son. Late at night in his
inner chamber he
opened it in the presence of these members of his
family, but when he lifted
the cover the casket exploded with terrific force
killing the three instantly
and setting the house on fire. As Min Seung-ho had but
one enemy bold enough to
perpetrate the deed the popular belief that it was done
by his great rival is practically
undisputed, though no direct evidence perhaps exists.
[page 133]
Min T’a-ho immediately stepped into the place made
vacant by the terrible death
of the favorite. Soon after this the government
discontinued the use of the 100
cash pieces with which the Regent had diluted the
currency of the country. In
the second moon of 1874 the crown prince was born. The
year was also signalised
by the remittance in perpetuity of the tax on real
estate in and about the city
of Seoul.
In
1875 three of the ex-Regent’s friends, led by Cho
Ch’ung-sik, memorialised the
throne begging that the Prince Tai-won be again
reinstated in power. For this
rash act they were all condemned to death, and it was
only by the personal
intercession of the ex-Regent that the sentence was
commuted to banishment for
life. Even so, Cho Ch’ung-sik was killed at his place of
exile.
In
September the Japanese man-of-war Unyo Kwan, after
making a trip to Chefoo,
approached the island of Kang-wha to make soundings.
Approaching the town of Yong-jung,
they sent a small boat ashore to look for water. As they
neared the town they
were suddenly fired upon by the Koreans in the little
fortress, who evidently
took them for Frenchmen or Americans. A moment later the
small boat was turned
about and was making toward the man-of-war again. The
commander gave instant
orders for summary punishment to be inflicted for this
perfectly unprovoked
assault. He opened fire on the town and soon silenced
the batteries. A strong
body of marines was landed which put the garrison to
flight, seized all the
arms and provisions and fired the town. The man-of-war
then steamed away to
Nagasaki to report what had occurred.
At
this time there were in Japan two parties who took
radically different views of
the Korean question. One of these parties, led by Saigo
of Satsuma, smarting
under the insulting way in which Korea had received the
Japanese overtures,
would listen to nothing but instant war. The other
party, which saw more
clearly the vital points in the question at issue, urged
peaceful measures. The
policy of the latter prevailed and it was decided to
send an embassy to attempt
the ratification of a treaty, and if that failed war was
to be the alternative.
This peace policy was so distasteful to the war party
that Saigo returned to
Satsuma and began to set in motion
[page 134]
those agencies which resulted in the sanguinary Satsuma
Rebellion.
For
many centuries there had been a strip of neutral
territory between the Korean
border, the Yalu River, and the Chinese border which was
marked by a line of
stakes. This strip of land naturally became the hiding
piece of refugees and
criminals from both countries, for here they were free
from police supervision
whether Korean or Chinese. The statesman Li Hung-chang
recognized this to be a
menace to the wellfare of both countries and took steps
to put an end to it, by
sending a strong body of troops who, in conjunction with
a gunboat, succeeded
in breaking up the nest of desperadoes and rendering the
country fit for
colonisation. Two years later this strip of land was
definitely connected with
China and the two countries again faced each other
across the waters of the
Yalu,
The
Korean attack upon the Unyo Kwan off Kangvvha proved the
lever which finally
roused Japan to active steps in regard to the opening of
Korea. The war party
regarded it as their golden opportunity while the peace
party believed it would
pave the way for a peaceful accomplishment of their
purpose. An envoy was
despatched to Peking to sound the policy of that
government. The Chinese,
fearing that they would be held responsible for the
misdoings of Korea denied
all responsibility and virtually acknowledged the
independence of the
peninsula. At the same time a military and naval
expedition under Kiroda
Kiyotaku, seconded by Inouye Bunda, sailed for Kang-wha
with a fleet of
gunboats, containing in all some 500 men. The Chinese
had already advised the
Korean government to make terms with the Japanese, and
this in fact was the
wish of the dominant party; so when the Japanese demand
reached Seoul, that
commissioners be sent to Kangwha to treat with the
visitors the government
quickly complied. Two high officials. Sin Hon and Yun
Cha-seung, were
despatched to Kang-wha and the first definite step was
taken toward casting off
the old time isolation policy, the fond dream of the
ex-Regent.
The
Japanese envoy opened the conference by asking why the
Koreans had given no
answer to the repeated requests of the Japane.se for the
consummation of a
treaty of [page 135]
peace and friendship. The Korean commissioner replied
that from the very
earliest times Japan had always addressed Korea in
respectful language, but
that now she had arrogated to herself the title of Great
Japan and called her
ruler the Great Emperor. This seemed to imply the
vassilage of Korea, an
entirely new role for her to play. The Japanese replied
that the mere
assumption of the name of empire on the part of Japan
implied nothing as to the
status of Korea one way or the other. This seemed to
satisfy the Koreans.
The
Japanese than asked why they had been fired upon at
Yung-jung. The answer was
that the Japanese were dressed in European clothes and
were therefore mistaken
for Europeans. But when the Japanese asked why the
Koreans had not recognized
the Japanese flag, especially since the Japanese
government had been careful to
send copies of their flag to Korea and ask that one be
sent to each of the
prefectures throughout the land, the Korean
commissioners could find nothing to
say and had to confess that they had been in error.
All
these things were duly reported to the authorities in
Seoul where daily
councils were being held to discuss the important
questions. The ex-Regent sent
an urgent appeal to the ministers not to make a treaty,
but the tide had
turned, and after some sharp discussion as to how the
two governments should be
designated in the treaty it was finally ratified on
Febuary 27th 1876, and
Korea was a hermit no longer. Three months later a semi
official envoy was sent
to Japan in the person of Kim Keui-su.
Meanwhile
the closing days of 1875 had beheld a curious event in
Seoul. In the dead of
night the house of Yi Ch’oeeung, the Prime Minister and
the brother of the
ex-Regent, was set on fire by an unknown hand and burned
to the ground. None of
the inmates were injured. The culprit was seized and
under torture confessed
that one Sin Ch’ul-gyun had hired him to do the work.
Sin was therefore seized
and put to death as a traitor. Whether he was indeed
guilty and if so whether
he was but an agent in the business are questions that
have never been
answered.
It
was not until the sixth moon of 1879 that, in pursuance
of the new treaty, a
Japanese Minister, Hanabusa, [page 136] was
sent to represent his government at Seoul. We will
remember that he had already
served his government most successfully at the Korean
capital in a private
capacity. The new legation was situated at the Ch’un
Yun-jung near the lotus
pond outside the West Gate. At almost the very same time
two French priests
arrived in Seoul and took up their quarters outside this
same gate and began to
proselyte. They were forthwith seized by the
authorities, and were for sometime
in imminent danger. There was however a strong feeling
in the government that
this was inconsistent with the new role that it had
elected to play and that it
was distinctly dangerous. A halt was called and the
Japanese Minister took
advantage of it to inform the authorities that he had
received a message from
the French Minister in Tokyo asking him to use his good
offices in behalf of
these endangered men. The Minister added his own advice
that the Korean
government should hand over the imprisoned men at once.
This was done and the
Japanese Minister] forwarded them to Japan.
One
year later, in the summer of 1880, Kim Hong-jip, a man
of progressive
tendencies, went to Japan. Soon after arriving there he
met a Chinaman who
seems to have made a strong impression on him. This
Chinaman had many talks
with him and gave him a long manuscript dealing with the
subject of Korea’s
foreign relations, which he asked should be transmitted
to the king of Korea.
In it he advised the cementing of friendship with the
United States, China and
Japan, but he spoke disparagingly of Russia. It
mentioned Protestant
Christianity as being the basis of Western greatness and
advised that its
propagation be encouraged. It com• pared the division of
Christianity into
Roman Catholic and Protestant to the division of
Confucianism into the two
sects Chu-ja and Yuk-sang-san. When Kim Hong-jip brought
this manuscript and
placed it in the hands of the king it created a profound
sensation, and
awakened the bitterest opposition. Many advised that he
be killed as an
introducer of Christianity. The most violent of all were
Yi Man-son, Hong
Cha-hak and Pak Nak-kwan who memorialized the throne
urging the execution of
Kim and the overthrow of all Christian work in the
peninsula. This met with the
severest [page 137]
censure from the king, not because it was in itself
seditious but because it
was an attempt to reinstate the policy of the Regency.
Yi Man-son was banished,
Hong Cha-hak was executed and Pak Nak-kwan was
imprisoned. This put an end to
anti-Christian talk for the time being and it was never
again seriously raised.
By
the fourth moon of 1881 the progressive tendencies of
the new regime had made
such headway that the king determined to send a
commission to Japan to look
about and see something of the world, from which Korea
had been so carefully
secluded. For this purpose His Majesty selected Cho
Chun-Yung, Pak Chung-yang,
Sim Sang-hak, Cho Pyung-jik, Min Chong-muk. O Yun-jung,
Om Se-yung, Kang
Mun-hyong, Hong Yung-sik, Yi Wun-whe, and Yi Pong-eui.
These men immediately
took passage for Japan. At the same time a party of
young men was sent to
Tientsin under the chaperonage of Kim Yun-sik on a
similar errand.
Late
in this year, 1881, four of the adherents of the
exRegent conspired to
overthrow the government, dethrone the king and put in
his place Yi Chilsun, a
son of the exRegent by a concubine. The ex-Regent was
then to be brought back
to power. The last day of the eighth moon was set for
the consummation of this
plot. But on the day before, Nam Myung-sun and Yi
P’ung-na divulged the whole
scheme to the favorite Min T’a-ho, and as a result the
four arch-conspirators
were seized on the morning of the day set for the
culmination of the plot and
within a few days eleven others were taken. In the
eleventh moon they were all
beheaded, and at the same time Yi Chi-son was given
poison and expired.
By
this time a real liberal party had begun to form. Its
leading spirits were Kim
Ok-kyun, Pak Yung-hyo, So Kwangbom, Hong Yong-sik, Yi
To-ja, Sin Keui-sun and
Pak Yungkyo. These were all men of very high family and
held im-portant
positions under the government. They were in favor of
the immediate opening of
Korea to intercourse with foreign powers and the
establishment of reforms such
as had been effected in Japan. The king was largely
influenced by the
progressive policy mapped out by these men and an era of
rapid advancement seemed
to be dawning. A special department was established
called the Ki-mu or
Machinery Bureau which [page 138]
was to take charge of the introduction of foreign
machinery and implements of
all kinds.
It
is important to note the position of the Min faction at
this point. It was with
the downfall of the Regent that, through the queen’s
influence, the Min faction
sprang to life. With the utmost celerity all government
positions were filled
with them or their sympathizers and it seemed sure that
they would have a long
lease of official life. The extreme opposition of the
Regent to all reforms and
to the opening of the country to foreign intercourse
naturally inclined his
rivals in that very direction and it was directly
through the Min faction that
the policy of non-seclusion was inaugurated. The queen
likewise was in favor of
opening up the country to the civilizing influences of
the West. But with the
Min faction, as a whole, the question of national policy
were entirely
secondary to the one main idea of preserving the
ascendency which they had
gained. Here is the key to all that followed. The Mins
were not at that time
facing China-ward, and they never would have been had it
not become necessary
in order to preserve the enviable position they
occupied. As we have seen, a
number of high officials who had imbibed something of
the spirit of reform
which had permeated Japan were filling the ear of the
king and queen with plans
for reform. They were meeting with a favorable hearing
and in proportion as
they succeeded, the power of the Mins must wane; not
because the latter
disliked the idea of opening up Korea but because it was
another faction that
had the work in hand, and that faction would naturally
attain more and more
power at court as success crowned their efforts. It was
just here that the
difficulty began. If the liberal leaders had been
willing to put the working
out of the plan into the hands of the Min faction all
might have gone along
smoothly and Korea might have realized some of the hopes
of the would-be reformers.
But such self-abnegation could scarcely be expected from
men who saw in the
carrying out of their brilliant scheme not only rewards
for themselves but the
advancement of the country. The personal element was
present in full force and
this was the rock on which the reformation of Korea
split. We may believe that
it was at this point that the Min faction determined its
policy, a policy that
led it straight into the arms of [page
139]
China. From this point it became not the progressive
party but the conservative party. Its leading members
were Min T’a-ho, Min
Yung-muk, Min Ta-ho, Han Kyu-jik and Cho Ryung-ha. There
was one of the Mins
however who held with the liberal party, for a time at
least. This was Min
Yung-ik, nephew to the queen, adopted son of Min
Seung-ho who had been killed
by the infernal machine in 1874. That this man took his
stand at first with,
the liberals is shown by the fact that in the spring of
1882 he joined Kim
Hong-jip, Kim Ok-kyun, Hong Yung-sik and other liberal
leaders in advising the
king to select 200 young men and engage a Japanese
instructor to drill them in
military tactics. The advice was followed, and
Lieutenant Isobayachi was
employed for that purpose. Without delay he begin work
at the Ha-dogam near the
East Gate. At the same time a number of young men were
sent to Japan to study
military matters. Among these the most prominent was Su
Cha-p’il who was
intimately connected with the liberal movement, though
at that time he was too
young to take a prominent part.
The
first regularly appointed Minister to the Japanese was
Pak Yung-hyo the liberal
leader. In the early part of 1882 he departed on his
mission. It was at
Chemulpo on board the little Japanese steamer that the
Korean flag was first
designed. Pak Yung-hyo, Kim Ok-kyun, Su Kwang-bom and Su
Cha-p’il were all
present when it was hoisted for the first time in honor
of the first Minister
to Japan.
While
the two hundred men who were being drilled at the
Ha-do-gam were being
plentifully fed and clothed by the government, the 3.700
troops, called the
Hul-lyun To-gam, the former Royal Guard, were being
badly neglected. Their pay
was two or three months in arrears and for a similar
period they had not
received a grain of rice. They were naturally incensed
and there were angry
mutterings against the two hundred men who were being
treated so much better
than they. When the king was made aware of this he
ordered that a month’s
allowance of rice be given out to these discontented
troops. This work was put
into the hands of Min Kyum-ho the overseer of the
government finances, and he
in turn handed the matter over to his major-domo who, it
appears, sold the good
rice and with the proceeds bought a large quantity [page 140] of the poorest quality
which he mixed with sand and doled out to the hungry
troops. The result may be
imagined. They congregated in various places and
determined that since they
must die in any event they would rather die fighting
than starving. They
strengthened the feeble-hearted among their own number
by threats of death in
case any proved unfaithful and refused to assist in the
work in hand. On the
night of the ninth of the sixth moon, in the midst of
heavily falling rain,
they arose en masse and proceeded to their general’s
house, where they
announced that they were going to take revenge on those
who had wronged them.
That they not only did not attack him but that they even
had the courtesy to go
and tell him what they were about to do shows clearly
that he was in no wise to
blame for the ill-treatment they had received. They also
sent a messenger to
the exRegent, but the purport of the message is not
known. They then hastened
to the residence of Min Kyum-ho. but he had heard of the
trouble and had fled
to the royal presence for protection. The infuriated
soldiery vented their rage
on the property by tearing down the house and destroying
the furniture. They
seized the dishonest major-domo and beat him to death
upon the spot. The sight
of this aroused all their worst instincts and,
separating into bands of two or
three hundred, they hastened to different parts of the
town to complete what
had been begun. Some ran to the prisons and liberated
the inmates who naturally
joined the ranks of the rioters. One of these prisoners
was Pak Nak-kwan who
had memorialized the throne in favor of the ex-Regent.
They took him on their
shoulders and rushed through the streets shouting “Pak
Chung-sin” or “Pak the
patriot.” For this, a few months later he was torn to
pieces by bullocks
outside the West Gate. Part of the mob went to the
Ha-do-gam, but on their
approach the Japanese military instructor took to his
heels and made for the
Japanese Legation. But he was overtaken and cut down in
the streets. Another
detachment hastened to the Japanese Legation itself, but
found the gates shut
and barred. Within were nine Japanese. In order to make
it light enough to
carry on their dastardly work the assaulting mob threw
firebrands over the wall
and thus illuminated the place, for it was night. The
little company of
Japanese soon became [page 141]
aware that they could not hope to stand a siege and that
their only hope lay in
a bold dash. Suddenly the gates flew open and the nine
determined men rushed
out brandishing their swords and firing their revolvers
straight into the
crowd. The Koreans were taken wholly by surprise and
beat a hasty retreat. In
their headlong flight many of them fell into the lotus
pond adjoining. As the
Japanese hurried along to the governor’s yamen
which was not far away, they cut down a few of the mob.
They found that the
governor had gone to the palace and so they turned their
faces toward Chemulpo
and hastened away. Another party of the insurgents went
outside the city to
various monasteries which they burned to the ground. The
most important of
these was the Sin-heung Monastery outside the Northeast
Gate. This move was
dictated by hate of the Min faction whose patroness was
known to be very well
affected toward Buddhism and to have made friends with
the monks.
Other
parties scattered over the city carrying the torch to
the door of every member
of the Min faction. The houses of Min Kyum-ho, Min
T’a-ho, Min Yung-ik, Min
Yung-so, Min Yung-jun. Min Yung-ju Min Ch’ang-sik,
Prince Heungin, Kim Po-hyun
and Yun Cha-duk were torn down by the use of long ropes.
The furniture was
piled in a great heap in the street and burned. The only
member of the Min clan
however that was seized that night was Min Ch’ang-sik
who lived at
Kon-dang-kol. He had the unenviable reputation of having
taken large sums of
money from the people by indirection. When he was seized
he cried “I am not a
Min; my name is Pak.” They bound him and carried him
through the streets
shouting “Is this a Min or a Pak?” The populace answered
fiercely “He is a Min.”
So they took him down to the big bell and stabbed him in
a hundred places with
their swords and cut his mouth from ear to ear.
When
the morning of the tenth broke Seoul was in a terrible
condition. Bands of
frenzied soldiery were ranging through the streets. The
people either huddled
about their fireplaces with barred doors or else sought
safety in flight from
the city. At last the mob rendezvoused in front of the
palace gate and finding
no opposition they boldly entered. Rushing into the
inner court of the king’s
private apartments [page 142]
they found themselves face to face with His Majesty.
About him stood a few of
the officials who had not fled the city. There were Min
Kyum-ho, Kim Po hyun,
Cho Ryung-ha and Prince Heung in. Rushing forward the
soldiers struck their
swords against the floor and the door-posts and demanded
that these men be
handed over to them. It was quite evident that there was
no escape and that by
refusal they would only endanger the king’s life. So
these men made obeisance
to His Majesty and then stepped down into the hands of
the soldiers. Min
Kyum-ho and Kim Po-hyun were instantly struck down and
hacked in pieces before
the very eyes of the king. Of Kim nothing remained but
the trunk of his body.
Cho Ryung-ha was spared but Prince Heung-in died the
same day for he was mashed
to a jelly by the gun-stocks of the soldiers.
This
done, the soldiers demanded the person of the queen. The
king sternly demanded
how they dared ask of him the person of his Queen.
Without answering they
rushed away to her private apartments. Seizing palace
women by the hair they
dragged them about demanding where their mistress was.
But while this was going
on one of the palace guard named Hong Cha-heui entered
the Queen’s presence and
said that she was in danger and that her only hope of
escape lay in getting on his
back and being carried out. This she instantly did. A
skirt was hastily thrown
over her head and the heroic man took her straight out
through the midst of the
infuriated soldiery. Some of them seized hold of him and
demanded whom he was
carrying. He replied that it was one of the palace
women, his sister, whom he
was conveying to a place of safety. His heroism was
rewarded by seeing her
safely outside the palace and comfortably housed at the
residence of Yun T’a-jun
to the west of the palace. The next day she was taken in
a closed chair toward
the village of Chang-wun in the district of Chung-ju in
Ch’ung ch’ung Province,
where she arrived several days later. In that place she
found refuge in the
house of Min Eung-sik. This journey was made not along
the main road but along
by-paths among the mountains, and it is said that Hong
Cha-heui lost several of
his toes as a result of this terrible march, for shoes
could not be procured.
But
we must return to the palace. The ex-Regent [page 143]appeared on the scene while
the soldiers were still ragingthrough the palace in
search of the Queen. He gave the signal to stop, and
instantly the soldiers
obeyed and quietly left the palace. That these soldiers,
worked up as they were
to a perfect frenzy, should have obeyed the commands of
the Prince Tai-wun so
instantly and implicitly would seem to argue a closer
connection with this
outbreak than any overt act on his part would give us
warrant to affirm.
The
ex-Regent was now in power again. He supposed that the
Queen had been killed,
and on the next day he summoned the officials and said
that though the Queen
was dead yet her body had not been found; they must
therefore take some of her
clothing and perform the funeral rites with them
instead. The proclamation went
forth, and from the middle of the sixth moon the people
went into mourning for
their Queen.
Chapter XVI.
A panic. . .
.Japanese envoy . . .a counter demand. .. .Chinese
troops arrive . . . .
rioters captured . . . . the Regent kidnapped . . . .
the Queen returns . . .
.Foreign Office. . . von Mollendorf . . . . minting . .
. American Minister . .
. . various innovations . . . . special envoy to the
United States . . . the
American farm . . . . treaties . . . . liberal and
conservative parties drift
further apart . . .Pak Yung-hyo’s
attempted reforms . . . .school for interpreters . . . .
fears of the
progressive party . . . . a crisis imminent . . . .
understanding with the
Japanese . . . . the dinner at the Post Office . . .
attempted assassination .
. . confusion . . . . Liberal leaders hasten to the
palace . . . . Japanese
called in . . . . conservative leaders put to death . .
. . official changes .
. .Chinese
demands . . . . the fight in
the palace . . . . the king goes over to the Chinese. .
. . liberals killed . .
. . the Japanese retire to Chemulpo . . . . indemnity .
. . . executions . . .
. Japanese terms . . . . hospital . . . . missions. . .
Tientsin convention . .
. . corruption . . . .von Mollendorf dismissed . .
.China takes over the customs
. . . . Judge Denny engaged as adviser . . . . obstacles
put in his way . . . .
government English School. . . . mission schools. . . .
Minister to the United
States . . . . the “baby war.”
A few days
after the flight of the Queen a rumor was circulated to
the effect that a large
body of men belonging to [page 144]
the peddlar’s guild had congregated outside the East
Gate and were about to
enter and loot the city. A panic seized the people, and
men, women and children
might be seen flying in all directions, some out into
the neighboring country
and some up the steep sides of the surrounding
mountains. The gates being all
locked the people forced the South Gate and the two West
gates and thus made
good their escape. The king himself was affected by the
rumor and leaving the
palace sought safety at the house of Yi Che-wan. But the
panic ceased as
quickly as it had begun, and within three hours the
people were returning to
their homes again. The extreme haste with which the
people tried to get away is
illustrated in the case of one old man who seized his
little grandson, as he
supposed by the hand, and fled up a mountain but found
to his dismay that he
had taken the boy by the leg rather than by the hand and
that the little fellow
had succumbed to this harsh treatment.
On
the fifth of the seventh moon Count Inouye arrived in Chemulpo
as Japanese envoy and immediately sent word to have a
high Korean official sent
to Chemulpo to discuss the situation. Kim Hong-jip was
sent, and as a result
the Korean government was asked to pay an indemnity for
the lives of the
Japanese who had been killed. It appears that besides
the Japanese military
instructor five or six others had been killed, also a
considerable amount of
Japanese money had been seized and destroyed at the
Japanese headquarters. The
indemnity was placed at a million cash apiece for the
Japanese who had fallen.
This amounted to something like $2,500 each, a
ridiculously small sum, but
perhaps all the Japanese thought they could get. The
ex-Regent replied that if
the Japanese demanded this indemnity the Korean
government would feel obliged
to levy a tax upon all Japanese merchants doing business
in Korea. This was
practically a refusal to pay the indemnity and the envoy
took his departure.
Hardly had he left before a
Chinese force 3,000 strong arrived at Nam-yang off the
town of Su-won. They
were commanded by Generals O Chang-gyang, Wang
Suk-ch’ang, Ma Kun-sang and by a
lesser officer named Wun Se-ga who was destined to play
a leading part from
this time on.
SUPPLEMENT TO
THE KOREA REVIEW
An exciting
journey through the hostile lines in northern Korea by a
party of American
ladies and gentlemen.
The following
account is by Rev. Mr. Keams of the Presbyterian
Mission, and is of great
interest, giving us, as it does, a glimpse of actual
conditions in the north.
The
town of Sun-ch’un is in North Pyeng-an Province, 110
miles north and west of
Pyeng-yang city and 55 miles southeast of Eui-ju. The
missionaries, of the
Presbyterian Mission, nine adults and five little
children, were the only
foreigners north of Pyeng-yang except the American
settlement at the gold mines
of Unsan 90 miles away on the east side of the province.
The little mission
station established in 1901 rapidly developed work among
the Koreans, until at
the outbreak of the war there were about 5,000 adherents
grouped in over 60
churches scattered throughout the province. Nearly 2,000
of these were in the
populous magistracy of Eui-ju, which lies along the east
bank of the Yalu
river. The people were eager to learn and the Christian
community soon won the
respect and tolerance of the heathen population.
About
a year ago Russia first began to encroach upon Korea
using the timber
concession in the Yalu valley as an excuse. Yongampo
near the mouth of the Yalu
was selected as an advantageous site for a port, and
substantial brick
buildings were erected. The Koreans near by resented the
coming of the
Russians, but their building operations employed a large
number of men and as
they paid higher wages than had ever been paid before,
private animosity
gradually died down. The writer visited this port in
December and was [page
2]
courteously received by the Russian officer in charge,
who was interested in
hearing of his American neighbors forty-five miles away
and asked a great many
questions about the people and surrounding country. He
stated, what was
apparent, that the building operations had stopped for
the winter, but that
they expected to do greater things the following summer
and would employ a great
many laborers. He also said frankly that, while there
were only a hundred or so
of his countrymen in Yongampo for the winter, he hoped
in the coming summer to
see many more. The communications were poor from
Yongampo to the railway but
Chinese carts made fairly good time and mail was
reasonably quick. A walk about
the place showed seven or eight neat brick dwellings,
large barracks and
stables and substantial breakwater, a very creditable
performance for one
summer’s work. No fortifications of any kind were
apparent though they might
easily have been concealed on the surrounding hills. The
Russians with one or
two exceptions were all military men. The Koreans seemed
to both admire and
fear their new neighbors. Though there were various
complaints of injustice, in
was generally conceded among the Koreans that the
Russians meant to treat them
fairly and that the injustices could nearly all be laid
at the doors of the
interpreters, who were all Koreans. The Russians not
knowing a word of Korean
were compelled to do all their business through these
men, who could not resist
the temptation to squeeze a large part of the money
entrusted to them for
paying the laborers, and when complaint was made the
complainer was usually
arrested and beaten on the testimony of the interpreter.
Being
so far from the world and with a very slow mail service
the rumors of
approaching war did not effect the little missionary
community at Sun-ch’un
seriously. There was always the hope that the question
between Japan and Russia
might be settled without war and if not, that the
fighting would be done in
Manchuria and not in Korea. But certain precautions were
taken. Orders were
left with the larger missionary station at Pyeng-yang
for the stoppage of
Sun-ch’un mail and its forwarding by private courier at
the first sign of
disorganization of the Korean post. If it became
necessary to remove the ladies
and children the only means of transportion was by
chairs carried by coolies
and the order was left for twenty-four chair bearers to
be sent from Pyeng-yang
to bring down the ladies and children at the first
indication of fighting or an
uprising near Sun-ch’un.
[page 3]
These precautions taken, all work went on as usual. The
Koreans were quiet, but
somewhat anxious and a few of the wealthy men began to
buy horses in the back
country, away from the main road and get their
possessions ready to move out
suddenly. They knew nothing of our anxiety.
Early
in February we heard of the threatened riots in Seoul
and of the coming of the
foreign legation guards and the lawlessness of the
Korean soldiers in
Pyeng-yang and the great activity of the Tonghaks, in
South Pyeng An and Whang
Hai provinces. Russian scouts also began to be seen to
the west of us and about
February’ 10th, twenty of them passed through Sun-chun
and went down the main
road toward Pyeng-Yang. Many Koreans began to be
frightened and a few moved
out. Sunday February 14th, all the Japanese settlers in
Eui Ju and the Chinese
towns across the river, Antung, about eighty in number,
came through Sun-ch’un
on their way to Pyeng Yang. They reported that they had
been ordered out by a
telegram from the Japanese Minister in Seoul. We
received a telegram at the
same time saying that the U. S. Minister was alarmed by
movements towards the
Yalu and wished American citizens to stop travelling in
the interior, keep
together and be ready to come to a place of safety
should war break out. Three
days later twenty more Russian scouts went down the road
and the Koreans began
to flee to the country. All the roads leading out of
Sun-ch’un were filled with
the household goods of the people who were hurrying to
get their families as
far from the main road as possible.
The
Christian population still held firm and looked to the
Missionaries to tell
them when it should be necessary to leave. The great
event of the year, the
annual Bible class, had been scheduled to begin on the
18th. This is a sort of
Chautauqua assembly that brings hundreds of, Christians
from all over the
province together for a fortnight of Bible study and
conference. In accordance
with tne policy of going on with all work and doing
everything possible to
prevent a panic, this class was allowed to convene in
the hope that the war
might hold off at least until the conference was over.
In spite of the anxious
times a larger number appeared for the opening day than
ever before, many
coming even from the towns near the Yalu river, on the
opposite bank of which a
large Russian force was lying, which rumor said would
soon cross into Korea.
The 18th and 19th were very busy days registering and
organizing into divisions
the hundreds who had come at their own expense, many
from [page
4]
distances of from 100 to 250 miles, all eager to study
and forgetful of the
overhanging danger.
Saturday,
Feb. 20th a telegram came saying that chair coolies had
already been sent from
Pyeng-Yang and urging that the ladies and children be
sent immediately to
Pyeng-Yang. Hasty preparations were begun but were
stopped in a few hours by
the arrival of 400 Cossacks who seized houses and
prepared to camp for the
night. Opinions differed as to whether escape was any
longer feasible. The
Koreans were in a panic and fleeing from their homes by
scores. The main road
was fast becoming deserted. An American woman travelling
in Korea requires at
the minimum about eight coolies, four to carry her and
four to carry her
baggage. To move the five women and five children of
Sun-ch’un station to
Pyeng-Yang would take at least fifty Korean coolies and
if the houses along the
road were deserted, how was such a force to be fed? To
take food enough for
fifty men for a four or five days’ march was impossible.
And then would the
Russians let us pass through their lines when we
overtook them on the road?
Would they not be justified in turning back those who
might take news of their
movements into the Japanese lines? And if we succeeded
in getting through the
Russian lines we were likely to meet the Japanese
advance from Pyeng Yang and a
road filled by a marching army woukl hardly be the route
for women and children
who wanted to go in the opposite direction. And last and
worst of all, with the
panic at its height, how could men be bribed or argued
into going as coolies?
The twenty four professional chair bearers from Pyeng
Yang, if they came
through all right, could be relied on to go back when
the route was towards
their own home, but could the rest of the force possibly
be recruited in Sun-ch’un
for any sum? These were real anxieties and there was
much discussion, for it
was no small hardship to leave the homes that had become
dear by long
association. The Cossacks went on in the morning and
were followed by an equal
number during the day. The chair coolies arrived on
Sunday morning bearing
urgent messages from missionaries in Pyeng Yang. After
consultation a narrow
mountain path parallel to the main road was selected as
a possible route. This
side road was longer than the main road and much more
difficult, but it was far
enough from the beaten track to insure the possibility
of getting in to Pyeng
Yang without meeting either Japanese or [page 5]
Russian troops in any large numbers, and it was also
probable that the people along such a narrow by-way
would consider themselves
safe and not desert their homes. Christian coolies were
finally secured after
much effort. The only condition on which they would go
was that the
missionaries who remained behind should attend
immediately to sending their
families out into the mountains. This was faithfully
promised and Monday
morning three ladies and one child escorted by one of
the men started on the
difficult trip with ten professional chair coolies, one
horse, and a few
Christian men from Sun-ch’un to carry the very small
amount of baggage which it
was possible to take. This amount was decreased on the
journey as coolies gave
out or deserted and their loads had to be abandoned. By
the end of the second
day this force had diminished to nine men, two of whom
acted for the rest of
the trip as chair bearers, leaving seven men and the
horse to carry what was
left of the baggage. The missionary walked and his
riding donkey was pressed
into service as a baggage carrier.
A
second party consisting of another missionary with his
wife and two small
children, left at noon on Monday taking the same road.
Notes were left by the
first party at all stopping places for the guidance of
this second party. The
narrow winding mountain path was made doubly difficult
by a heavy fall of snow
that lay on the ground. There were only two incidents of
importance in the five
days’ trip. On the third day a Japanese disguised as a
Korean and speaking
Korean perfectly made himself known to us and told us
that the first body of
400 Cossacks which we had seen pass through Sunch’un was
then at the very
village where we had planned to make our noonday stop.
This caused a change of
route by which we passed some distance to the northward
of the troops. The
change. of plan brought us that night to a Tong-hak
village the inhabitants of
which were very hostile to foreigners. Scarcely were the
loads off and everybody
comfortably disposed when there was a great uproar
outside and we learned that
we would not be allowed to stop. There seemed nothing to
do but go on if we
wished to avoid trouble. Fortunately there was a moon
but there was no other
inn for thirteen miles. The next day we crossed the
river half way between
Pyeng Yang and Sun-ch’un and passed within seven miles
of Anju, where the
telegraph office had been seized by 200 Cossacks. For
the next two days we
travelled parallel with a party of scouts who [page 6]were going down the main
road on the other side of a mountain range. By
travelling late on Friday night
we reached Pyeng Yang about nine o’clock. The next day a
courier from the
second party brought word that they had fallen behind
and would be in Sunday
morning. Saturday night eight Cossacks slept in a
village only an hour’s ride
from the city walls on the main road and Sunday morning
several of them came in
sight and exchanged shots with the Japanese sentinels.
There was momentary
expectation of a battle and the Japanese consul sent a
note to the mission
compound to say that he would be glad to receive the
ladies within the walls if
they felt disposed to go inside the city. There was
considerable anxiety about
the second party from Sunch’un but they arrived safely
about noon, having seen
nothing of the skirmish, which seems to have been the
first exchange of
compliments on land and was reported as quite a battle
at the time.
It
was found on reaching Pyeng Yang that some of the
reasons for not coming via
the main road were not well grounded. Another party from
the mines came down
the main road for half of the distance between Sunch’un
and Pyeng Yang and were
not stopped by the Russians or put to great
inconvenience by deserted inns. The
Japanese army had not begun to leave Pyeng Yang for the
north. However, the
first half of the road between Sun-ch’un and Anju would
probably have been very
difficult, and the men who had conducted the small
missionary parties felt that
they had chosen the best route.
The
station physician and family with one other man remained
at Sun-ch’un in spite
of the arguments of their colleagues, who felt that the
wife and children ought
not to remain. They felt that the hardship of forsaking
their home, the
exhausting journey and the existence for months with but
a minimum of baggage
was too great a price to pay for the additional safety.
They have been able to
help the Koreans greatly in this crisis and so far have
been unmolested by the
Russians. They have trusted servants at hand and a place
of refuge prepared
should it be necessary to flee suddenly because of a
battle at Sun-ch’un. They
are in constant touch by couriers with their brethren in
Pyeng Yang and the
departure of most of the station leaves them supplies
enough to withstand quite
a siege. It was originally intended that the two men
after seeing the ladies
safe in Pyeng Yang should return to Sun-ch’un to help
look after the mission
property but the skirmishing between [page
7]
and
the peremptory prohibition of the Japanese military
authorities has prevented that.
At
the present writing Sun-ch’un is still within the
Russian lines and the
skirmishing and possible battle ground is still between
the two mission
stations, but the overwhelming Japanese force in Pyeng
Yang must soon push its
outposts beyond Sun-ch’un. We had a very good chance to
observe the Russians,
They are physically a very fine lot of men. Their arms
and accoutrements seem
to a novice inferior to those of the Japanese. Their
horses are Manchurian
ponies, larger, but akin to the Korean ponies and hardy,
but looking ill-fed
and overworked. The criticism which the Koreans make is
very comical from the
wearers of the voluminous Korean dress. They said of the
Cossacks, “Those men
cannot fight. They have too many clothes on.”
The
first bodies of cavalry were followed soon by a couple
of full regiments of
cavalry and a small field battery. The general in
command rode in a carriage,
which caused great amusement to the Koreans. They also
brought heavy baggage
wagons. The comissary department bought provisions of
the Koreans, but did the
buying through their interpreter and the local
magistrates, which means that
most of the money lined the pockets of those worthies.
The officers took great
care to restrain their men and to permit no
depredations, but of course there
were isolated cases of theft by the Cossacks. When the
Koreans understood that
the foraging soldiers were unarmed, quite a number of
fights occurred in which
the offending soldiers were handled pretty roughly.
At
the home of the American physician was stored some
fodder for the cow which
supplied milk for the children of the family. A sargeant
with a detail
attempted to confiscate this, which resulted in a visit
of the two Americans to
headquarters to procure an order for protection. They
found the general dining
on an unsavory mess in the kettle in which it was cooked
and after returning
home sent a servant with some dainties which were
accepted with thanks. As a
result of this friendly intercourse proclamations in
Russian were posted on the
gates of the three foreign houses notifying soldiers
that the property was
American and to be respected.
The
Russians on Korean soil are badly handicapped by their
ignorance of the
language. Their interpreters take advantage of the
people and the Russians are
hated for it. Even their spies who are paid fancy wages
bring them false
reports to alarm them and get them out of the country.
There is very good
reason to believe that the [page 8]
first retreat of the Russians was due to lying reports
from Korean spies of
overwhelming Japanese forces in front. While they held
Anju, the telegraph line
was kept in repair. As soon as they retreated from Anju
the line was destroyed
all the way back to the Yalu river.
The Kobe
Chronicle of Mar. 24 contains an
interesting account of a journey made by a party of
Americans, including
several ladies and children, from the American Mines at
Unsan, north of Anju,
to Pyeng-yang. They fell in with Russian Cossacks at
Anju and were politely treated
by them. These travellers describe the Russian cavalry
as the finest they had
ever seen. “The horses were magnificent animals and
their riders might have
been born in the saddle. As an instance of fine
horsemanship, the lady said she
herself observed an officer, note-book in hand, making a
survey of the
surrounding country on horseback under most difficult
circumstances. The
officer sat his horse, which was mounting a very steep,
hill zig-zag fashion,
with perfect ease, making notes during the ascent, the
reins hanging loose. It
was a remarkable feat of horsemanship.” We fail to see
anything specially
remarkable about it, though, of course, every one knows
the Cossacks are
excellent horsemen. One of the ladies in the party
secured a number of
photographs of the Cossacks who good naturedly posed for
her. One of the party
states that at one of their stopping places these
Cossacks regaled themselves
on raw Korean pork.
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
APRIL, 1904.
The
Russo-Japanese War.
We are
evidently approaching a second crisis in the war. It was
inevitable that the
scouring of the seas by the Japanese fleet would be
followed by a season of
waiting for that was a necessary preparation for the
transportation of troops
to the mainland. The delay may have been increased by
the fact that the
Japanese could not have known that the sea victory could
be so easy.
Be
that as it may, things are beginning to look lively once
more. The Japanese
have driven the Russians back across the Yalu by a
series of what the Russians
themselves in their dispatches to St. Petersburg call
“Japanese reverses.” The
Russians considered it a great feather in their cap that
they destroyed the two
men-of-war in Chemulpo Harbor. The
Shanghai Mercury
says with the finest
touch of irony that the Russians will never despair so
long as they can do such
things as these. By whatever name we wish to call this
victorious retreat of
the Russians they are now beyond the Yalu and Korean
soil is clear of them. It
is not much to be regretted when we read the telegram
sent down here by the
commissioner who went north to bring back the body of
the prefect whom the
Russians killed because he refused to supply provisions.
The Commissioner found
the body decapitated, both arms and legs cut off and the
trunk [page
146]
frightfully mutilated. We cannot assert that the
Russians mutilated the body
but there is no doubt that they killed the prefect.
Once
more the old Yalu comes into notice. There are few more
historic streams than
this one. For nearly four thousand years it has seen
many armies facing each
other across its waters. It is the Rubicon of Korea. The
parallel is accurate.
When
the Koryu dynasty, away back in 1392, had become so
rotten that it was a
disgrace to the whole Korean people the great general Yi
was ordered by the
priest-ridden king to take the army and attack China!
Gen. Yi knew it was the
command of a maniac but he had to make a “bluff” at
obedience; so he took the
army as far as an island in the middle of the Yalu and
then made a speech to
them, to the effect that it was worse than suicide to
attempt the invasion of
China and asked them if they would follow him back to
the capital and engage in
a little political house-cleaning. They applauded the
speech and recrossed the
arm of the river and marched on the Capital, where Gen.
Yi soon became king and
founded the present dynasty. Old Sindon was the monk who
had hypnotized the
fallen king. One of his tricks is worth recording.
Feeling that his bluff
needed a little “upholstering” he dug a hole by night in
front of his door; at
the bottom of the hole he put a barrel of beans; on top
of the beans he put a
gilded image of Buddha so that his head would come about
two inches from the
surface of the ground, and then he filled in the dirt so
that nothing could be
seen. He had taken good care to throw in a couple of
pails of water on the
beans. In the morning he called the people about him and
said ‘‘By noon a
gilded Buddha will come up out of the ground in front of
my door.” They sat
down to watch. The beans began to swell, and at 11:57
the gilded head broke
through the surface of the soil. They went down on their
faces as if they had
been shot and Sindon’s hold was strengthened for another
year or two.
The
world is waiting eagerly for news of a land [page 147]
fight but this is not likely to come off for several
weeks yet. The Japanese might land some troops back of
Port Arthur and attack
that place by land and sea simultaneously but the
strength of Port Arthur has
been proved to be so much less than the Russians boasted
that even the capture
of that stronghold would really not be considered a hard
blow. It is when the
two armies meet in the death clinch in Manchuria that we
shall hear of
something definite. Meanwhile we seek for evidences of
strength or weakness on
either side. The frantic efforts that the Russians are
making to secure food in
Manchuria and the fact that they have had to bribe the
bandits to keep them
still, show that the Siberian road is going to prove all
but inadequate to
supply the army in the Far East.
Manchuria
is heavily populated with people hostile to Russia, her
railroad runs so near
the Arctic circle that in winter it will be an enormous
undertaking to keep a
large army in Manchuria supplied. At some stations along
the road we looked
carefully at the track and, as the train moved along,
the railroad ties would
sink half or three quarters of an inch and mud would
ooze up over them. If this
was the case with comparatively light passenger cars
what must it be with
heavily loaded ones? It is probable that to keep that
road in running order and
to transport what the army will need will require an
average of fifty men to
the mile along the whole 6,000 miles, or in round
numbers a total of 300,000
men who must themselves be fed and provided for and
paid. We have lately heard
that 100,000 more men are asked for as guards alone for
the railroad. So when
people talk about Russia’s game being a waiting game, it
is true only in case
she can concentrate a large army at Harbin or elsewhere
and then push the
Japanese rapidly and steadily out of Manchuria and
Korea. If the statement of
the Japanese is true, that the war will take two or
three years, we feel
confident that its prolongation will be worse for Russia
than Japan. It may be
that Japan sees that it will be necessary to play the
waiting game herself and
attempt to drain [page 148]
the resources of the Russian government. In order to
make it succeed it was
necessary to have complete command of the sea and render
it impossible to feed
the Russian army by any other avenue than the Siberian
Railway. This they have
done and the next step is to keep things moving enough
to make it necessary for
Russia to support an enormous army in Manchuria at three
times the cost of
keeping a Japanese army there. If the Russians want to
stop the suicidal
expenditure they must drive the Japanese army off the
southern point of Korea;
but the nature of the Korean country is such that the
Russians would be
constantly fighting an uphill game with the ever present
danger of a Japanese
army landing in their rear and cutting off their
communications. We very much
doubt whether the Japanese wish to bring the matter to
the issue of a single
great battle. Japan is now paying for something like
fifty thousand men on the
field while Russia is probably paying for six times that
number and when we
take into account the vastly greater expense of putting
Russian troops in the
field than that of putting Japanese troops there we
might be within bounds in
saying that Russia’s daily expenditure is ten times as
great as that of Japan.
At that rate Japan can afford to play the waiting game.
This looks the more
likely when we notice the satisfaction with which Japan
views the restriction
of the belligerent territory and the arrangement which
she has made with Korea,
for whereas it prevents Russia from drawing supplies
from any Far Eastern
territory excepting Manchuria, which in a state of war
will produce
comparatively little, it leaves Japan free to draw upon
the enormous
agricultural resources of Korea which, being in the
southern part of the
peninsula, will be out of the area of actual hostilities
at least until the
Russians have succeeded in pushing the Japanese to the
wall. And before this
can be accomplished Russia will have drained every
bourse in Europe and
beggared her own people.
But
even this does not exhaust the indications which point
to Japan’s intention of
prolonging the war. She [page 149]
recently secured an extension of the fishing privileges
of the Japanese along
the whole western coast of the peninsula and the avowed
purpose was to provide
another means of supplying the Japanese army with food.
This shows that she
does not expect to end the war in a single season. We
must also add to this the
fact that Japan is hastening the building of the
railroad between Seoul and
Wiju,
which cannot possibly be finished inside of two years.
General
Kuropatkin’s statement that he expected to finish the
war in July probably
voices the profound wish of the Russian Government, and
to realize this wish
they will depend upon the hot-headedness of the Japanese
in precipitating a
general engagement. But Japan is not out to do what
Russia wants and we fully
believe that an entirely different policy will be
adopted by the Japanese
leaders. A prominent Russian official has already
foreseen that Japan will
adopt the tactics of the Boers. It is an ominous
forecast for the Russians; for
with Japan’s resources and the number of men she can put
into Manchuria it will
mean the Boers with thrice their force and backing.
The
war correspondents who have been waiting so impatiently
in Tokyo have come on
at last. They passed through Chemulpo the other day on a
Japanese transport.
The boat dropped anchor in the harbor at five in the
morning and left before
noon for the north. Not one of the fifteen
correspondents was allowed to land
and a newspaper man here who boarded her was allowed to
stay only fifteen
minutes. Mr. Jack London was waiting in Seoul for that
boat. He was told that
it would arrive at noon but it arrived and sailed again
before that hour, so he
was left; but he went north by a subsequent boat.
To
show how well Japan keeps her own secrets, I will say
that for three weeks a
fleet of over forty loaded transports lay off the Korean
islands within fifty
miles of Chemulpo and yet very few in Seoul had heard a
word about it. That
fleet was waiting for the Russians to be pushed back
across the Yalu and when
[page 150] that event was in sight the time
had come for this new force to land near the mouth of
the Yalu. For this reason
the war correspondents in Tokyo were sent forward.
This
newspaper crowd,
like all crowds, is made up of all kinds. There are
veterans like Burleigh,
James, London, Davis, and Palmer and then there are
callow youth just out of
college, whose notions of the East and whose estimate of
Russian or Japanese
character is based upon a few days observation from the
deck of a steamer. One
of them called on us the other day to ask questions
about Korea, which we
gladly answered; but we found that he had formed
preconceived notions of it
that were decidedly youthful and he disputed with us at
every point. We could
tell him nothing. He had learned more about Korea in
four days than we had in
eighteen years. He was like the fellow who crossed from
Dover to Calais for the
first time, and seeing a redheaded man on the pier at
Calais wrote back to his
friends that all Frenchmen were redheaded. And, strange
to say, this man
represented one of the greatest papers in the United
States.
The
withdrawal of the
last Russian force across the Yalu River brings to an
end one period in the
war; only a preparatory step, of course, a clearing of
the decks for action,
and yet a very definite step and one in which the
Koreans are deeply
interested. It means that the war is to be fought on
other than Korean soil and
only those who have lived in territory which was the
actual scene of conflict
can properly understand what a blessing this is to the
Koreans.
It will
be well
therefore to give a resumé of what has been done and the
manner in which the
advance and retreat of the Russians was accomplished. It
is evident that the
Russians never expected nor intended to attempt to hold
any of the Korean
territory against the Japanese, but it was necessary
that they should send forward
a small force to keep in touch with the Japanese so as
to be always informed of
the movements of the latter. For this purpose they made
use of Koreans as spies
and through them gained some useful information but, if
reports are correct,
they were often deceived by these Korean spies as to the
number of the
Japanese. The passionate longing of the Koreans to see
the war carried to the
other side of the Yalu evidently affected these Korean
spies and more than once
their reports of the Rapid approach of strong
detachments of Japanese made the
Russians decamp in haste when in truth thet could easily
have stood their
ground and caused delay to the enemy. The question here
arises as to whether
one of the objects of the Russians was to cause serious
delay to the Japanese
so as to give more time for preparation to the military
authorities in
Manchuria.
The
rather serious
business at Chong-ju might indicate that such were their
orders. The little
skirmishes at Anju, when shots were exchanged across the
river and two or three
on either side were killed, could not be called serious
opposition. The
Russians were looking for the best place to take their
stand and see what they
could do at holding the Japanese in check. They may have
seen the futility of
it, and probably did, but an attempt, at least, must be
made to obey orders if
only to prove that they could not be carried out. The
skirmishes at Anju
occurred about the middle of March and it was not until
nearly a fortnight
later that the battle of Chong-ju was fought, namely
March 28th.
But
before describing
that encounter we must note some of the movements of the
Japanese that preceded
it. The Russians spread out over the southern portion of
North Pyeng-an
Province in a desultory sort of way. They must have
known through their scouts
that the Japanese were going north by the main road only
but the Russians
scattered far to the right and left of this road
apparently bent upon forage.
On March 15th they entered Yŭng-byŭn, the
capital of the province,
about a hundred strong and made a demand upon the
governor for food. He could
do nothing but comply, so he gave them orders on various
prefects in the
vicinity. These the Russians took and presented at
various prefectures saying
that the Russians were going to fight the Japanese and
that the Koreans must
aid them with food. They seem to have had the curious
notion that this would be
[page 152]
pleasing to the people, when in fact nothing could be
more distasteful. The Russians gradually came to see
their mistake when prefect
after prefect announced that orders straight from. Seoul
were superior to the
governor’s orders and that they could furnish no
provisions. The result was
that the Russians had to take what they wanted. These
provisions were not paid
for even though the Russians may have offered Russian
money. That money was
worthless to the Korean and however much he received it
could not be called
pay. It is amply proved that they took things without
leave, for they entered
the grounds of American citizens in Sun-ch’un and were
going to walk off with
some fodder, and it was only by an appeal to the head
officer that the theft
was prevented.
On
the 22nd a Russian band, twenty-five strong, entered
Ch’ul-san and took a
hundred pecks of rice and five bullocks. A large
majority of the people had run
away leaving their houses empty. The Russians entered
these houses and took
whatever they needed. It was the same in all the towns
along the main roads.
The number of Koreans who fled from their homes in the
north would mount up to thousands.
Where did they go with their wives and children? It was
bitterly cold. Winter
had but just begun to break up. The imagination is taxed
to the utmost to form
even a faint conception of the terrible suffering those
people must have
endured. The number of actual deaths among those
fugitives must have been ten
times the number of Japanese and Russians who were
killed or wounded in the
various small engagements. We may smile and say that it
was quite unnecessary
for them to run away from their homes, that they were
themselves to blame for
their suffering; but we forget that they know of war
only as rapine and
plunder, the loss of property, of life and of honor more
precious than life.
They know nothing of “civilized” warfare.
It
was on this same day March 22nd that the Russians at
Yongampo, connected with
the Timber Concession, and the Chinese under them,
removed to the other side of
the Yalu. Only 100 Russian soldiers and ten Chinese
remained. The Koreans say
that they put a [page 153]
large number of “boxes” into the water at that port. The
Koreans took it to be
the Russian form of burial but they learned later that
these were torpedoes. We
cannot be sure as yet that the Russians actually mined
the harbor, but these
reports would lead us to suppose so. On the next day
even the 100 soldiers and
the Chinese all left hurriedly and went across the Yalu
leaving everything in
the hands of the Korean interpreters.
When the
Japanese crossed the river at An-ju the Russians being
greatly outnumbered
evidently determined to move steadily back toward the
Yalu but to leave enough
men at Chong-ju to hold the Japanese temporarily in
check and prevent an attack
in the rear. That there was no general concentration of
troops at Chong-ju is
shown by the fact that on the 20th 500 Russians arrived
at K wi-siing which is
almost north of Chong-ju and then in a day or so went
westward. But still
better proof is found in the report that on the 29th
just one day after the
fight at Chong-ju 2,600 Russians arrived at Sun-ch’un
and the following day
went toward Wi-ju. These men could not have been in the
fight at Chong-ju.
There was a little brush between the Japanese and
Russians at Pakch’un a few
days before the Chong-ju affair and it is plain that the
Japanese were hot on
their trail for we hear from Ta-ch’un, just north of
Pak-ch’un, that on the
26th twenty-nine Japanese cavalry arrived and most of
these immediately hurried
westward toward Kwi-sung.
It
was on the morning of the 28th that the Japanese cavalry
scouts approached the
walled town of Chong-ju which is on the main road
thirty-five miles beyond
An-ju. Weare able to give a little sketch map of the
situation of Chong-ju,
indicating, the main road along which the Japanese came,
the lay of the land
about the city, the spot where the first firing took
place and the position
occupied by the Russians and from which they were driven
by the Japanese. It
will be seen that a stream comes down a valley from the
northwest and flows
around to the south side of the city where it is joined
by a corresponding
stream coming down from the northeast, so that the city
lies in the fork of the
streams, which then flow south into [page
154]
the sea a few miles distant. Some of the Japanese scouts
came across the stream about half past ten in the
morning and approached the
south gate of the town while others took a circuit
around the eastern side of
the town to see what was going on in that direction. It
soon became clear that
they were in touch with a considerable body of Russians
who were in the city
and outside the west gate. The scouts started back to
report but the Russians
seem to have followed them out of the south gate and
soon the main body of
Japanese appeared and a sharp encounter took place a
hundred yards outside the
south gate. The Russians were not in force enough to
hold this position which
was a poor one, so they retired, leaving, as it is
reported, two or three dead
on the field, who were afterward buried by the Japanese.
When the Russians
retired they all went outside the west gate up the
stream and took their
position on rising ground, evidently with the intention
of making a stand
there. The Japanese cavalry had followed close on their
heels, but when it was
seen that the Russians had drawn up for business the
cavalry retired to the
main body of the Japanese and reported. Going around the
south side of the city
the Japanese attacked the position of the Russians with
fifty cavalry and
seventy infantry but it was two or three hours before
they were dislodged and
compelled to retire toward Wiju. If the Japanese could
have pushed on and kept
up the fight the Russians would perhaps have been more
thoroughl3’ beaten but
snow was lying deep on the ground and the cavalry alone
could have effected
nothing. So the Japanese had to let the Russians off
without further loss. A
few days later the Russians were streaming through
Sinch’un carrying their
wounded. They were in full cry for the Yalu. This little
battle m which there
were only aboat fifteen casualties on each side seems to
have sufficed for the
Russians. No more stops were made until Wiju was
reached. The Japanese followed
steadily, welcomed every-where by the Koreans who had
learned the difference
between Japanese and Russian treatment. When they
appeared before Wiju the
Russians had already crossed to the other side of the [page 155]
Yalu and Korea was rid of the Cossack, it is to be hoped
forever.
It
was on March 4th that Korean soil once more ceased to be
belligerent territory.
We understand that the Russians have taken a stand on
the other side of the
river and will dispute its passage. In fact General
Kuropatkin is reported to
have said that the Russians would attempt to surround
the Japanese at the Yalu.
There
is little use in trying to forecast the immediate
future. General Kuropatkin is
an experienced officer and when the Japanese come in
contact with him there
will be some sharp work.
The Burning of
the Palace.
The night of
April 14th witnessed one of the greatest conflagrations
that Korea has suffered
for many years. The new Imperial Palace called the
Kyong-un was swept out of
existence in a few short hours. It will be remembered
that this was the palace
built soon after the Emperor took refuge in the Russian
Legation in 1896.
Compared with the old time palaces it was small and
insignificant but even so
it was a huge collection of buildings, huddled closely
together, some purely
native in style some purely foreign and others still a
mixture of the East and
West. It was about eleven o’clock that the alarm bells
were rung, though the
fire is said to have begun some thirty minutes sooner.
The cause of this fire
is not definitely known but rumor states that it came
from the overheating of
some newly made flues under the floor of a building
lately occupied by the
Emperor as his private apartment, but in order to
understand where the fire
originated the reader is invited to refer to the diagram
which accompanies this
article. This represents only the most important
buildings in the palace
enclosure but between these and around them were
hundreds of kan of buildings;
so that when the fire once caught it was sure to sweep
clear through.
[page 156]
It was in the building numbered 20 in the diagram that
the fire started. This
was the apartment of His Majesty before the Queen
Dowager died. At that time he
removed to the building numbered 11. The buildings that
he had temporarily left
were being renovated. Carpenters, masons and painters
had been hard at work
upon it. It is said that there were many shavings lying
under the maru
and when the workmen built a fierce
fire in the newly made fireplace some of these shavings,
being whirled about by
the wind caught fire and communicated the flames to the
shavings under the maru. The newly
painted wood burned
readily and when the fire was first noticed it had
already taken a firm hold.
It is probable that instant and vigorous measures would
have prevented a great
conflagration but in a Korean palace ordinary rules do
not work. In the first
place there must be no outcry or tumult; in the second
place the gates must all
be tightly closed and guarded. Then the Emperor must be
awakened and informed
of the fact that the palace is on fire. Then and only
then can any attempt be
made to stop it. It is quite irregular for any efforts
to be made in this direction
without the express order of the Emperor. The result is
that if a fire once
starts in a palace the whole place is practically
doomed. History shows us that
seditious attempts have often been begun by starting
such a fire, so that the
first care must be to close the palace gates and give
access to no one.
On
this occasion matters were made worse by a high wind
that was blowing from the
northeast and the building where the fire started was in
the northeastern part
of the palace grounds; so that the flames were
practically sure to sweep a
clean path through the palace inclosure diagonally to
the southwest comer.
Not
long after the fire was perceived from the outside the
Japanese fire-bell was
rung and the Japanese and Chinese firemen hastened to
the palace but found all
the gates fast closed and no answer was made to their
shouts, so they were
unable to render any assistance. No noise was heard from
the palace enclosure
except the angry roar of flames and the crash of falling
roofs.
[page
157]
There was something sinister about the stillness. Fire
in the orient is always associated in the mind with
screaming crowds and
frantic efforts to dam the tide of flame, but here all
was silent. Crowds
surged around the palace on the outside but what of the
thousand people or more
who were within. They might all be burned to death.
The
British Legation guard turned out promptly and armed
with patent fire
extinguishers attempted to get in at the back gate and
on the side near the
Custom House, but they were foiled at every point. They
then went to Mr.
Chalmers’ place and secured a hand fire engine and
dragged it around to the
palace in readiness to enter if an opportunity should be
afforded.
Meanwhile
the fire was rapidly gaining a firmer hold upon the
closely packed buildings in
the palace. It leaped from the house in which it started
to the adjoining
buildings to the west, south and southwest, and it was
not long before it
threatened the apartments in which the Emperor was
anxiously awaiting the
issue. Within forty minutes of the time when the fire
was discovered he
hurriedly moved to building numbered 9 on the diagram
and called to him Prince
Yung-chin and Lady Om. Of course the Crown Prince was
with him all the time.
This move was made so hurriedly that His Majesty is said
to have gone out in
the garments that he wears at night. It soon became
evident that the whole
palace was doomed and that there was no part of it
sufficiently safe for His
Majesty to risk remaining there. It was therefore
decided to leave the palace
and go to the Library building which is just west of the
American Legation. To
do this he must go out the small gate on the west side
of the palace, but when
this was reached it was found already open. The reason
for this was as follows:
Along the west side of the palace enclosure, inside the
wall, was a row of
buildings used as barracks and magazine. The smoke drove
straight in that
direction and a shower of burning cinders was falling.
The soldiers were drawn
up in front of their quarters and it was plain that
unless something was done
and done very [page 158]
quickly they would be burned to death. They had no mind
to emulate the example
of Casablanca and so made for this west gate to gain
egress from their critical
position. It was closed, barred and locked but with the
flames behind them they
soon had the gate unbarred and streamed out. A number of
the American Legation
guard were there waiting for an opportunity to be of
service. The Korean
soldiers told these men of the ammunition stored in the
threatened buildings
and so the Americans together with some of the Koreans
made a dash for the
building and soon had the ammunition outside the palace
where it could do no
harm. If this had not been done a very serious explosion
might have occurred.
It was about this time, approximately 11:30, that the
Emperor, the Crown
Prince, Lady Om, Prince Yung-chin and a crowd of
eunuchs, officials and palace
women came hurrying out of the gate to make their way to
the Library building.
Soon
after this the British Legation guard entered this gate,
got their hose-pipe
into a large well at the northwest comer of the palace
enclosure and set to
work to save the new palace building that is in course
of construction. They
kept a stream of water on the scaffolding and succeeded
in preventing the fire
from spreading in that direction.
The
wind was blowing strongly from the northeast and about
midnight the fire
reached the great Audience Hall called the Chung-wha-jon
or “Middle Harmony
Hall.” The fire went around three sides of this great
building before it caught
fire. The large amount of ornamental work under its
double roof made it bum
with one great roaring tide of flame. The sight from the
British Legation
grounds was truly awe-inspiring. In half an hour the
enormous pillars which
supported the double roof were seen to totter and then
the whole pile came with
a deafening crash to the ground. Even so the debris
stood sixty feet high or
more and burned as fiercely as ever. This building alone
represented an outlay
of something like half a million dollars.
Fears
were felt for the safety of some of the foreigners’ [page 159]
houses to the southwest of the palace. The constant
steam of sparks and cinders which fell upon and around
them required careful
watching and some of the foreigners were busy pouring
water upon the most
exposed portions of the buildings. Some gentlemen
mounted the roof of the
Methodist Church, which was nearest the fire, and kept
watch for signs of fire
there.
In
the room occupied by His Majesty there was a heavy chest
containing a large
amount of solid gold and silverware of various kinds. As
soon as His Majesty
left the apartment eight soldiers were detailed to bring
out this chest but
their combined strength was inadequate to the demand and
it had to be left.
After the fire the debris was removed and it was found,
of course, that the
gold and silver had melted and run in all directions but
the bullion was
recovered. In an adjoining room was another case
containing a large number of
silver spoons and other implements which had been
presented to His Majesty as souvenirs on many festive
occasions. The cover of
this was burned off and the contents partially melted
but many of the spoons
though blackened and twisted still retained some
semblance of their original
shape.
It
would be a mistake to suppose that all the buildings
were burned or that all
the occupants of the palace buildings had to leave.
There were seven or eight
buildings on the north, northeast and east sides of the
enclosure that were not
burned and many of the palace women, clerks and others
remained in them until
morning.
Many
valuable books and documents were burned in the cabinet
council house numbered
in the sketch. These books were histories, secret
documents, ceremonial laws
and a large number of foreign books. In the house
occupied by His Majesty a
large amount of Japanese paper money was burned. The
furniture of some
buildings was hastily carried out and piled up in the
road or passage-way and
in some instances this was burned, although the building
from which it was
taken escaped. In the buildings surrounding the great
Audience Hall [page
160]
were stored the uniforms and instruments of the native
musicians. These were
all destroyed. Many jinrickshas that had been prepared
for use in the jubilee
celebration, that was so many times postponed, were also
burned. The number of
screens, silver utensils, rolls of silk, vases, and
other valuables is unknown
but the aggregate value must have been very great
indeed.
The
morning after the fire inquiries were immediately set on
foot to discover the
parties responsible for the calamity. It was found that
the cause was as we
have stated already; so the men who had charge of the
repairs, and to whose
carelessness the fire was due, were immediately arrested
and lodged in jail at
the Law Department. It is said that these men will be
banished nominally for a
term of years but that they will be soon reprieved. The
matter of the place of
the Emperor’s residence was taken up immediately. The
various functions of the
Household were temporarily lodged in buildings owned by
the government in the
vicinity of the palace but this could not continue long.
Rumors were abroad
that His Majesty would go to the Chang-dok Palace,
called “The Old Palace” by
foreigners. Others said he would lease the Russian
Legation while others still
believed that he would stay in the Library building
until sufficient repairs
could be effected on the site of the burned palace to
make it habitable. Of
these three the last was by far the most congenial to
His Majesty and inquiries
were set on foot to find out what such repairs could be
effected for. An
estimate was made that it would require Y 9,000,000 to
put the whole palace in
the condition it was before the fire. This, being nearly
equivalent to a year’s
revenue for the whole country, was of course out of the
question; but 300,000
dollars were appropriated for temporary repairs and
carpenters and other
workmen were ordered to be in readiness to begin the
work. Most of the leading
officials and the Japanese Minister advised that the
Court be moved to the “Old
Palace’* but this was very distasteful to His Majesty so
the matter was not
pressed. But as the days passed it became more and more
evident that this would
[page
161]
be the outcome of the matter for the government treasury
can ill-afford the
tremendous strain and, in addition to this, the “Old
Palace”
has lately been renovated and put in order so that a
very slight expenditure will make it habitable. Strong
pressure was again
brought to bear upon the court and at the present
writing, April 25, it has
been practically decided that the court will remove to
that palace. It is by
all odds the finest situation in the city and much more
commensurate with the
dignity of an imperial court than the cramped quarters
in Chong-dong which are
elbowed on every side by foreign legations and other
foreign properties. Of
course it will mean that we shall be able to have no
more of those delightful
picnics in the “Old Palace” grounds where one can
imagine himself for a time
transported far away from the sights and sounds of the
city.
In
connection with this fire there is an amusing prophecy
said to have been
unearthed. Someone posted an anonymous statement at
Chongno, the center of the
city, saying that such a prophecy had been found and
that it reads as follows :
XXXXXXX
The curious
thing about it is that this inscription was posted at
the beginning of the
year. The literal translation is as follows: “The pine
forest will suffer a
calamity; at first hide in the tiger’s tail; green
dragon of ancient times;
superior will be attached to twenty.” This means
absolutely nothing as it
stands but it is one of those curious oriental
conundrums in which the Korean
delights. It depends upon a clever juggling with the
Chinese characters. The
first four characters are said to foretell the burning
of the palace, as the
thousands of posts used in its construction may be
called a “forest of pines.”
The next four characters are interpreted generally to
refer to the fact that the
Emperor took refuge in the Library building which, being
a sort of annex to the
palace, may by a stretch of the imagination be called a
“tail.” The use of the
word tiger describes the Library building more
perfectly, for the tiger is the
animal that [page 162]
corresponds to “West” even as rat corresponds to north,
dragon to east, and
bird to south. The third combination, the green dragon,
refers to the present
year, for each year of the sixty year cycle has its own
“animal name” and this
year, being the kap-chin year, may be also called the
green dragon year. But
the character for dragon also means the third moon of
the year, for each moon
is presided over by some animal. Then the last
character, meaning “ancient” is
made up of the characters meaning twenty-first day. So
the whole of this third
line gives the exact year, month and day in which the
idea in the last line
will be carried out. The day here specified is the sixth
of May. The
enigmatical meaning of the last line is “The superior
will be attached to the
double sun’’
now the character sun
is * and if two be put together the
two characters for day * come together one above the
other and this is the
character *, chang, which is the name of the “Old
Palace.’* So the whole is
interpreted as follows : In 1904 a disaster will
overtake the palace. Its
inmates will find refuge in a building to the west of
the palace and on the
fifth of May they will remove to the “Old Palace.” When
this poster was
discovered in the morning by the police it was instantly
torn down and taken to
the Police Headquarters. If the author could be found he
would suffer capital
punishment. But many people saw and copied it and it
appeared in the native
papers a few days since. To say the very least it is a
curious coincidence. It
will be rather interesting to note whether the last line
of the prophecy is
fulfilled. If the interpretation of the lines is the
right one the only
rational explanation would be that the conflagration was
incendiary in its
origin and that the last line is a clever effort to
force its own
accomplishment by making the individuals to which it
refers hesitate not to
follow it lest worse evils befall. It will be noticed
that the fifth of May is
a lucky day and one on which a moving can be
accomplished without fear of the
spirits taking offence. If there is anything in this, it
gives us just a
glimpse into the workings of the oriental mind.
At
last advices the plan to rebuild five of the buildings [page 163] has been changed and two
only will be built. The two buildings in the diagram
marked with a cross are
the ones to be rebuilt.
The Internal
Condition of Affairs in Korea.
In such a
country as this it is rather difficult to gauge the
feelings of the people, but
everybody who knows anything about them must admit that
the whole country is in
a very unsettled mental state. The people do not know
whether the tide of war
will turn and they may be called upon to entertain a
Russian army. They do not
know just to what extent the Japanese will assume the
direction of affairs
here. They do not know what the Home Office will do
about the prefects
throughout the land. They do not know how much or how
little the talk of the
Tong-haks and other disintegrating factions may amount
to. They do not know
where the multiplication of robber bands is going to
stop. The outlook is not
as promising as it might be. Two of the highest
officials in the so-called
reconstructed government are having a violent quarrel
over the appointment of
the country prefects. Each has brought in a list of
appointees and each insists
that his list shall be adopted. This is very suspicious
on the face of it, for
it looks as if it was a clear case of that same
partisanship which has been the
bane of good government in Korea ever since the middle
of the sixteenth
century. This uncertainty at Seoul is thoroughly
understood in the country and
increases the feeling of insecurity there. The
depredations of the bandits,
especially in the south, has reached a point where steps
must soon be taken to
put them down or the people will feel that the only way
to be secure is to
become robbers themselves. One morning not long ago a
band of five armed men
entered a town in southern Korea and forced the people
to point out all the
houses [page 164]
of well-to-do citizens. They said that a large number of
beggars were on their
way north and would soon be passing this town, and the
people were warned to
feed these tramps or they would suffer for it. The crowd
of tramps arrived, a
veritable Coxey’s Army, and the people took them in and
fed them. As soon as
the eating was over these tramps each produced a short
sword and began looting
the town. They took away some 30,000 dollars with them.
We
have received from Dr. W. B. McGill some notes on
observations he made recently
in Kong-ju, about a hundred miles south of Seoul. He
says that about five miles
from that place there are some fanatics who have formed
a new religion. He went
out to the place and saw their antics. He found that
they called their cult
**** the Sound, Influence, Dance Doctrine. They believe
that if they chant the
five sounds of the ancient Chinese gamut, the ***** and
dance with all their
might, God will be pleased, the Holy Spirit will descend
and all evil will be
taken away. They call God their Father and say that
Jesus being fixed in the
heavens forms a cross. They say that Christ will come to
earth again together
with Confucius and Mencius, and that the time is at
hand. They dance so hard
that the “trees, men and mountains seem to be leaping in
unison with them” and
the elements seem to be dissolving. The ignorant
on-looker is tempted to join
in the intoxicating dance. Dr. McGill says that the
local “Dowie” approached
him and waved over his head some paper on which were
written in red certain
meaningless characters, apparently trying to hypnotize
him. We fancy he was not
a very docile subject. These people in the excess of
their frenzy have
hemorrhages of the lungs and believe that the evil goes
out of them with the
blood and that renewed spiritual life comes with the
renewed flesh. They claim
that they and the Christians belong to the same family
and believe the same
things. They read the “Great Learning” and the “Little
Learning” and believe
that their doctrine came from Confucius, find that the
scholars have forgotten
the true doctrine of [page 165] Confucius.
They allow women to follow the doctrine equally with
men.
One day he was walking
through the town and he saw a crowd of beggar boys
huddled around some object.
He approached and found them seated in a circle about a
smouldering fire eating
a dead dog that they had found in the sewer. They had
made a little fire,
enough to bum the hair off and singe the flesh a little.
It was a very sad
sight to see the little fellows fight for the possession
of the only knife in
order to cut off a piece of the meat. One little fellow
had secured the head of
the dog as his share and looked up at the Doctor and
smiled and said “I have
the best part of all.” The next day he saw five of these
boys crowded into a
single fireplace at the local butcher shop. After the
fire is out, ten of these
beggar boys crawl in and sleep. Some’, of course, go
clear in out of sight.
Several cases brought to him were boys who had been
burned by contact with the
hot stones on the sides of these fireplaces.
One
day he was startled by his boy who came in to say that
four men and one woman
had just been hanged. The next day he saw three of the
bodies hanging from a
willow tree just outside the town. There were two other
broken ropes showing
where the others had been hung. The woman and a boy had
been cut down
duringthe
night. It was said the woman
was a murderess. She had fed her husband lamprey eels in
his rice and so
poisoned him. When he was dead she tore his face off so
that he could not be
recognized. The Doctor says—
“I
went to the prison and talked through a hole in the door
with those inside.
Some were thieves and others murderers. There were
thirty-seven in all. One of
them seemed to show some signs of contrition. He said
that he and three others
got into a fight on the way home from a funeral and one
of them was killed.
They were all drunk at the time. Most of these
thirty-seven were hanged within
a week. I knew of some forty-five who were hanged within
a month. From a
distance I witnessed nine of them being hung to a single
branch, so close to
each other that their faces touched. They had [page 166]
their hands tied behind them with straw rope and they
walked to the tree with the constable holding them by
the arm, and put their
heads in the noose without any attempt at resistance.
They seemed to die
without the least struggle. One of the prisoners was
sent up the tree to tie
the straw ropes. The man to be hanged was held up off
the ground a foot or so
while the rope was being tied to the limb and then he
was dropped and slowly
strangled. The first victim was so heavy that the straw
rope broke three times,
and he looked up and cursed the man in the tree for not
tying the rope
properly. Death usually followed in three or four
minutes. Two little boys
stood near me crying. I asked them what the matter was
and they said, “That is
our father.” Two or three days later these bodies were
taken down. Some were
thrown into the ditch and some were half buried, so that
a hand, a foot or a
top-knot showed above the surface. The dogs had been
helping themselves. In
that same place there were many skulls and other
portions of the human
skeleton. It was said that a few years ago a large
number of tonghaks were
placed in a group and a huge fire built around them. I
went to the prison again
and this time gained admission. There were thirteen
inmates, three of whom were
in the stocks. The keeper’s house was in front of the
outer door of the prison
and a meaner face I do not care to see. As I was going
home after witnessing
the hanging described above, I met an old woman with a
grass-hook or sickle in
her hand and I asked her where she was going. She said
she was going to cut
down her son who had been hanged. I also met another old
woman and two younger
ones with some children going for the same purpose. The
ajun told me that there
were about forty more to be hanged soon. My servant was
going along the road at
dusk and neared a village. There were nine policemen
just behind him. The door
of an inn opened and the first of the policemen fell
pierced by a shot. The
other policemen scattered in all directions. Three
thieves had stopped there to
eat and did not propose to be disturbed.
“It
isn’t safe to accuse the wrong man in this country, [page 167]
though.
Once a man was brought to my dispensary with both
eyes hanging down on his cheeks. He had lain hands on
the wrong man for the
thief, and as a penalty had his eyes gouged out.
“Oh
yes, he lived.”
It
is no pleasure to record these horrors, but they give us
just a glimpse at
native life in Korea. The cruelty, the brutality, the
cheapness of human life
are appalling, and such things occur not in Kong-ju only
but all over the
country.
We
are sorry to note that native Protestant Christians in
the south near Mokpo are
suffering severe persecutions at the hands of the
populace. Dr. Owen writes
under date of April 4th that he has brought the matter
twice to the attention
of the governor who seems to be prejudiced and unwilling
to investigate but
later he put the matter into the hands of the Kamni of
Mokpo who immediately
took active steps to have the ringleaders arrested. Two
of the native
Christians had been imprisoned, several beaten, and
others had been robbed of
their books. Kwang-ju and Na-ju are said to be hot-beds
of the tonghaks and
pukaks, A later notice says that the police sent by the
Kamni secured four out
of six of the ringleaders of the persecution and were
bringing them to Mokpo.
But after the police had started on their return trip a
company of ruffians
came and seized some fiftt men, women and children
connected with the Christian
work. It is not known yet what was done to them, but the
Kamni immediately
telegraphed the governor and the Foreign Minister in
Seoul and sent a man post
haste to the governor to secure the release of these
people. The man mainly
responsible for the trouble is wealthy and this may be
the reason why justice
is so slow.
It
looks as if the unsettled state of things in Seoul was
being reflected in the
actions of the people in the country. This delicate
barometric relation between
the politics of Seoul and the actions of the country
people is one of those
things which no one not native born will ever get to
understand. These poor
deluded people suffering under an incubus of ignorance,
of poverty, of [page
168]
hopelessness are a heart-breaking spectacle. The time
must come when this
government will see that education is more necessary
than an army.
Both
in the north and south, the tonghak are much in
evidence. The country about
Pyeng-yang swarms with them. They are pratically nothing
but organized robbers
but the name they have assumed invests them with a sort
of dignity in the eyes
of the Koreans. It is an attempt to veil sedition under
a religious name. In
the south also the country is rife with the same sort of
thing. It is all based
on the desire to get something for nothing. Many of the
gentry have turned
robbers. The reason for this as given by competent
Korean witnesses is that a
great change has been effected in the attitude of the
common people toward the
gentry. In former times the gentry were a genuinely
superior class whose
education, and manners commanded and received respect.
They were respected by
the common people and found no difficulty in
requisitioning whatever of the
necessities and luxuries of life they might want; but
all this is changed now
because of a double movement in society. The upper class
have ceased studying
and have dropped to a point but little above the common
people while the latter
have slowly but surely had their eyes opened to facts of
which they were before
ignorant. They now despise the yangban who while
preserving all his former
pride has lost his former claim to consideration. Once
he had only to suggest
what he wanted and it was forthcoming; now when he
demands it the people seize
and beat him or else pass by with a disdainful smile.
The power of the yangban
is gone. Some will regret the passing of this old time
social condition but
there can be no doubt whatever that it is a distinct
advance in genuine civilization.
Editorial
Comment.
We have heard
a great deal of late years about the deteriorating
effect of yellow journalism.
The aim seems to be to provide something startling even
if not true.
[page 169] The
appetite grows with what it feeds on and the degree of
“hairbreadthness” must
be constantly increased or the pampered appetite of the
public will reject it.
All this we have had dinned into our ears but we had
fondly thought the Editor
of the Kobe
Chronicle was proof
against such things. We described a journey of some
missionaries through a
section of the belligerent country in northern Korea and
stated that one cold
night when the little party, consisting of one foreign
gentleman and three
ladies with a few coolies, came to a mountain village
and applied at the local
inn for lodgings they found it was a tonghak village,
and it was well known
that the tonghaks had lately vowed to massacre the
foreigners and clear the
land of them. The little party was refused lodgings and
ordered to leave the town
on pain of death. In spite of fatigue and cold they were
compelled to push on
through the night over a snowy road to a distant
village. This is what we said,
but the Editor of the Kobe Chronicle can see nothing
exciting about it. He does
not understand why we call it an exciting trip. He says
that in a really
exciting trip he would have expected to hear of various
dangerous experiences,
but that this one was very tame. Who would have thought
that the “yellow” fever
would have claimed our worthy contemporary as its
victim? The following is
doubtless the sort of thing he would look for in a
genuinely exciting trip :
It was a
wintry night and all the world had gone to sleep in that
lone wilderness,
except a little band of Americans who wound their way
over the hills and
through the darksome forests, far from home and
surrounded by unknown dangers.
The cold, unpitying stars looked down upon them from
above and the ladies
glanced repeatedly from side to side ever on the lookout
for lurking danger.
The footsore but courageous coolies trudged stolidly
along and in front strode
the only foreign gentleman in the party, his alert
bearing and set jaw
proclaiming his determination to win through or die at
his post.
Hark!
what was that?
The
party came to a sudden halt; the ladies’ faces blanched,
the coolies muttered
incantations against the spirits of the air. The leader
stood in a tense,
listening attitude with his finger on the trigger.
Again
the ominous sound!
It
was the barking of a dog in a village nearby. Their
approach had been detected
and now there was nothing to do but push forward [page 170]
and brave the imminent peril. The leader drew his belt
tighter, set his jaw a little more firmly, glanced back
at the ladies, laid his
finger on his lip in sign of caution and then they
silently struggled forward
in the gloom of night. What might they not be
approaching? Was it safety or was
it death?
They
came to the outskirts of the village. There it lay,
bathed in the moonlight,
but not a soul was visible. Only the ominous howling of
the dog broke the
starry stillness of the night. The hardy leader put on a
bold front though fear
had laid its icy fingers on his heart. He approached a
door and gave it a
sounding blow with the butt of his revolver and at the
same time called out
with masterful voice.
“Chu-in-ah!”
There
was in his tone the master fulness of the West but the
house rang hollow to his
touch. Again he struck louder than before and again the
same wierd cry came
from his throat.
It
was all in vain!
An
impatient coolie muttered, “Break it down,” but this was
beneath the dignity of
our hero. At last by dint of shouting and pounding the
inmates of the place
were awakened, but no sooner had they seen that the
party was composed of
foreigners than they raised a wild cry which instantly
aroused the entire
hamlet. Men came pouring forth from every house, each
with a weapon in his
hand. The leader of the party felt the crucial moment
had come. He stood boldly
forth as daring them to attack him. Fierce, blood-shot
faces were pressed close
to his own, eyes that betokened murder glared upon him
from every side. One of
the blood-thirsty crew raised a great bludgeon above his
head and with a wild
yell was about to . . ...
But
we draw the veil over the harrowing scene without even
so much as a “Continued
in our next” to cheer our able contemporary. We would be
pleased to learn
whether this style would make the trip really exciting
to him or whether it
would be necessary to have the ladies dragged about by
the hair and the hero
beaten “to a pulp” in order to raise the responsive
thrill in his breast. If he
will let us know what degree of yellowness is necessary
perhaps we might manage
to evolve something that would be more exciting than a
plain statement like the
one we gave in our last issue.
The Vanguard.
The Vanguard,
by Rev. Jas. S Gale. Fleming H. Co., Chicago,
Publishers. 8vo. pp. 320; $1.50.
Illustrated.
[page
171]
We have lately received a copy of this book and have
examined it carefully. The
author has adopted a most novel and interesting method
of depicting the life
and experiences of the modem missionary. It is a
distinctly new departure
though “The Bishop’s Conversion” and one or two other
books may be said to
border on the same field. Mr. Gale has brought to this
work all the necessary
qualifications for a successful book. In the first place
he knows Korea and the
Korean mind as intimately as they can well be known by a
foreigner. The
experiences and incidents he relates are at least the
counterpart of those
which have come under his own observation. The
characters are drawn in some
sense from actual life though it cannot be said that
there is anything “personal”
about the actors in the story. It is inevitable that
shrewd guesses will be
made, but these guesses may or may not be true; and in
any case the characters
are all handled with a kindliness of manner and a
charitableness of touch which
would disarm criticism. And last but not least the
author has brought to this
work a fascinating style which makes the book well worth
reading simply for its
diction. All these things together make it quite
certain, even before we open
the book, that it will be good reading, but we must add
to this the fact that
there is, underlying it, a deep purpose. It was not
thrown off as a mere
literary pastime. It is a serious and successful attempt
to lay open the inner
life of the missionary. There is no attempt to minimize
the difficulties of the
work nor the human limitations of the missionary. His
faults and failures are
frankly granted and yet the story is instinct with the
spirit which makes
possible the accomplishment of mighty things even by the
use of such imperfect
instruments. No one can write a successful book about an
individual or a system
unless he has appreciation and sympathy. These two
qualities shine out from
every page of this book. As to the style, the word that
best describes it is
suggestiveness, the subtle power that tells more in a
simple word, perhaps,
than most people can tell in a whole sentence.
Another
thing we like about the book is that there is [page 172]
no attempt to conceal its real motive and purpose. On
every page you read between the lines these words
If
all you get out of this is an interesting story to
while away an idle hour, it is a failure.
There is no
room in the world to-day for any apologies for
Christianity. In the parlance of
ordinary business, it is a “going concern,” and the
author places this book
before the general public as confidently as you would
place before it the
annual statement of any other business that is paying a
handsome interest on
the investment. We are simply asked to take a look at
the inner life of a
successful missionary enterprise. It is an array of
facts, more conclusive than
statistics.
We
do not propose to spoil it for the reader by giving an
outline of the story but
we can only say that the man or woman who fails to read
it will miss the best
thing that has yet appeared on Korea.
News Calendar.
On the 7th
inst. the soldiers of the British Legation Guard gave a
concert at the barracks
on the Legation Compound. It took the form of a farewell
entertainment in honor
of Dr. and Mrs. Baldock who were about to leave Korea
permanently. The concert
was a distinct success in all respects. The room was
amply large for the
audience. The stage was very gracefully draped with the
British Japanese and
American flags. The songs were repeatedly encored and
the choruses were
rendered in fine shape. The singers were fortunate in
having such an
exceptionally fine accompanyist in the person of Mr
Ferguson who was as much at
home on the piano stool as Private Curson» claimed to be
not at home on horse-back. Private
Deluhery gave free rein to his
exceptional genius at comedy and kept the house going
from one convulsion of
laughter into another. During the intermission the men
presented Dr. and Mrs.
Baldock with a large framed photograph of the guard and
officers, and
accompanied it with some very appreciative words which
the recipients will
value even more highly than the memento.
On the evening
of the 22nd inst. the members of the American and
British Legation Guards gave
a concert for the benefit of the local Y. M. C A. By the
kindness of Dr. Brown
they were given the use of a fine hall in one of the
customs buildings just inside
the Little West Gate. The soldiers were assisted on the
program by some of the
civilians [page
173]
of Seoul but most of the program was very successfully
filled by the soldiers
themselves. It was divided into three parts, the first
and third of which were
general and the second a Minstrel performance in which
the end men did
themselves proud. The singing was a distinct success
throughout and many of the
choruses were specially fine. We understand that the net
proceeds were upwards
of Yen 150. Special thanks are due to the British
Marines who worked so
assiduously and successfully on the decorations, and to
Mr. Gillett, on whom
the responsibility for the whole affair rested. The hall
was well filled and
the frequent encores showed that the performance was
enjoyed to the full.
A good deal of
news was crowded out of our March number by the press of
other matter but we
shall try to include it in the present number by the
issue of supplementary
pages.
On March 10th
a new Japanese daily newspaper was established in
Chemulpo under the name of
the Tai-kan Il-bo
meaning The Korean
Daily Record. It is a little larger than the other
dailies in Korea. It
purports to be published in the interests of the Korean
government and people.
His Majesty, the Emperor, was pleased to donate Yen
1,000 as a present to the
new venture.
Cho Min-heui
the Minister to Japan arrived at Tokyo on March nth.
About seven
men who have been long imprisoned on account of their
connection with the
sometime Independence Club were finally released on
March 12th. Yi Seung-man
was not among those released.
On March 24,
the birthday of the Prince Imperial, there were no
special festivities because
the court was in mourning for the Queen Dowager .
On March 24th
the Emperor sent a present to the Japanese soldiers,
consisting of twenty
bottles of champagne, fifty boxes of cigars, fifty boxes
of cigarettes, thirty
bottles of sake, fifty bullocks, 300 boxes of Japanese
cigars; and to the naval
men he sent 30,000 cigarettes.
One of the
Japanese native dailies in Seoul published a statement
about the 23rd ult.
praising some Korean students in Japan who had been
charged by their own
government with sedition. The Che-guk copied the
statement, with the result
that Chang Chi-yun the editor of the Whang-sung was
arrested by mistake. When
he challenged his captors to show where he had published
it they were unable to
do so, so he was liberated and the editor of the
Che-guk, Yi Chong-il, was
arrested. He said he had not originated the article in
question but had only
copied it, but he was told that this was itself a
seditious act and he was
lodged in prison where he still remains, and with no
immediate prospect of
release.
While Marquis
Ito was in Seoul he had the honor of sitting at the
table with His Majesty at a
dinner on March 25th.
U Keui-wun, a
teacher in the German language School, has been
appointed to succeed Hong
Hyun-sik the secretary who committed suicide at Berlin.
[page
174]
The Japanese in constructing the Seoul Fusan Railway are
said to have struck a
rich deposit of copper about 170 li
from Fusan. A little further on they came across a fine
vein of coal.
Yi Chi-yong
was appointed special envoy to Japan to return the the
visit made by Marquis
Ito. He left Chemulpo on the 14th and arrived in Tokyo
on April 23rd.
The Korean
Emperor conferred the highest decoration in his gift
upon Prince Henry of
Germany on March 20th.
The American
Minister received from the Emperor the first class
decoration of the Tai-geuk
on Match 20th. Mr. Hayasbi also received the same
decoration and many other
Japanese received decorations of various grades.
On March 2Cth
twenty Koreans departed for the Hawaiian Islands to
engage in work.
Special
efforts are being made to check the use of opium by
Koreans. Some of the people
who smoke opium have been punished by tying to their
backs the opium pipes and
marching them about the streets to be jeered at by the
people. Gambling, too,
is being punished. Even the son of Han Kyu-sul, lately
Minister of Law, was recently
given twenty blows fcr gambling.
The Law Office
recently sent out a notice that any Korean either
official or private who joins
with any foreigner and does anything derogatory to the
dignity of the
government will be punished. This refers to recent
arrangements in which
private parties attempt to put through various schemes
by which the government
is compromised. We need not go into particulars.
Punishment will follow even
though the effort be unsuccessful. Some specific forms
of this offence are specified.
(1) Going to any foreign legation and asking them to
render aid to the Korean
Government. (2) Disclosing any Government secret to any
foreigner. (3) Asking
the loan of soldiers or money from any foreign source;
or offering any kind of
mining, timber or railroad concession to any foreigner.
(4) Making any contract
with a foreign firm for war vessels or material or any
machinery; or making any
arrangement or promise of a position as adviser or
assistant in any department
of the government. (5) Attempting to secure office
because of services rendered
as go-between for any foreigner and a Korean official.
(6) Starting absurd
rumors that tend to unsettle the public mind, (7)
Selling or in any way
alienating any land to a foreigner, outside the treaty
ports (8) Becoming
naturalized in any foreign country without the consent
of the Korean
government.
A special
court for Seoul has been established separate from the
Supreme court. It has
been housed in the buildings used by the former
Surveying Bureau, which has
been attached to the Finance Department,
Yi Han-yung
resigned the War portfolio and Hyun Yang-un was
appointed on March 31st. He was
the man who acted as confidential interpreter between
Marquis Ito and the
Korean Emperor.
The prefect of
Ch’ung-ju neglected his business and spent a good [page 175]
deal
of his time praying to the great rock Buddha at
Ung-jin, So the governor of the province locked up the
prefect’s house and
relieved him of his position.
Sin Ta-hyu,
the Chief of Police had begun a vigorous campaign
against certain evils in the
social life of Korea. He has posted in conspicuous
places the list of his
proposed changes and commands the people to observe the
new regulations. Many
of these are really important and strike at genuine
evils. Some of them are as
follows:
( I ) Ordinary
notes of land, payable at sight shall not be considered
negotiable but must be
cashed immediately. (2) Any man who comes up to Seoul
and tries to buy office
or anyone who helps him will be severely handled; (3)
Any one who obtains a
loan on false pretenses will be punished, (4) It is
forbidden for any policeman
to use his office as a means for extorting money. (5)
Children shall not go
about the streets soliciting money. (The government has
undertaken to feed
them); (6) Servants of officials shall not be allowed to
take what they wish
from shops or stalls without payment.
On April 3th
700 Japanese troops arrived in Seoul and on the same day
eighty-six who were on
the sick-list returned to Japan.
About the beginning
of the month many counterfeit notes of the Japanese Bank
were issued. The Y. 5
denomination were so well made as almost to defy
detection. Two Japanese were
arrested and imprisoned for a term of two years for this
offence,.
Early in April
a number of special taxes and imports were remitted
namely those on fire-wood,
charcoal, tobacco, and on river boats. There were also
many lesser ones.
The Dai Ichi
Ginko bank notes have now reached a circulation of some
Y 1,300,000.
So
Chung-sun the Governor of South Ham-gyung arrested two
Tonghak leaders and had them shot.
The foreigners
in Kunsan desire to express, through the columns of of
this Review, their
thanks for the generous manner in which the friends in
Seoul responded to their
request for garden seeds. Unlike us in the Capital they
are wholly dependent on
their own gardens for vegetables and when the steamship
companies refused to
bring freight from San Francisco the loss of garden
seeds was a serious
inconvenience.
It is reported
that the Japanese are building temporary barracks in
Chong-ju, Un-san, Kwak
san, Son-ch’un and Yung-byun. It is not very creditable
to the Koreans that the
prefect of each of these places is attending to
“important business” in Seoul.
The Governor and the people are sending urgent requests
that the prefects be
sent down.
The native
papers state that advices from the island of Ko-je at
Masampo indicate that the
Japanese are actively engaged in fortifying the place,
building barracks and
erecting batteries.
The native
papers say that a French citizen who made a secret
engagement with the
Government to superintend some building operations had
failed for some months
to receive his salary. He went to the private residence
of Min Pyung-suk the
Minister of the Household [page 176]
and found that he had gone to the country. He therefore
declared that as his
salary was not forthcoming he would seize the house and
hold it as security.
The Foreign Office communicated with the French
authorities objecting to this
method of procedure and said that while the salary would
be paid, the
government would expect the gentleman in question to be
dealt with somewhat
strenuously by the French authorities.
On the 23rd
inst. about seventy of the American Legation Guard were
withdrawn from Seoul
and sailed for Manila. Forty men volunteered to remain
here but as only
twenty-eight were needed they could not all stay. This
would indicate that
Seoul has not proved an altogether unpleasant berth.
Many of them expressed
themselves as highly pleased at the hospitable way in
which they had been
treated by the American residents of Seoul.
A great
monastery in Mi-ryang near Fusan has been destroyed by
fire. It is said it had
several hundred inmates.
Col Chang
Tal-heun stationed at Puk-ch’ung in the northeast near
Sung-jin has been
charged by the Japanese with sympathizing with the
Russians and working against
the interests of Japan and they suggested that his
services be dispensed with.
The government immediately complied with this request.
When it was
decided to send the Pyeng-yang regiment north Col. Kim
Wun-gye told the
soldiers that those who wished to go might go and those
who did not care to go
might stay in Seoul. So out of a thousand men 600
elected to go. It is a
curious method to adopt in time of war and the Colonel
has been subjected to
severe criticism. Soldiers are supposed to obey orders
during the term of
enlistment and to allow them to choose whether they will
go or stay seems to be
a serious breach of discipline.
The laying of
the Seoul-Wiju Railway is proceeding apace. Notices from
Song-do indicate that
we shall soon be able to go to that city by rail.
About the
beginning of April one of the Japanese soldiers had a
quarrel with a Korean
merchant in So-heung and the latter was killed The
Japanese authorities
promptly arrested the soldier and sent him back to
Chemulpo to be sent back to
Japan for punishment.
The 600 Korean
troops who were sent to the northeast thought better of
the proposition before
they reached Wonsan and about a third of them deserted
on the way. This is not
surprising when we remember that they were given the
option whether to go or
not.
We regret to
learn that on the 8th inst. a part of the buildings
belonging to Townsend &
Co., Chemulpo, were destroyed by fire.
The prospect
of an exciting tennis contest between Seoul and Chemulpo
this season has been
somewhat lessened by the departure from Seoul of Dr.
Baldock and from Chemulpo
of Mr. Wallace and Mr. Sabattin. The remaining devotees
of the racquet should
pull themselves together and practice all the harder to
make up for these
serious losses.
[page
177]
KOREAN HISTORY.
These troops
came, it can hardly be doubted, at the request of the
conservative party. These
troops encamped all about the capital, some at Pa-o-ga
outside the West Gate
and some at the Ha-dogam just inside the East Gate.
Some
of the soldiers who had been most active in creating the
disturbance lived at
Wang-sim-yi three miles outside the East Gate. The
Chinese made it their first
work to seize these men by night. Ten of them were
court-martialed and were
torn to pieces by bullocks.
The
Chinese general O Jang-gyung was told that the ex-Regent
was at the bottom of the emeute, and he sent a letter
informing the Emperor of
this fact. The latter ordered him to seize the person of
the offending party
and bring him to China. The Chinese general thereupon
visited the palace where
the Prince Tai-wun was in full control and invited him
to visit Yong-san on the
river, where he said there was something important for
him to see. Having once
gotten him on board a Chinese boat there, under pretext
of showing him over it,
the anchor was quickly raised and the baffled Prince
found himself on his way
to China. When he arrived at Tientsin he was refused
audience with Li
Hung-chang but was banished by imperial decree to a
place not far from
Tientsin, where he was well cared for until his return
to Korea three years
later.
After
this deus ex
machina had spirited the
ex-Regent away, an official, So Sang-jo, memorialized
the throne stating that
the Queen was still alive and ought to be brought back
to the capital. It is
said that Yi Yung-ik covered the space between the
capital and her place of
hiding, sixty-three miles, in a single day, carrying the
message of recall. A
large retinue of officials and soldiers were sent
southward and brought the
Queen back to Seoul where she arrived on the first day
of the eighth moon. The
people immediately doffed their mourning garb.
Toward
the close of 1882 a Foreign Office was established in
the capital and Kim Yun-sik
was made Minister of Foreign [page 178] Affairs.
He invited P. G. von Mollendorf, a member of the customs
staff of China, to act
as adviser, and the Chinese generals Wang Suk-ch’ang and
Ma Kun-sang were made attaches
of the new department.
The
year 1883 witnessed more advance in Korea than any year
before or since. In May
Gen Foote, the first United States Minister, arrived and
on the nineteenth of
that month the treaty which had been drawn up at
Chemulpo between Commodore
Shufeldt and the Korean Commissioners was ratified.
After this was done Gen.
Foote left Korea to make preparations for the
establishment of a legation in
Seoul.
Kim
Ok-kyun, one of the leading members of the progressive
party was made “Whale
Catching Commissioner” and departed for Japan to fit out
an expedition to carry
on this lucrative government monopoly along the Korean
coast. He was selected
for this work because of his intimate acquaintance with
the Japanese. It was a
move looking toward the development of Korea’s resources
and was therefore in
direct line with the wishes and plans of the
progressionists. At about the same
time a powder-mill was built outside the Northwest Gate,
and a foreign mint was
erected inside the Little West Gate. This was done with
the aid of Japanese
experts at a great and, as it proved, useless expense to
the government. An
office was founded for the printing and dissemination of
useful literature on
the subjects of agriculture, forestry, stock-raising and
the like. The ports of
Chemulpo and Wun-san were opened to foreign trade
according to the stipulation
of the Japanese and American treaties. In contrast to
the progressive moves we
find that eight men who were suspected of complicacy
with the exRegent in the émeute
of the preceding year were executed by poison. Of like
character was the
building of the Kwanwang temple, devoted to the
interests of sorceresses and
exorcists who enjoyed the patronage of the Queen.
In
the summer of 1883 Min Yung-ik was made special envoy to
the United States. His
second was Hong Yungsik. Among his suite were Su
Kwang-bom, Pak Un and others,
all of whom were members of the progressive party or at
least well affected
toward it. This same summer the king founded the
American Farm some ten miles
east of [page 179]
Seoul and stocked it with foreign seeds and cattle, with
the idea of providing
Korean farmers with a sort of object-lesson in farming,
and to provide seeds
for distribution among the people. The United States
Department of Agriculture
sent a large stock of seeds by the hand of the special
embassy of which Min
Yung-ik formed the head.
Late
in the autumn the German representative arrived and
concluded a treaty on
behalf of his government. A month later a treaty was
ratified with Great
Britain and a Consulate General was founded in Seoul.
With
the opening of 1884 the state of affairs in the
peninsula was something as
follows. The progressive and conservative elements in
the government were
clearly differentiated. The innovations effected by the
progressives had raised
in them the hope of being able to speedily reorganize
the government on a
foreign basis, and the degree of their success marked
the increasing suspicion
and opposition of the conservative element. The latter
were strengthened in
their position by the presence and active support of the
Chinese generals and
troops, and the influence of the foreign adviser von
Mollendorf was always on
the side of Chinese interests. The ex-Regent was for the
time being out of the
war and a great stumbling-block to the Min faction was
thus removed. The king
and queen were both favorably inclined toward a
progressive policy but the
latter was gradually being drawn back into line with the
conservative element
of which the Min family was the leading representative.
Min Yung-ik was still
true to his better instincts and was an ardent supporter
of the progressionist
views but his return from America was the sign for a
vigorous attack upon his
enlightened views by the members of his family and he
was being rapidly
alienated from the party whose interests he had
tentatively espoused. It was
not, however, till later in the year that he broke away
entirely from the
progressive following.
The
spring of 1884 saw the arrival of Ensign Geo. C. Foulk
as naval attache of the
American Legation. He rapidly became acquainted with the
leading officials and
it was through his advice and aid that several
reformatory measures were
promulgated. In the sixth moon the influence of the [page 180]
progressive
party secured the position of Mayor of Seoul
for Pak Yong-hyo, one of the most ardent of the reform
party, and he
immediately set to work at sanitary reforms and
municipal improvements. He
began by tearing down houses that had encroached upon
the main road between the
East and the West Gates. He had not proceeded far in
this good work before he
was blocked by the influence of the opposing faction.
His next move was in the
direction of dress reform and he succeed in putting
through a law prohibiting
the use of the long sleeves, long hat-strings and long
girdle strings. In these
efforts he was seconded to a certain extent by Min
Yung-ik, but at this point
terminates the latter’s active interest in reforms, and
from about this time
the progressive leaders began to look upon him as a
traitor to their cause.
Here again personal interest came to injure a cause
which, while good in
itself, was discredited by the means used to effect its
end. One sign of
advance was the establishment of a school for the
training of interpreters in
English, under the charge of a competent foreign
instructor.
In
the autumn of this year 1884 twelve of the young men who
had been sent to Japan
to study military tactics returned to Seoul, among them
being Su Cha p’il,
known in later years as Dr. Philip Jaisohn, who though
still a youth of about
twenty years began to take an active part in the plans
of the liberal or
progressive party. By this time Min Yung-ik had
practically taken his stand
with the conservatives, and this tended in no small
measure to draw away from
the progressives the sympathy and support of the queen.
It was becoming evident
that the hopes of the liberals were to be dashed to the
ground. Yuan, the
Chinese commissioner, was staying at the barracks in
front of the palace and
was active in the interests of his own government, which
meant that he urged on
the conservative party in their opposition to reforms.
It can hardly be
wondered at then that the progressives looked more and
more to the Japanese
from whom they had imbibed their ideas of progress.
Japan had recognized the
independence of Korea and this naturally carried with it
a desire to see Korea
progress along the same lines that had raised Japan out
of the rut of centuries
to the more satisfactory plane of enlightened
government.
[page 181]
How to stem the tide that had set so strongly against
them was a difficult
problem for the progressionist leaders to solve. From
time immemorial the
method of effecting changes in the Korea government had
been to make an
uprising, secure the person of the king and banish or execute
the leaders of the opposition. It must be remembered
that at that time, so far
as the mass of the people was concerned, the progressive
party had little or no
backing. On the other hand the conservatives had the ear
of the king and were
backed by a Chinese army. It was evidently necessary to
secure military
backing, and for this Japan alone was available. But it
was manifestly
impossible for Japan to come in and attempt to effect
the change. It must be at
the request of the Korean government, or at least of the
king. It seemed that
the only thing to do was to hasten a crisis, obtain
possession of the person of
the king and then see to it that Japan be invited to
loan troops to preserve
the new status.
Instead
of waiting patiently and suffering temporary defeat with
the hope of ultimate
success, the progressive leaders determined to have
recourse to the old method,
and in so doing they made a fatal blunder. Even had they
been successful the
means they employed would have fatally discredited them
in the eyes of all
enlightened people.
It
is generally accepted as true that the progressive
leaders had a distinct
understanding with the Japanese. A Japanese man ofwar
was on the way to Chemulpo and was expected to arrive on
the fifth or sixth of
December and the uprising was set for the seventh of
that month. The leaders in
this movement had not been able to keep it entirely a
secret, for some of them
talked about it in a very excited manner of the Naval
Attache of the American
Legation and it came to the ears of the British
Consul-general, who, meeting
Yun T’a-jun on December fourth, asked him if he had
heard that there was
trouble in the air. That gentleman who was himself a
strong conservative and a
close friend of Min T’aho, hastened to the house of the
latter and reported
what he had heard. Min advised him to hasten to the
house of one of the
relatives of one of the progressionists and secure
information if possible. He
did so, and there happened to meet one of the leaders of
the progressive party
and intimated to him [page 182]
that he had heard that trouble was brewing. This man
denied all knowledge of
any such plan but the minute his caller had gone he
hastened to the other
progressionist leaders and told them that all was lost
unless instant action
were taken. News had just arrived that the Japanese
gun-boat that was expected
at Chemulpo had broken down and could not come. There
were only a few hundred
Japanese troops in Seoul at the time. But it seemed to
these men that it would
be better to risk the whole venture on a single cast
than to wait passively and
see the destruction of all their hopes and plans. The
seventh of December was
the appointed day but as this was a matter of kill or be
killed it was decided
to proceed at once to business. Hong Yung-sik had been
made Post-master General
and on this very night he was to give a banquet at the
new post-office which
was situated in that part of the city called Kyo-dong.
It was decided to start
the ball rolling at this point. The evening came and the
guests assembled to
the dinner. They were the Chinese leaders Yuan, Chin and
Wang, United States
Minister Foote and his secretary Mr. Scudder, the
British Consul-general Aston,
the Foreign Office Adviser von Mollendorf, the Koreans
Hong Yung sik, Kim
Ok-kyun, Min Yung-ik, Pak Yung-ho, Su Kwang-bom, Kim
Hung-jip, Han Kyu-jik, Pak
Chong-yang, O Yun-iung and a few others. The Japanese
Minister had excused
himself on the plea of ill-health. It was noticed that
Kim Okkyun rose and left
the table several times and went out into the court-yard
but no special
significance was attached to this. The dinner began at
an early hour, not far
from six o’clock, and about seven o’clock an alarm of
fire was sounded. A house
immediately in front of the Post Office was in flames.
Min Yung-ik, being one
of the officials whose duty it was to superintend the
extinguishing of
conflagrations, rose from the table and hastened out,
calling to his servants
to follow. As he passed out of the inner gate, a man
dressed in Japanese
clothes leaped out of the shadow of the gate-way and
struck at him savagely
with a sword, wounding him severely in the head and in
other parts of the body.
He fell heavily to the ground and in the confusion that
ensued the would-be assassin
made good his escape. Von Mollendorf was not far behind,
and seeing what had
happened he hastened forward, [page 183] lifted
the wounded man in his arms and carried him back into
the dining-room. The
Koreans who were present fled precipitately making their
exit not by the door
but by way of the back wall.
The
wounded man was conveyed to the residence of von Mollendorf
which was in the vicinity, where Dr. H. N. Allen of the
American Presbyterian
Mission was soon in attendance.
The
die had now been cast and there was no retreat. The
leaders of the conspiracy,
Kim Ok-kyun, Su Kwang bom, Pah Yung-hyo, Hong Yung-sik
and Su Cha-pil, hastened
immediately to the palace known to us as “The Old
Palace” where the king had
resided since the insurrection of 1882. Entering the
royal presence they
announced that the Chinese were coming to take
possession of the king’s person
and that he must hasten to a place of safety. The king
did not believe this
report but as they insisted he had no recourse but to
submit. The little
company hastened along under the west wall of the palace
until they came to a
small gate leading into Kyong-u Palace which adjoins the
“0ld Palace” on the
west. As they proceeded Kim Ok-kyun asked the king to
send to the Japanese
Minister asking for a body-guard, but he refused.
Thereupon Sin
Kwang-bom drew out a piece of foreign notepaper and a
pencil and wrote in Chinese the words “Let the Japanese
Minister come and give
me his help.” This was immediately despatched by a
servant. That it was a mere
matter of form was evident when the little company
passed into the Kyong-u
Palace, for there they found the Japanese Minister and
his interpreter already
in attendance and with them some two hundred troops
drawn up in line. When the
king appeared they saluted. There were present also the
twelve students who had
been in Japan. Word was immediately sent to Sin
Keui-sun, Pak Yung-hyo and O
Yunjung to come and receive office under the
reconstructed government. Within
half an hour they were in attendance, excepting O
Yunjung who happened to be
away in the country at the time.
Very
early in the morning a royal messenger was sent with the
myong p’a or ‘‘summoning tablet” to the
houses of Min T’a-ho, Min
Yung-mok and Cho Ryung-ha, ordering them to appear at
once before the king.
They complied and [page 184]
hastened to the palace but no sooner had they entered
the palace gate than they
were seized and cut down in cold blood. Then the summons
was sent to Han
Kyu-jik, Yi Choyun and Yun T’a jun. They too were
assassinated as soon as they
entered the palace. A eunuch named Yu Cha-hyun was also
put to death. It is
useless to ask by whose hand these men fell. Whoever
wielded the brutal sword,
the leaders of the so-called progressive party were
wholly responsible. The twelve
young men who had returned from Japan were all fully
armed and it is more than
probable that they took an active part in the bloody
work. Not only was not the
king consulted in regard to these murders but in the
case of the eunuch it was
done in spite of his entreaties and remonstrances.
These
seven men who thus went to their doom were not entirely
unconscious of what
awaited them. When Cho Ryungha received the summons the
inmates of his house
pleaded with him not to go, but as it was the king’s
summons he would not
disobey even though he knew it meant death.
Just
at daylight the king was removed to the house of his
cousin Yi Chil-wun,
escorted by the Japanese soldiers who surrounded him
four deep. Kim Okkyun gave
passes to those who were to be allowed to go in and out
and only such had
access to the premises. After remaining there some three
hours the whole
company returned to the “0ld Palace.” In the
reconstructed government Yi Cha
wun and Hong Yungsik were made Prime Ministers, Pak
Yung-hyo was made General-in
chief. Su Kwang-bom was made Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Kim Ok-kyun Minister
of Finance and Su Chap’il Lieutenant-general. The rest
of the young men who had
studied in Japan were also given official position.
Before
Yun T’a-jun, Yi Cho-yun and Han Kyu-jik went to the
palace and met their fate
they sent word to Yuan warning him of the state of
affairs and asking help, but
he made no immediate move. As the morning broke
thousands of Koreans came to
Lim and said that the Japanese held the king a prisoner
in the palace and
begged him to interfere. Yuan replied by sending a
messenger to the Japanese
Minister demanding why he had surrounded the king with
soldiers and had killed
the ministers, and demanding that he immediately
evacuate the place. Three
hours passed and still no answer [page
185]
came;
and at last Yuan and the two other Chinese leaders
took a strong body of Chinese troops and several hundred
Korean troops and
proceeded to the palace. Entering by .way of the Sun-in
Gate and passing through
the Ch’ang-kyung Palace they approached the Pot’ong Gate
which gave entrance to
the “Old Palace” but they found it strongly guarded by
Japanese. Here a sharp
encounter took place which lasted an hour, beginning
about three o’clock in the
afternoon. About ten each of the Chinese, Japanese and
Koreans fell in this
assault. As the darkness came on the Japanese began to
fall back and taking the
king and the newly appointed ministers they made their
way to the extreme
northeasterly portion of the palace grounds, not far
from the Hong-wha Gate.
The royal party took refuge in a summer house there and
the Japanese stationed
themselves behind trees and guarded the place, keeping
up a lively fusillade
with the Chinese who had followed them. Meanwhile the
Crown Prince, the Queen
and the king’s foster-mother had escaped in small closed
chairs out the Sun-in
Gate and had found refuge in the house of Yi Pom-jin in
the village of No-wun,
twenty li outside the East Gate.
The
chances of success for the Japanese were becoming
smaller and smaller and the
king was anxiously looking for an opportunity of
escaping from them and making
his way to the Chinese side. At last, taking advantage
of the extreme disorder
that prevailed, he made his way to the Puk-chang Gate at
the extreme
northeastern part of the palace enclosure. Outside there
was a crowd of Korean
soldiers who wished to gain entrance and rescue the king
from his captors. When
the latter made his presence known inside the gate these
soldiers effected an
entrance and lifting His Majesty on their shoulders
carried him in triumph to
the North Temple just inside the Northeast Gate. Seeing
that all hope of
immediate success was gone, Pak Yung-hyo, Kim Ok-kyun,
Su Kwangbom, Su Cha-p’il
and a part of the company of military students
accompanied the Japanese troops
out the front gate of the palace to the Japanese
Legation which was then
situated in Kyo-dong. This was accomplished in the midst
of great excitement.
Meanwhile
Hong Yung-sik, Pak Yung-kyo, Sin Keui-sun [page 186]
and seven of the military students had followed the
fortunes of the king. But no sooner did the party arrive
at the North Temple
than the people fell upon Hong Yung-sik and Pak Yung-kyo
and hacked them to
pieces before the king’s eyes. Hong Yung-sik attempted
to hide in a closet
behind His Majesty but the latter indicated by a nod of
the head that he was
concealed there and the people dragged him out and
dispatched him on the spot.
The seven students tried to effect their escape but were
pursued and killed, one
below Chong-no, and another at Yun-raot-kol.
No
sooner had the morning dawned than the Japanese Minister
formed his little
company in a hollow square, placed the Korean refugees
and the Japanese women
and children in the center, fired the legation buildings
and marched out
through the city on their way to Chemulpo, shooting at
any Koreans whom they
happened to see in their way. They found the West Gate
locked but they soon
forced it and hurried away to the port. All the Japanese
in Seoul did not
escape thus, for there were a few living in Chin-go-ga.
That same day the
Koreans mobbed them and killed them all, men women and
children.
A
Japanese merchant vessel happened to be lying at
Chemulpo and the Minister with
all his company boarded her, carrying the Koreans with
them. The latter were
hidden in the hold.
That
same day, later in the afternoon, the king made his way
to the Ha-dogam where
the Chinese had camped, and put himself under their
protection. Cho Pyung-ho
was sent to Chemulpo to ask the Japanese Minister not to
leave, and to effect
the arrest of the fugitives. In neither quest was he
successful.
An
anxious month passed by and at last the Japanese, Count
Inouye. came with a
guard of 600 troops and took up his quarters at the
governor’s place outside
the West Gate. Negotiations were at once begun and as a
result the Korean
Government agreed to pay an indemnity of 600,000 yen. Su
Sang-u and P. G. von
Mollendorf were sent as commissioners to Japan to
arrange suitable terms for
the renewal of friendly relations. To make good their
protestations of regret
at the killing of defenseless Japanese in Seoul four men
who took [page
187]
part in that work were arrested and put to death. At the
same time Yi Ch’ang-gyu.
Su Cha-Ch’ang, Kim Pong-jung and five others who had
been charged with
complicacy in the plot were seized and executed.
On
January ninth 1885 Kim Hongjip, Special Korean
Commissioner, signed with Count
Inouye a convention regarding the trouble of the
preceeding month, by the terms
of which the government agreed to apologize to the
Japanese emperor, to pay an
indemnity of 110,000 yen, to execute the murderer of
Lieut. Isobayachi, to give
a site for a new Legation and 20.000 yen for its
construction and to set aside
a site for barracks for the Japanese guard. Early in the
Spring the Japanese
Legation was built, being the first foreign building in
Seoul.
The
year 1885 beheld many events of importance. The
government hospital was founded
under royal patronage by Dr. H. N. Allen of the American
Presbyterian Mission.
It beheld also the arrival of that great vanguard of
civilization the
Protestant Missionary. Dr. Allen had arrived in the
previous year but now the
Presbyterian and Methodist Churches of America sent a
number of representatives
into Seoul to secure property and begin preparations for
the founding of
regular evangelistic and educational work. In April the
Chinese and Japanese
signed the celebrated Tientsin Convention by the terms
of which they both
agreed to evacuate Korea and not to send troops there
without previously
notifying each other. It was the breaking of this
convention by China which was
one of the immediate causes of the JapanChina war. At
this same time, England,
fearing the occupation of Port Hamilton by Russia, sent
a fleet of war vessels
and occupied the place herself. She was finally induced
to leave, but only
after China had guaranteed to secure it against
occupation by any other power.
In October the treaty with Russia was signed and a
Legation was established in
Seoul. The ex-Regent was still in China, but the Chinese
government now deemed
it safe to send him back to the peninsula, and Min
Chung-muk was sent to act as
his escort.
Since
the day when the Regent threw the finances of the
country into confusion by the
debasement of the currency and since the officials had
learned how much the
people would [page 188]
endure of unjust taxation, in the days when every means
was adopted to wring
from them the funds for the erection of the palace,
official indirection had
been on the rapid increase. The people were being
imposed upon more and more.
All the money that dishonest men paid to corrupt
officials to purchase office
had to be drawn from the people later by dishonest
means. The main
qualification of a successful prefect was the ability to
judge when he had
reached the limit of the people’s endurance. The year
1885 beheld a serious
revolt in Yo-ju where the prefect had overstepped the
dead-line of the peoples’
patience. He was driven out and his ajun
or clerk was killed. The prefect of Wun-ju also escaped
death only by flight,
while an ajun
was killed.
Not
the least important event of 1885 was the completion
under Chinese patronage of
the Seoul-Peking telegraph line by which Korea was for
the first time put into
quick communication with the rest of the world. At the
dictation of China a
commissioner, Yi Chung-ha was sent north to meet a
Chinese commissioner and
determine the exact boundary between Korean and Chinese
territory along the
Tu-man River.
A
customs service had been begun by von Mollendorf on an
independent basis but in
July of 1885 he was dismissed from service in the
Foreign Office and two months
later he was relieved of work in the Customs because of
unwarrantable schemes
into which he had drawn that department of the
government. The whole service
was thereupon put under the management of Sir Robert
Hirt the Inspector General
of the Chinese Customs. An entirely new staff of men was
sent from China. H. N.
Merrill was made Chief Commissioner and Chemulpo, Fusan
and Wunsan were put in
charge of men directly from the Chinese Customs staff.
This was a guarantee of
excellent management but it proved to be the strongest
lever China had in the
carrying out her ambitious plans in the peninsula.
Before the close of the year
Gen, Foote without giving specific reasons retired from
the United States
Legation and returned to America. Ensign Geo. C. Foulk
becoming Charge d’Affaires.
In
the early months of 1886 Yi To-ja, Sin Keui-sun, Hong
Chin-yu, An Chung-su and
Kyong Kwang-guk were banished to
Supplement
April 29.
On the morning
of April 25 at nine o’clock the little Japanese merchant
steamship Koyo
Maru dropped anchor in the harbor
of Wonsan. The last thing that her captain or agent
would have thought of was
danger from the Russians. The preliminary formalities
were finished and she was
about to unload her cargo, when at eleven o’clock the
people on shore saw four
men-of-war and two torpedo-boats outside the harbor. No
one even then had any
fears as to their identity—Japanese war vessels appear
and disappear without
giving warning. The busy life of the settlement went on,
buying and selling,
marrying and giving in marriage as usual. But as it
happened this peaceful
scene was destined to be disturbed in a very informal
manner. The four
men-of-war remained outside but the two waspish looking
torpedo-boats came
gliding into the harbor, and approached the unsuspicious
Koyo, When they were well within hailing
distance a Russian officer
appeared on board one of the torpedoboats and called out to the
people on board the Koyo to take to
their small boats and leave immediately as the Koyo was about to be torpedoed. This was
like lightning from a
clear sky and, like lightning, it was sure to be
followed by a clap of thunder,
so the people on board the merchant vessel made for the
gangway and got away
from her as fast as oars would take them. Before they
reached the shore a
torpedo was launched at the side of the helpless ship
and a terrific explosion
followed which needed no farther explanation. The little
steamer gave a lurch
to port and sank like lead.
Meanwhile
the watchers on shore were beginning to grasp the
situation and the business
portion of the town awoke to strenuous life like a
bee-hive struck with a club.
“Then there was hurrying to and fro” and a general [page
2]
panic among the Japanese civilians who had no reason to
doubt that the Russians
might throw a few torpedoes into the town. The steamer
was an inoffensive
merchantman and if they could destroy her why not the
Japanese property ashore.
The Japanese gathered together what they could take in
their hands and sought
places of safety. Many of them are said to have hidden
in Korean houses in the
native town.
But
this agitation proved to be unnecessary, for the
Russians soon steamed out of
the harbor and left for parts unknown, and then the
Japanese came back to their
homes. Of course no exception can be taken to this act
on the part of the
Russians for the Japanese set the example at Chemulpo,
but it shows rather
conclusively that Russia no longer puts any stock in the
fiction of Korean
neutrality. We have not learned yet what the foreigners
in Wonsan thought of
this little by-play but we suppose they had the pleasure
of a little excitement
to vary the monotony of life in that rather isolated
port.
It
is very difficult to get any reliable information from
the front. The Japanese
know their business and they probably feel that until
they are ready to strike
decisive blows any information from the front will give
the enemy a basis for
guessing at future movements. We hear that Korean
couriers from the north are
stopped somewhere along the line. There must be some
good reason for it and if
this extreme reticence on the part of the Japanese will
be of genuine benefit
to their cause, those who wish them well should be
willing to put up with the
tiresome delay without grumbling. Japan has to fight
against the modern
newspaper as well as against the Russian, for there can
be no doubt that if the
war correspondents had their way there would not be a
single movement of
Japanese troops or boats that would not be made public
to the world within
twenty-four hours. One of the war correspondents told us
the other day that if
Japan did not modify a little this extreme sensitiveness
to publicity the
newspapers would recall their highlypaid men and depend for
news upon one or two leading news agencies, the
inference being that this would
be an [page 3]
injury to Japan. We venture to surmise that such a
solution of the difficulty
would be eminently satisfactory to the Japanese
authorities.
There
have been all sorts of rumors from the north, most of
which have come from
Russian sources, but it is very unlikely that there has
been any serious
fighting on the Yalu as yet. It seems to be sure that
the Japanese are throwing
a pontoon bridge across the river without special
opposition from the Russians.
Whether the Russians will concentrate near that stream
and offer determined
resistance to the Japanese or whether they will draw the
Japanese on in the hope
of bringing about a great general engagement we do not
profess even to guess.
We will find out in time — and no sooner. A large number
of war correspondents
have gone to the front but where they are and what they
are doing we know no
more than if they had started for the moon. It is
reported that on April 10
some Russians in Chinese clothes attempted to come to
Yongampo but were
detected by Japanese and fled. Two of them were killed
and the rest escaped.
Then again we are told that on the 12th about forty
Russians crossed the Yalu
below Wiju but were attacked by the Japanese who killed
one captain and about
twenty of the men. Other skirmishes have been reported
from Russian sources but
they are not of great consequence. All we know is that
the two armies are close
to each other and that the Japanese attitude is
distinctly aggressive.
News Calendar.
A new Japanese
daily paper printed in mixed script has begun
publication in Seoul. The name is
the Great Eastern Daily Record. This makes seven daily
papers published in
Seoul and Chemulpo.
It is stated
that enterprising Japanese are about to establish an
Agricultural and
Industrial Bank in Chemulpo and that the capital will
amount to three million
yen .
Sixty houses
in On-yang were burned by robbers about the middle of
March.
The number of
police in Seoul has been increased by sixty men.
The Government
contemplates establishing a large business and
industrial school and for this
purpose the Finance Department has been drawn upon for
an initial sum of 27,000
dollars.
On the night
of the 14th inst the palace occupied by the Emperor was
almost completely
destroyed by fire. We have described this more fully
elsewhere in this issue.
The last advices as we go to press leave it quite
undecided whether His Majesty
will go to the “0ld Palace” or remain where he is until
repairs have been
effected.
[page
4]
At Yong-san, so the native papers say, a man fell into
the water and was about
to drown when another man jumped in and saved him. The
latter was arrested and
asked why he had thrown the man into the water. The
people who witnessed the
incident testified in his favor but he has not yet been
released. The people
declare that hereafter if a man is drowning they will
let him drown.
The government
has appropriated 30,000 dollars for replacing the
musicians’ uniforms and
instruments that were destroyed in the recent fire.
It is said
that the war has thrown a large number of men out of
work on the northeast
coast and that many of them want to go to Hawaii.
The Dai Ichi
Ginko is preparing an issue of 50 cent, 20 cent and 10
cent bank notes for
circulation in Korea. We understand that they will be
issued the first of May.
After the
disbanding of the Peddlars in Seoul that organization
continued its operations
in Kangwha but the prefect caught them and took away
their certificates of
membership in the society, which put an end to their
active operations.
The
authorities of the Seoul Fusan Railway asked for the
temporary use of some
Crown lands outside the South Gate but the Minister of
the Household replied
that it could not be granted.
Yun Yong-sun,
Pak Chong-yang and Min Pyung-suk were appointed
directors of the work of
rebuilding the palace. The estimate for complete
reconstruction amounted to
9,000.000 dollars but as this was out of the question
300,000 dollars were
appropriated for the erection of the two most important
buildings. His Majesty
ordered that the Imperial residence be completed within
twenty days.
Several of the
treaty powers sent to His Majesty notes of condolence
regarding the burning of
the palace.
Taiku must be
getting to be a rather lively place as there are upwards
of 1,000 Japanese
there.
The contract
of M. Cremanry as adviser to the Law Department has been
extended one year.
An old woman
was accidentally killed on the railway outside the South
Gate on the 18th inst.
She was walking on the path beside the track as the
train was passing and she
slipped and fell so that her head was severed from her
body.
Yi Ha-yong was
appointed Foreign Minister on the 19th inst.
The work of
robbers in the south has resulted in the burning of
houses as follows, Pu-yu
twenty-seven, Chongyang forty, Chun eui ten.
On April 16th
thirty Russian cavalrymen entered Sung-jin. The Japanese
had been warned of
their approach and had left the place but one foreigner
remained at the Custom
house and two Canadian missionaries in the suburbs. The
Russians burned the
Japanese post office, shops and godowns. They are said
to have taken some
papers from the Customs. They smashed the telegraph
instruments and cut the
lines. They did not remain long but having accomplished
their purpose left for
Puk-Chung.
The Emperor
has ordered that the rebuilding of the Audience Hall be
delayed until next
Autumn.
A police regulation
has been published which commands that young men of low
grade shall alight from
jinrickshas when they pass the chair of a minister of
state on the street.
Yi Keun-gyo
has been appointed governor of Kyung-geui Province and
Chu Sung-myun governor of
Kang-won Province.
Severe
penalties have been threatened against soldiers who pawn
their uniforms and
against those who accept them.
The Japanese
bank at Sung-jin has been removed to Wonsan.
[page
189] KOREAN HISTORY
distant
islands for complicacy in the plot which led to the
emeute of 1884.
In
February the king by royal edict abolished the
hereditary transmission of
slaves and the use of slave labor by the guilds in the
work on the palaces This
was a measure of far-reaching import had it been carried
out in full; but we
find that it had to be re-enacted in 1894.
The
government desired to secure the services of a foreign
expert as adviser to the
Home and Foreign Offices and with the sanction of Li
Hungchang, the Chinese
Viceroy, Judge O. N. Denny, ex-Consul-general of U.S. to
China, was called and
he arrived in the spring of 1886 just in time to be
present at the signing of
the treaty with France. He had for some years been on
rather intimate terms
with the Great Viceroy and it is probable that the
latter hoped to use the
Judge in forwarding Chinese interests in Korea. If so he
found himself
grievously mistaken for the United States as well as
Japan and France, had
recognized the independence of Korea, and Judge Denny
devoted his energies to
the maintenance of that independence. Yuan the Chinese
commissior had taken up
his residence in Seoul and had dubbed himself “Resident”
in opposition to the
Korean claim to independence. The Peking government,
forgetting or ignoring the
fact that whenever Korea had gotten into trouble she
(China) had always
disavowed responsibility and had practically disclaimed
suzerainty, now began
to bolster up her claims and to use every means to make
good her pretensions.
The dominant party which had ridden into power on the
shoulders of the Chinese
put no obstacles in the way and thus JudgeDenny found
himself blocked in his
efforts to better the condition of the country.
It
was generally understood that the right of Japanese and
Western foreigners to
reside in Seoul was based on the most favored nation
clause in the treaties and
that if the Chinese removed from Seoul the others could
be compelled to do
likewise. The Chinese, therefore, hoping, it is said, to
secure more exclusive
power in the capital by the removal of other foreigners
began to agitate the
question of removing all their nationals to Yong-san
near the river three miles
from Seoul. For a time it appeared as if this might be
done but the large [page
190]
vested rights of the Japanese in the capital as well as
the interests of others
caused a counter agitation which frustrated the scheme.
Geo.
C Foulk, Ensign in the U. S. Navy, had long been in
connection with the
Legation in Seoul. Early in 1884 he had suggested to the
government the
advisability of founding a school for the instruction of
young Koreans in
Western languages and sciences, and consequently the
United States Secretary of
State was requested by the Korean government to secure
three men as
instructors; but the emeute of that year had deferred
the matter. In 1886 it
was again brought up and in July three men who had been
selected by the U. S.
Commissioner of Education arrived at the Korean Capital.
A terrible epidemic of
cholera devastated the city that summer and as many as
seven or eight hundred
deaths occurred daily. It was in September that the
Royal English School was
opened.
Chinese
claims to suzerainty emboldened the Chinese merchants to
attempt to evade the
customs regulations and the result was a serious affray
in Chemulpo when the
Chinese tried to evade the export on ginseng. The
Chinese Commissioner tried to
uphold them in it but a vigorous protest to him
Hung-chang righted the matter
and the offenders were deported and the Customs Service
was vindicated.
It
was in this year that the trading station Whe-ryung on
the Tuman River was
established for convenience of trade with Russia but it
was not made an open
port. About this time the school founded by the American
Methodist Mission
received royal recognition and the king conferred upon
it the name Pai Chai Hak
Tang or “Hill for the Rearing of Useful Men.”
Contrary
to the wishes of the Chinese a Korean Minister to
America was appointed in the
person of Pak Chong-yang, but in attempting to start for
America he was
intercepted by the Chinese just outside the South Gate
and compelled to return.
Two months later, however, he succeeded in getting away.
He was received in
Washington with all the punctiliousness due to a
Minister from any sovereign
power. This helped in a certain way to forward Korea’s
claim to independence
but America’s well-known policy of non-interferance in
foreign matters largely
neutralized its effect.
[page 191]
The year 1888 beheld what is known as the “Baby War.”
The report was spread
abroad that the Europeans and Americans were stealing
children and boiling them
in kettles for food. It was also generally believed that
the foreigners caught
women and cut off their breasts in order to extract from
them the condensed
milk which was so commonly used among the foreign
residents. The Koreans knew
that the foreigners had no cows and they could explain
the use of milk only on
the above theory. The modus operandi
was said to be as follows. The foreigners were possessed
of a peculiar drug
which became a powerful gas when introduced into the
mouth. Approaching a
Korean paper covered lattice door at the dead of night
the operator would make
a tiny hole in the paper and applying his mouth to it
would blow the gas into
the room. The effect would be that if there were a woman
in the room she would
waken and be seized with an uncontrolable desire to go
outside. Once without,
the door, the foreigner would seize her, cut off her
breasts and return to his
home. It was believed that they had paid agents among
the people to whom they
taught the secret and whom they sent about the country
to secure women’s
breasts. Two suspicious looking men were set upon in
Hong-ch’un charged with
being breast-hunters. They narrowly escaped with their
lives. For a short time
there was imminent danger of an uprising but a royal
proclamation couched in
trenchant language did much to calm the excitement and
the danger subsided as
suddenly as it had arisen. In Eui-ju there was a most
destructive flood in
which 300 lives were lost and 1927 houses were swept
away.
Chapter XVII.
Corruption . .
.edicts of reform . . . . trouble with Japan envoy to
Europe . . . . death of
Queen Cho . . . the fisheries dispute . . . . oppression
. . . . retrogression
excessive taxation . . . . insurrections . . . .
foreigners threatened . . . .
on the verge of anarchy. . . . prefects punished . . . .
revolt in Song-do . .
. . Tong-hak manifesto . . . . government helpless . . .
. Japan uneasy. . .
.Kim Ok-kyun murdered. . . . revolting barbarity. . . .
the fall of Chon-ju. .
. . Korea asks China for help . . . [page
192]
Chinese troops arrive . . . . Japanese movements . . .
.the other powers interfere . . . .Japanese demands . .
. . proposed reforms .
. . . the palace taken by the Japanese . . . . the
sinking of the Kowshing . .
. . war declared . . . . Korea breaks with China . . . .
Japan promises to
leave Shanghai alone . . . Japanese in Shanghai. . .
.battle of Asan . . . .
battle of P’yung-yang . . . . .battle of the Yalu.
At this time
the administration of the government was anything but
exemplary. The selling of
the same oflfice at such short intervals increased the
burden on the people to
an almost unbearable point, so that there were frequent
uprisings in country
districts. In Korea the people form the court of final
appeal. If a prefect
oversteps the line which marks the limit of the people’s
endurance and they
drive him from the place the government ordinarily
accepts it as final.
The
following year the government was obliged to take notice
of this state of
things and the king sent out a proclamation saying that
the taking of bribes
and the extortion of money in the provinces would be
severely punished. He took
this opportunity also to speak about robbery and
gambling, which had begun to
run rife in the land. The people were forbidden to dress
in silk, excepting
those over fifty years of age.
The
year 1890 opened with serious trouble in Ham-gyung
Province. Cho Pyong-sik, a
man of indomitable will and one whose unbridled temper
had more than once
gotten him into serious trouble, was governor in that
province. The people had
mortgaged their bean crop to the Japanese exporters, of
Wun-san, and had
received some $176,000 therefor. But when the beans had
been harvested and were
ready for shipment the governor forbade its delivery. He
wanted the Japanese to
sell it back to the people, as it was a year of
scarcity, but this they refused
to do; and the beans rotted where they lay. The Japanese
promptly took the
matter up and demanded an indemnity. The Foreign Office
at once recognised the
validity of the claim but the king ordered Cho Pyung-sik
to pay the bill
himself, since he had acted throughout without orders
from Seoul. The unhappy
governor was obliged to part with all his patrimony and
several of his
relatives had to do likewise. As this was not enough to
settle the bill the
government paid the balance.
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
MAY, 1904.
The
Russo-Japanese War,
At our last
writing the Russians and Japanese were facing each other
across the historic
Yalu. The Koreans have always called this the Amnok or
“Duck Blue” River,
perhaps because they thought the blue reflection of the
sky in its waters
resembled the brilliant blue on the wing of the duck.
The word Yalu is the
Chinese pronunciation of this same Amnok.
Our
interest at present, however, centers about the
important question as to the
Russians’ boast that though beaten on the sea they will
be easily victorious on
land. As the two forces sat facing each other across
this stream a very large
question was awaiting solution. It was Japan’s Rubicon
and the world waited
eagerly and anxiously to see what the outcome would be.
It was evident that the
Russians intended to fight here. They had made elaborate
preparations, and
while it was impossible to forecast what their exact
intentions were, it
appeared in the course of operations that they had
deliberately taken a
position from which they did not intend to be driven
easily.
One
would have expected that they would adopt either the
policy of closely watching
the Japanese and strongly opposing their crossing of the
river or of falling
back until they met reinforcements that would strengthen
them sufficiently to
render the issue of a set battle reasonably sure. But
they did neither. However
[page
194]
we will set down so far as possible the actual
manoeuvers of the two
belligerents and the reader can judge for himself.
Between
Wiju and the opposite bank of the river lie several long
narrow islands making
the full width of the river about three miles. These
islands stretch from a
point about three miles above Wiju to some six or seven
miles below that city.
The Manchurian town of Antung lies nearly opposite the
lower end of these
islands. Directly opposite Wiju is the town of
Chu-lien-ch’eng and at a point
somewhat further up, about opposite the upper end of
Ojuk Island lies a hill
called Tiger Hill.
This elevation lies in thie
angle made by the junction of a small stream called the
Ai-ha with the Yalu.
The country all about this section is hilly or rolling,
offering splendid
opportunities for defensive operations, especially in
the face of an enemy
which is compelled to cross the river by pontoon
bridges.
Active
operations began on the morning of the 26th of April.
The Japanese army
consisting of the Second and Twelfth Division, and the
Imperial Body-guards
numbered approximately 30,000 men, although it is
doubtful if there were more
than 25,000 in the fighting line. It was decided to send
the Twelfth division
some distance up the river to attempt a crossing. The
Imperial Guards were to
cross a short distance above Wiju nearly opposite Tiger
Hill while the Second
division was to cross almost opposite Wiju.
The
first thing to be done was to clear the islands in the
river of Russians. A
considerable number of them had taken up a position on
Ku-ri Island or “Nine li
Island” above Wiju and on the morning of the 26th a
portion of the Imperial
Guards covered by the guns planted by the Japanese on
the Korean hills behind
them dashed through the shallow water which lay between
the Korean shore and
the island and engaged the Russians in a sharp
encounter. The Japanese say that
the shells thrown over their heads among the Russians
tore up the yellow sand
and sent it flying in all directions and this together [page 195]
with the flash of the explosion and the rolling clouds
of smoke made a scene of great impressiveness. The
Russians fought stubbornly
but were compelled to withdraw and before night the
island was cleared. All
this time the Russian guns on the heights beyond, called
“Tiger Hill” were
talking volubly and shells from the redoubts further
back near Chu-lien-ch’eng
fell on the island and even on the Korean bank of the
Yalu, but the casualties
from this source were comparatively few.
While
the work of clearing this island was going on the
Japanese were busy both to
the right and left. The Twelfth division had moved
northeast along the river
bank but out of sight of the Russians until they reached
a point some ten miles
up the river called Su-gu-jin by the Koreans, or
Sui-ko-chin by the Japanese.
The Russians were conpletely in the dark as to this
manoeuvre and the Japanese
suffered no opposition in throwing a pontoon bridge
across the river at this
point and effecting a crossing. These were precisely the
same tactics adopted
by the Japanese in the China-Japan war in 1894 and they
express great surprise
that the Russians did not remember it and prepare for
such an event. In 1894
the crossing was made in the Autumn when the water was
low, and it was a
comparatively simple operation, but this time the
melting snows of Spring had
raised the river and made it a much more serious matter.
Meanwhile
important business was being transacted far down the
stream below Antung. The
Japanese gunboats Uji and Maya, two torpedo-boats and
two armed steamers had
come up to Yongampo the day before and now on the 26th
two of these craft went
up the river on a reconnoitering trip. They came in
touch with the enemy on the
further bank in the afternoon and for about an hour
exchanged shots with the
Russians who were posted on the hills near Antung.
The
Japanese who had crossed to Nine Li Island or Kurido, as
soon as they had
cleared it of Russians began the attempt to lay a
pontoon bridge to the
northern bank but in this attempt they were seriously
hindered by the Russian
guns planted on the heights about Tiger Hill [page 196]
or Kosan as the Japanese call it. It is this temporarily
successful resistance which formed the basis of the
report sent by the Russians
to St. Petersburg that they demolished the bridge and
the debris floated down
the river. The Japanese themselves acknowledge that at
this point they suffered
a temporary reverse, but it did not prevent the ultimate
passage of the river
at this point by the Imperial Body-guard. It was
apparently during the night of
the 26th that the bridge was completed from Nine Li
Island to the Manchurian
side of the Yalu but it was not large enough to carry
the troops and guns with
sufficient speed, so the Imperial Body-guard crossed
partly by the bridge and
partly by boats. They accomplished this on the 27th in
the face of considerable
opposition but the Russians were not in sufficient force
to hold them in check.
At the same time the 12th Division was making its way
around by the north so as
to attack the Russian position at Chu-lien-ch’eng. They
seem to have
encountered little or no opposition and they did not
move rapidly, for it had
evidently been planned to concentrate the entire
Japanese army upon the main
Russian position only after the various divisions had
all effected a crossing.
The
Russians on Tiger Hill were making trouble for the
Japanese who were building
the bridge across the river at Wiju by which the 2nd
Division was to cross and
it was necessary for the Imperial Guards to drive them
out. So on the 28th they
moved south from the position they had won opposite Nine
Li Island and attacked
Tiger Hill. In this they were successful for we learn
from the Russians that on
the 29th an attempt was made to dislodge the Japanese
who had taken Tiger Hill.
This attempt was made only with artillery from the other
side of the Ai-ha, the
small stream that enters the Yalu at this point. The
Russians reported that the
Japanese retired from the position. This we can readily
believe for since they
had dislodged the Russians from that point and so
stopped the opposition to the
building of the bridge directly below, it was not
essential that they occupy
the exposed position in the face of severe fire.
By
the morning of the 30th the bridge across the [page 197]
islands and the river channels between Wiju and
Chu-liench’eng was completed in spite of continued but
desultory firing by the
Russians. And here was one of the serious points of
weakness on the Russian
side. Their guns were too small to do the work required.
Because of this lack
there was nothing to do but oppose the Japanese crossing
as best they could and
meanwhile intrench themselves strongly in anticipation
of the inevitable
passage of the river by the enemy. One can only wonder
why the Russians, when
they sent their scouting parties across into Korean
territory, did not mass
their whole available force at the Yalu, bring up
powerful batteries and make a
genuine fight of it. As it was, the result was a
foregone conclusion. The
Russians had not enough men to follow up the river and
checkmate the Japanese
wherever they should attempt to cross and they did not
even have the proper
guns to prevent the construction of a pontoon bridge
directly in front of and
within easy range of their main position. We can only
conclude that the
Russians made one of other of two huge blunders. Either
they were entirely
ignorant of the numbers and equipment of the Japanese or
they cherished the
fatuous belief that the Japanese even with superior
numbers and equipment were
not good enough soldiers to carry the Russian position.
It seems to us that the
disaster to the Russian forces at the Yalu and the
disaster to the Russian
fleet at Port Arthur had one and the same cause — the
Russians did not know.
On
the night of the 30th of April the opposing forces were
situated as follows:
The Imperial Guards lay on the northern bank of the
shallow Ai-ha with strong
Russian intrenchments before them on the other side. The
12th Division was on
the same side of this brook but further up. The 2nd
Division had crossed the Yalu
and lay directly before the town of Chu-lien-ch’eng. All
was ready for a
combined attack upon the morrow. The Russian
intrenchments were in a
semi-circle about Chu-lien-ch’eng and extended a
distance of some three miles
and behind them on the heights were their batteries. The
Japanese line was
necessarily longer and was [page 198]
prepared, on the morrow, to spread out in a line whose
entire length would be
some five miles. It was evidently the Japanese plan to
surround the Russian
position and cut off their retreat. In order to prevent
this the Russians,
unless entirely successful in the front, would be
compelled either to retreat
or to disengage a sufficient number of their troops to
head off the Japanese
who were marching around to their rear. In either case
their position was a
practically hopeless one, knowing what we do of the
Japanese fighting quality.
For the advantageous position of the Russians would
either have to be abandoned
or so depleted of men as to be untenable. Already before
the battle begun, the
Japanese had completed fully one third of the circle
necessary to entrap the
Russians.
The
first day of May dawned upon the two belligerent forces
facing each other and
prepared for stem work. The attack on all three sides
was simultaneous. The Twelfth
Division with their artillery behind them on the heights
forded the shallow
Ai-ha and advanced on the extreme right, but they met
with less resistance and
suffered less than either of the other divisions. The
Imperial Guards crossed
the Ai-ha near its junction with the Yalu under severe
fire and at the same
time the Second Division deployed and advanced in a
double line upon the enemy’s
intrenchment. It is said that the first line of intrench
men ts appeared to be
deserted. Though persistently shelled by the Japanese
not a sign of life
appeared, but when the first line of the Japanese had
approached very near, the
concealed enemy poured in a withering fire which
staggered the Japanese for a
moment, and they had to lie down in order to hold the
ground already won. The
second line advanced without any hesitation and soon the
two lines were dashing
over the Russians’ defensive works. By nine o’clock in
the morning the outer
works were all taken and the Russians were pushed back
close under the heights
from which their batteries were still doing valiant
work. But it was fast
becoming evident that the greater length of the Japanese
lines would soon turn
the ends of the Russian position [page
199]
and entrap the entire force. So orders were given to
retreat toward Ham-mak-tong (or Gamato). Even so the
order was too late and the
Russians found to their dismay that they could escape
from the cul-de-sac only
by deserting the guns. This they were forced to do and
twenty-eight of them
fell into the hands of the Japanese. All the afternoon
the Japanese pressed
after the retreating Russians and toward evening the
latter, having reached
Ham-mak-tang, were compelled to turn and fight in order
to cover the retreat.
At this point the Russians put up such a desperate fight
that the Japanese lost
a third of all the men that fell during the day. The
Russians were not
demoralized by the defeat. To be sure they were obliged
to abandon their guns
in the haste of their retreat, which shows that they
were inexcusably ignorant
of the real conditions under which they were fighting,
but they upheld the
traditions of the Russian army in not becoming
demoralized when they were
placed in such a critical position at Ham-mak-tang.
It
is probable that the entire force of the Russians
consisted of about 17,000 men
which, considering the ground they occupied and the
difficulties the Japanese
had to work against, should have sufficed to hold the
25,000 Japanese in check.
We can hardly believe that 17,000 Japanese similarly
situated would have allowed
25,000 Russians to effect the crossing and secure a
substantial victory in so
short a time. The work that the Japanese did at the Yalu
argues well for their
prospects in subsequent engagements, for it is probable
that as they are taking
the offensive they will repeatedly be called upon to
attack the Russians in
defensive positions. It has been proved that they can do
this and the only myth
that remains to be shattered is that if the Japanese
should suffer a reverse
and the Russians should be in a position to take the
offensive the Japanese
would lose their heads and become demoralized.
Conditions in
Korea
But to return
now to Korea and ask what effect all this has had upon
the peninsula and its
people; we note first the effect produced upon the
currency. Before the
beginning of hostilities [page 200]
the nimble nickel was quoted at something between $2.20
and $2.60 to the Yen,
but the outbreak of hostilities and the coming of the
Japanese acted in two
ways to stiffen the weak-kneed Korean currency. First,
Korean merchants
suspended their purchases of Japanese and other foreign
goods and this lowered
the demand for Yen. Secondly the Japanese authorities
needed Korean money for
the use of their people in the country where the Yen is
not current. This tended
to add value to the nickel; so that at one time it took
only $1.40 of Korean
money to purchase a Yen. The extreme instability of the
currency added to the
entire absence of freight facilities caused an almost
complete cessation of
import and export business, until the Japanese
demonstrated beyond a doubt
their complete dominance of the waterways between Korea
and her neighbors to
east and west. As soon as that became clear, trade
relations were quickly
resumed and to all appearances are in a flourishing
condition. The Japanese
quarter in Seoul is simply bursting with excess of new
imports which is mainly
due without doubt to the fact that goods previously
ordered and shipped had
been congesting in Japanese ports until steamship
communication should be
resumed.
We
need hardly say that the war has poured millions of
money into Korea, most of
which has gone into the pockets of the poor. This cannot
be called an unmixed
blessing for it is in the nature of a “boom” which must
eventually burst.
Korean laborers who had been content with the equivalent
of twenty sen a day
were taken on by thousands at something like ten times
that figure, and food
provided. The Korean temperament, as we all know, is
peculiarly susceptible to
this sort of blandishment and, when away from home,
excited by what must have
appeared to be extravagant wages, it is all too probable
that the surplus found
its way with great celerity into the coffers of the wine
merchants. But this is
the least of the difficulties of the situation, for
these men must have been
more or less demoralized by the comparative Bohemianism
of the new situation
and they doubtless found it difficult to come back to
their [page
201]
twenty sen a day and live rationally again. As for the
official class, things
have been going from bad to worse. Their fixed salaries,
in Korean currency,
have steadily lost value with the rise of prices, and
although the temporary
enhancement of the value of Korean currency postponed
the evil day, we see
today that, with the fall of that currency to something
like $2.15 to the yen
their troubles are commencing again.
It
is difficult to gauge the sentiment of Korean
Officialdom in respect of this
present conflict. The general drift of feeling seems to
be in favor of the
Japanese, but the Korean official is much more likely to
ask your opinion as to
the probabilities of the outcome of the war than to
express a decided sympathy
with either of the contestants. In fact, the Korean
people come the nearest to
observing strict neutrality, in this war, of all the
peoples not directly
concerned. Of course the “Powers” are all equally
neutral but the “peoples” are
not and, in truth, cannot be. Whether it be from
financial, moral or
sentimental. considerations, each man who takes an
intelligent interest in the
conflict must inevitably side with one party or the
other. There is no such
thing as an equilibrium. Neutrality does not demand
this, but only that people
should refrain from such an expression of sympathy,
whether by act or word, as
will give either belligerent definite aid. We do not see
how the statement
recently published can be true, that it is not a break
of neutrality for
private parties to sell, to either belligerent, vessels
to be used as
transports or supply ships. It surely would be entirely
opposed to the terms of
the circular issued to American citizens by the
President of the United States;
or are we to understand that such pronouncements are
merely academic in their
character and intended rather to demonstrate the
neutrality of the government
making them than as commands literally binding on its
subjects? Yes, the
Koreans are very reticent about expressing a decided
preference either way, but
the usual form their questions take is “Will the
Russians be down this way?” to
which we make the interrogatory reply, “Do you want them
to come?” and [page
202]
to this question we never receive an unequivocal answer.
Each man denies that
his opinion or his individual preference is of any
weight. This throws a
curious light upon the effect which political life in
Korea for the past four
centuries has had upon the individual. The expression of
political preferences
has so often led to the executioner’s block that it is a
second nature to the
Korean to refrain sedulously from committing himself to
a definite policy until
he sees which way things are going to turn out. This
again leads to the
interesting question of political leadership in Korea,
but this would carry us
too far afield to be relevant to the present crisis.
The Imperial
Residence
When the
palace was burned, as describin our last issue, the
Imperial family took up its
residence in the Library building and other government
buildings in the
immediate vicinity. The order was immediately issued
that the palace should be
rebuilt and the Bureau of Public Buildings forthwith
began drawing up the plans
for the same. But a day or two later the Japanese
authorities suggested to His
Majesty that it might be well to remove to some other of
the palaces in Seoul,
since his present quarters were so circumscribed. The
reply given was that the
matter would be taken into consideration. The Bureau
estimated that it would
take some $9,000,000 to build the whole palace as it was
before, but as this
was out of the question His Majesty ordered that $300,
000 should be put down
to pay for the construction of the late Queen’s Tablet
House and the Emperor’s
private apartment, and two others. The carpenters said
they could finish the
two most important buildings in a month and they set to
work to accomplish the
difficult feat. Again the Japanese authorities, seconded
by other
representatives, urged that His Majesty transfer his
court to the Chang-dok or “01d”
Palace. To this an apparent consent was given and
$70,000 were ordered paid for
repairs on that palace to put it in readiness for the
Imperial residence; but
this is as far as the matter went. No repairs were
actually carried out.
Meanwhile the rebuilding of the burned [page 203]
palace was pushed with all the haste possible and in
addition to the buildings inside the wall, work was
vigorously carried on in
putting up telegraph and telephone lines in its
vicinity. The people generally
supposed that the plan of removing to the Chang-dok
palace would be carried out
but when they saw that all the actual work was being
done in and about the
burned palace it became evident that it was the fixed
determination of His
Majesty to stay where he was until such time as he could
return to the palace
from which he had been driven by the fire. This was
rendered all the more certain
when the order was given to put down Yen 40,000 to pipe
water into the palace
from Sam-ch’ung-dong which lies between the Kyong-bok
and Chang-dok Palaces, a
distance of nearly two miles across the city. This was
in order to provide a
sufficient water supply in case of fire. When this fact
transpired the Japanese
authorities immediately took pains to show that this was
entirely useless and
so the plan was dropped. The result of it all is that
His Majesty has
definitely determined to remain in Chongdong in spite of
urgent advice to the
contrary. Of course if certain powerful parties should
put the foot down and
insist upon it the removal would take place, but it is
probable that such
compliance would be hardly worth the loss of good-will
which it would cost.
Instead,
however, of wasting money on the useless scheme of the
water-works for the
palace, the government has decided, at theurgentadviceof
the Japanese, to spend
$40,000 in repairing the streets of Seoul. It is
surmised that most of this
money will be spent on the roads in Chongdong and
vicinity and on those inside
the South Gate, Of course it is a good thing to repair
these roads for they
have gotten into a shocking condition since they were
put in good shape nine
years ago, but no road can stand the wear and tear of
these ox carts whose
wheels, without tires, grind into the soil and plow it
up in spite of
everything. Nothing less than one of the old Roman roads
would stand it more
than two or three seasons. If the government should make
a law that no ox cart
should enter the city unless it had iron tires four
inches broad the whole [page
204]
difficulty would be solved. In fact money would be saved
if the government
should give to each cart owner half the cost of the
tires as a bonus, for then,
instead of digging up the roads, the carts would
continually pack them harder.
A pair of such tires would probably not cost more than
eight yen and they would
add so much to the life of the wheel and save the
bullocks so much hard work
that they would probably pay for themselves in six
months or less. A little
money spent in encouraging the cart owners to adopt this
innovation would bring
in splendid returns, for it would quadruple the life of
the road. Otherwise it
will be necessary to be forever repairing the roads, and
as the carts do almost
all the damage it would be possible to provide a fund
for road improvement by
levying a small tax on every loaded cart that enters the
city. A tax of five
cents on each loaded cart would do much toward keeping
the roads in shape. That
the condition of the roads is a disgrace cannot be
denied and we trust the
Japanese will keep agitating the matter until something
is done to remedy the
difficulty.
Railroad
Construction.
Until the time
when the passage of the Yalu became a fait
accompli the work on the railway north of Seoul
was carried on with utmost
vigor but when the Japanese advance into Manchuria was
assured this work was
prosecuted with more moderation. Some people said that
it had stopped entirely,
but this is a mistake. The work is going on steadily and
it is affirmed that by
August trains will be running between Seoul and Songdo
except for the bridge
across the Imjin River. This is twice as far as the
distance between Seoul and
Chemulpo and we fear this estimate is somewhat
optimistic, but there is no
question that the work will be pushed to completion in a
comparatively short
time. At the same time the work on the Seoul-Fusan
railway line is progressing.
Trains already run more than halfway to Kong-ju.
The Wonsan
Incident.
A foreigner in
Wonsan who witnessed the whole of the episode of the
sinking of the Goyo
Maru has sent the following
interesting account of what happened in the town.
[page 205] “On
the morning of April 28th a Japanese squadron of
twenty-two ships arrived in Wonsan. The following day
eighteen of them sailed
away leaving the transport Kinshiu with four
torpedo-boats behind. Where the
eighteen went we do not know. On Monday the 25th at 7:30
A. M. the transport
with 150 soldiers from here sailed for Sungjin, four
torpedo boats accompanying
her. At 11:30 the same morning we sighted three large
warvessels and three
smaller ones on the horizon. We all supposed it was the
Japanese fleet
returning, but about 12:15 P.M. two torpedo-boats came
into the harbor flying
the Russian flag. Word was at once sent around the
settlement and a hurried
exit of women and children was made to places of safety.
The Japanese all
leaped to their swords, the soldiers fell in on the
double, and we on the hill
shot up our British flag and “cleared for action.’’ The
Goyo Maru of 360 tons
had just come in from Sungjin. Thirty minutes were given
her crew to leave the
ship. In the hurried leave-taking the small boats were
almost capsized. About
one o’clock the torpedo-boat drew up and gave her a
torpedo about amidships. We
all watched the performance.
“What
a day and night we had, expecting every minute to have
the place shelled.
Throughout the night every pass was guarded and a sharp
look-out was kept on
all the hills. There was not a woman or child either in
Wonsan nor in the
Japanese settlement. The whole place was shrouded in
darkness; no lights were
allowed.
“The
question then arose what became of the transport and the
four torpedo-boats
that had left a little over two hours before the Russian
squadron hove in
sight, and where was the Japanese fleet? Some thought
they had gone to
Vladivostock but on Tuesday the 25th we saw them all
returning from the south,
eighteen in all. This was about 11 a. m. About 2 p. m.
we saw the four
torpedo-boats returning from Sung-jin but no transport.
The evening before, the
weather was bad outside and the four torpedo-boats put
into the harbor of
Cha-ho for shelter. The people on the transport thought
they could come into
Wonsan all right, so in a few minutes [page
206]
after leaving the torpedo-boats she ran into the arms of
the Russians that had been in to see us. In brief, the
Russians sunk her, and
forty-five soldiers and nine of the crew were all that
were saved. They landed
at Sin-po off Puk-chun. A small steamer was sent for
them last night (27th) and
as yet she has not returned, so we have no particulars.
The Japanese squadron
is up north or at least sailed in that direction. We
feel sure the Russian
ships were coming in on Monday night. We saw lights of
some ships coming in and
prepared for the worst. What a time we had, getting all
the women and children
out of range of the guns; for the hill lies right
between the Japanese
settlement and the ships. Our fears were false, for it
turned out to be a
Japanese steamer in from the north and just how she
missed the Russian boats we
do not know unless it was the heavy fog and mist that
saved her. One other
Japanese coaster, if she has not made Fusan, is
missing.”
Another
eyewitness of the Wonsan incident has sent the following
account which gives
some more interesting particulars.
“On
Friday the 22nd a Japanese squadron composed of twenty
fighting ships and two transports came into the harbor,
remaining until noon on
Saturday. Four torpedo-boats and one of the transports
were left behind. These
left Monday morning about six o’clock. At about ten
o’clock I was at the
house-site looking after some work there, and seeing a
merchant vessel in the
harbor went down to inquire about the mail. I also
called at the office of the
Commissioner of Customs. He remarked as I entered that
two torpedo-boats had
just come into the harbor. Both of us supposed that for
some reason two of the
Japanese flotilla which had left only a few hours before
were returning, and we
gave the matter no more thought. In a few moments,
however, one of the Customs
staff, who had been looking at the boats with a glass,
came to the door and
reported that they were flying the Russian flag. By this
time the boats were
near the Japanese merchant vessel, the Goyo Maru. The
Commissioner began to
look after getting the Customs books [page
207]
to a place of safety and I went to his house to inform
his wife of the situation and see that the flag was
raised. My path was along
the shore within a very short distance of the boats. I
could hear the commands
but of course could not understand what was said. It
proved to he an order for
all to leave the ship, as she was to be sunk in half an
hour. This was really
more time than was needed as the passengers and crew
swung off the stem of the
vessel into the life-boat, rather than go down the
gang-way. They had all
safely landed and I had returned to the custom-house
before the torpedo was
fired. The noise was not great but the steam and water
thrown into the air were
rather impressive. The vessel sank rapidly until her
stem was under water,
after which she sank rather slowly. I went out with Mr.
W to get a picture of
her prow which remained above water for a long time.
Meanwhile, the Russian
cruisers and small boats had come up behind an island
just at the mouth of the
harbor. We expected them to come in and bombard the town
at any moment. The
Japanese Consul ordered all the Japanese citizens to
leave at once. This they
did, as also did many of the Koreans from the native
town. They swarmed to the
neighboring villages where they remained till the next
day, when the Japanese
boats returned.
“The
general impression, as the Russian boats steamed away
without entering the
harbor, was that they would return at night and bombard
the town. I could see
no reason, however, why a night attack would have any
advantage over an attack
by day and I believed then the incident was closed. I
went to bed early and
slept unusually well.”
Note on
Hai-ju.
Mr. S and I
recently held a class for ten days in Hai-ju and in our
rambles about the old
town came upon a few things which suggested these notes.
Just [page
208]
outside the South Gate stands a monument enclosed in a
neat little —house is
not the word I want, for it is too pretentious. “Shed”
will not do for it is
not sufficiently dignified, and although it looks more
like a shrine than
anything else, “shrine” would not answer as it is not a
place of worship, so I
will just dub it a building erected after the approved
pattern, with slats in
front so that the passer-by may read the inscription
chiselled in Chinese
characters upon the granite shaft which is about eight
feet high by two in
breadth. The inscription states that the city of Hai-ju
was built in the third
year of 공양왕 *** which was the 24th
year of Emperor **of China, that is a little over 500
years ago. The city was
moved to its present site in the time of Se-jo Tawang
**** who reigned 437
years ago. The name of the governor who built the
present city was Yi Ch’unpo.
The words Yi Ch’un-po mean in the vernacular 2,000 paces
and it is said that
the wall was so built as to measure 2,000 paces round,
but the monument states
the distance is 2,600 paces. The wall is built like
other city walls of the
orient being about twenty feet high and broad enough on
top for half a dozen
persons to walk abreast. Viewed from the top of the wall
one would judge that
the number of the houses outside the walls is about the
same as the number
inside. There are supposed to be about 3,000 houses and
the population is
estimated at about 20,000, as many of the houses are
large. The officials
report only 941 houses in their tabulation which serves
as a basis for
taxation. Some say that 3,000 houses are taxed and that
the officials eat the
tax on 2,059 and send the balance to Seoul but others,
better informed, report
that this is not so but the tax due on the 941 houses is
divided among the
3,000, making the tax very light. While on the subject
of taxes it is in order
to say that the Korean people certainly have no reason
to complain about being
burdened, as six Korean dollars will pay the taxes on
the house and land of a
farmer owning enough land to yield a comfortable support
for an ordinary
family. The city lies 10 li from the sea and the reason
given for not building
[page 209]
on the sea shore is that although many advantages would
accrue to the citizens
by so doing, pirates are so numerous and their
incursions so much dreaded that
it is considered best to forego the delights of sea
bathing and boating as well
as the more substantial commercial advantages of a sea
port town. A beautiful
stream runs past the city and it is noticeable that
whereas in America its
banks would be lined with houses, only occasional huts
are found near the
stream, which flows over a very rocky bed. This stream
suggests one of Henry
Van Dyke’s little rivers as it rushes tumultuously along
“singing always the
same song, and that the favorite.” In America you would
expect to find trout in
such a stream in the pools below the numerous waterfalls
but there are only a
very few small fish, a little larger than minnows. They
are characterized by
that “never get in a hurry air which so permeates Korea
that one is not
surprised to see it even in the fish. Instead of
scuttling away when we threw a
stone into the pool they came swimming up to see what it
was and their ideas of
the proper way to enjoy life suggested the slow-going
oriental in his flowing
robes. There are several pagodas near the city but no
one was able to tell me the
date of their erection. The consensus of opinion however
seems to be that they
were built at the time of Bhuddism’s invasion of the
country and it is evident
that they are of many years standing, from the fact that
the characters
chiselled on them have been obliterated by wind and
weather except those at the
top which are protected by the broad eaves. We were told
by several residents
that the site of the present city was formerly taken up
by Bhuddist temples,
which were removed at the time the city was founded. Ten
li from the present
site is a temple said to be more than 500 years old. We
only heard of this
temple the evening before we. came away and so were
unable to visit it. Besides
this there is another building said to have been erected
by the Bhuddist
priests in the long ago to be used as a granary. It is
only a few minutes walk
from the west gate and is near the stream. It is ninety
feet long, fifteen feet
wide and eighteen feet high.
[page 210]
Viewed from a distance it resembles a huge grave as it
is covered with earth
and overgrown with grass. It is lined with stone and the
roof is supported by
twelve stone arches the stones in these arches being
about three by one and a
half, by one and a fourth feet, laid horizontally edge
to edge. Huge slabs of
stone, eight feet long by about two feet wide stretch
from one arch to the
other constituting the ceiling and the roof. It is the
only roof I have seen
supported without timbers. This building has been used
for some time by the
city officials as an ice house and is well adapted to
such use being very cool
inside. Such a building is made possible at Hai-ju by
the abundance of stone
found there. No one can visit the city without being
impressed b}’ its rocky
character. There are stones everywhere, of all sizes and
shapes. Some of the
city streets are bounded by stone walls six feet high
and the walls around many
of the houses are simply stones piled up without mortar
or even mud filling.
Not far from the giant cave is a shrine called
Chyung-sung-myo or the Shrine of
the Patriots. The inscription on the monument before it
states that it was
erected in the 60th year of the Mings or about 475 years
ago by the gentry of
Hai-ju in memory of two men named respectively Pak Ki
and Suk Cho. These men
lived about 1122 B. C. and were contemporaries of
Samson. They were Chinese
noblemen who refused to be comforted when Mu Wang came
and took the throne from
their soverign. The story runs that they went away to a
mountain called Su Yang
and there after living for a time on the plant known as
고사리 or bracken, i. e. pteris aquiline,
died of grief and
starvation. Some 478 years ago the emperor of China sent
an envoy to inquire if
there was a mountain in Korea called Su Yang and if so
whether a shrine had
been erected there to the memory of these patriots. The
King hearing that a
negative reply would provoke the Imperial displeasure
replied that there was
such a mountain and that such a shrine had been erected,
giving orders at the
same time that it be built at once. At that time a Mr.
Ko was the owner of this
mountain and his ancestors had been [page
211]
buried there for many generations so the King gave him
another mountain in exchange, the present “Nam San”
whither he removed the
remains of his ancestors. The shrine of the Patriots is
built on a beautiful
spot on the Slope of Su Yang mountain overlooking the
city. On either side is a
noble tree of the variety known as “neutti” or Sophora Japonica, These trees are said to
have been planted at the
time the shrine was erected and after four centuries
they have attained a girth
of thirteen feet four inches. This is said to be the
hardest wood found in
Korea and is used for making cart wheels. A felloe seven
inches thick will last
two years, it is said, even when used constantly on
stony roads. Inside the
shrine are the tablets made just like those found in the
Confucian temples and
on the tablet are inscribed the names of the patriots
with the posthumous
titles conferred by the Emperor of China. Before these
tablets sacrifices are offered
twice per year, in the Spring and Fall, when raw meat,
uncooked rice, fruit,
nuts and liquor is offered. Looking at the matter from
one view-point it seems
rather disrespectful to offer food which is not edible;,
and the custom of
offering cooked food as is common in ancestral worship
would seem more sensible
and more respectful, but the Koreans explain their
custom by saying that it
would never do to offer to the shades of those so
illustrious the same food
offered to ordinary mortals. Hai-ju, May 3rd,
S. F. Moore.
War Anecdotes.
Map Making A
story is told of a Japanese who lived in Fusan for many
years prior to the
great invasion of 1592. He acquired the Korean language
so perfectly that no
one would suspect his nationality. Dressed as a Korean
Buddhist monk he
wandered all over the country. Finally he came to the [page 212]
Chin-gwan monastery outside the Northwest Gate of Seoul
and there took up his quarters for a time. Now in those
days the monasteries
had the best maps in all Korea because the monks needed
them in their begging
expeditions about the country. This Japanese also was an
expert map maker and
in his rambles about the neighborhood he came upon a
place on the great Peking
road between Koyang and P’aju which he saw would be a
most important
strategical point in case of war. He immediately set to
work to make a very
complete map of the whole district but, curiously
enough, he left out of it all
mention or notice of this important point which was
situated near the village
of Pyuk-che-gwan. The monks at the monastery were
astonished and delighted with
the map which was the most perfect they had ever seen
and they cherished it as
a precious heirloom. The monk disappeared, but a few
years later the invasion
took place. The Japanese, at first successful, were at
last forced to retreat
fronv Pyeng-yang before the great Chinese general Yi
Yu-song. They came
streaming south in disorder but after crossing the Imjin
river they enjoyed a
little respite, because the Chinese general refused to
take his army across it
unless the Koreans would build a bridge. The latter,
enraged at seeing the
hated Japanese escape, went to work and built a
suspension bridge, the first
one of its size probably that was ever built, and the
Chinese army of over
20,000 men crossed it and resumed the chase. The
vanguard came to the vicinity
of the Chin-gwan monastery and there demanded to see
what maps they had. The
fine map was brought out and the Chinese made a carefiil
copy of it which they
placed in the hands of Gen. Yi Yu-song. The Chinese
army, relying on this map,
pushed forward with confidence but at the critical point
they were surprised by
the Japanese who lay in ambush and were driven back with
terrible loss. The
brother of Gen. Yi Yu-song fell in this encounter. It
was found that this
important location had been left blank on the map, and
Gen. Yi sent for the
monks of Chin-gwan monastery. He questioned them closely
about the man who had
made the map and cleverly decided, [page
213]
from several circumstances, that the man must have been
a Japanese and that he had left the map imperfect on
purpose to embarrass an
enemy at some future date.
This
was long centuries ago, but a story is current among the
Koreans that a few
years ago a Japanese in Peking conversant both with the
Chinese and French
languages, disguised himself as a Chinaman and
cultivated the friendship of a
Rusisian cartographer who had been sent to secure a
detailed map of Manchuria.
He joined the Russian in his work and acted as his
secretary or helper and was
so skillful with his pen that the Russian entrusted the
delicate work of
drawing the map to him. As a result the Japanese secured
for himself a very
perfect map while the copy which he prepared for the
Russian was purposely
filled with most perplexing inaccuracies, but so
cleverly concealed as to
escape any but the most critical examination. This map
was published and put in
the hands of the Russian officers, but since the war
broke out it has been
found that the most curious mistakes are made as to
routes and distances. The
Russian who was supposed to have made it underwent a
strict examination in the
course of which he confessed that be had delegated most
of the work to a
Chinaman in his company. At about the same time a
Japanese spy was caught and on
his person was found a map which was so nearly identical
with the “doctored”
map that the secret was out. The Russian was thrown into
prison and desperate
efforts were made to make a new and correct map before
the necessary movemant
of troops but it caused a deal of serious trouble and
delay. We do not at all
vouch for the historicity of these stories but we do not
doubt that things
stranger than this have occurred.
The Russian
Dash at Anju.
Early in April
a force of Russian cavalry. probably ignorant as yet of
the Japanese victory at
the Yalu, crossed that river opposite Kang-gye and
pushed south by way of Chang
-jin, Yung-win and Tak-ch’un and on the 10th appeared
before Anju on the
opposite bank of the [page 214]
river at 7.50 a. m. This company consisted of some 200
cavalry and were opposed
by something over fifty Japanese who formed the garrison
of Anju. A skirmish
took place which lasted from one o’clock till seven in
the afternoon. Four
Japanese were killed and six were wounded. The Russians
suffered some twenty
casualties but how many were actually killed is not
definitely known. That
night the Russians retired. The Japanese captured one
Russian small officer and
from papers on his person discovered that he belonged to
a body of some 500
cavalry. The Russians cut the telegraph lines before
retiring. It was found out
later that a considerable force of Russians numbering
something over 2,500 were
lying at Unsan but the Japanese made no attempt to
dislodge them. The
telegraphic communication was reestablished on the 11th
at nine a. m.
The Russians
burn the Ham-heung Bridge.
On the 19th
inst. the Russian force on the eastern coast came south
as far as Ham-heung and
entered the wall. They had a two hours fight with the
Pyengyang soldiers
stationed there, during which time one Korean soldier
was killed and one
Russian severely wounded. The next morning the Russians
went outside the West
gate and fired some 300 of the people’s houses, and
destroyed three telegraph
poles. They also set fire to the celebrated Man-se-kyo
or ‘Ten-thousand Year
Bridge.” This bridge is said to be 300 kan long or
nearly half a mile. Fourteen
kan of the bridge were destroyed. After this the
Russians retired to Chang-jin.
The Battle of
Kang-gye.
On the first
of May the battle at theYalu was not the only one that
was fought. Another one
was taking place in the town of Kang-gye between Russian
soldiers and Korean
tiger-hunters. Some days before this, 400 Russians had
crossed the Yalu at
Chosan and had marched to Kang-gye. There they took up
their quarters and began
to treat the people badly. They seized their grain and
horses, violated women
and committed other excesses, until the people could,
stand it no longer.
[page 215] So
the prefect, Kim Chi-ok, summoned some 200 Korean
soldiers enlisted from the
tiger-hunters and attacked the Russians. Six Russians
were killed. The people
rose in revolt and aided the 200 soldiers and the
Russians found the place too
hot for them; so they dropped such part of their booty
as they could not easily
carry and decamped.
Fifteen Years
Among: the Top-knots,
Fifteen
Years Among the Top-knots; by Mrs. Lillian Horton
Underwood, M.D. Published by The American Tract Society,
New York, U. S. A.
$1.50 net.
We have had
the pleasure of examining this new book on Korea and we
found it all that was
to have been expected from the long residence of the
author in Korea, her
intimate and sympathetic acquaintance with Koreans of
the highest and lowest
classes as well as those of the middle class, and her
well known literary
taste. It is a book not only about
the Koreans but for
them, in the
sense that from an inside standpoint the author has
successfully attempted to
reveal the genuine Korean in a way to make us think of
him as a fellow-being
rather than as an oriental curiosity. We congratulate
the author upon having
adopted the style of personal narrative, for by so doing
she has given us not a
book of generalities about the Korean but a carefully
arranged series of
particular incidents which came under her own
observation. This gives the book
the same weight and authority which attaches to the
evidence of a witness in
court who has sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the
truth.
It
is with great satisfaction that we see a steady though
slow growth of a
literature on Korea written by people who have lived
here long enough to have
renounced the desire to say something startling about a
nation whose
characteristics and attainments are not [page 216]
on the dramatic order. This book is a notable addition
to the list and we recommend it without reserve to
anyone who wants to know the
facts about Korea.
News Calendar.
With the
resignation of Yi Keun-ho, brother of Yi Kun-tak, from
the Governorship of
Kyung-geui Province the last semblance of the Yi
Keun-tak regime disappeared.
There seems to
be some difficulty still about the government of the
coolies in Mokpo. There
are three sources of authority each of which claims the
right to control the
coolies, namely the Superintendent of Trade, the
Customs, and the Ti-sang
Company which is a sort of gnild whose president is one
Chin Su-yun. At present
the Customs have charge of the coolies but the Ti-sang
Company has been
appealing to the Foreign Office to secure control of the
matter. It would seem
by far the best policy to let the Customs have charge of
the whole business as
it would then be carried on in a judicial manner.
The
introduction of the opium habit into Korea threatens to
become a grave matter.
The hold that it is getting upon the Koreans is very
strong and stringent
measures ought to be adopted for its suppression. On
April 25th some policemen
raided an opium den in the center of Seoul in order to
arrest some Koreans who
were known to be breaking the law, but the Chinese
forcibly opposed them and a
fight ensued in which the police were successful,
arresting several offenders
and lodging them in jail. The policemen were highly
complimented and rewarded
by their Chief. Notice was sent to the Chinese Legation
requesting that the
Chinese authorities take steps to abate the nuisance and
stating that sharp and
decisive measures would be adopted by the police in
dealing with the matter.
The native papers comment facetiously upon the sorry
plight of the peddlar’s
guild and suggest that their clubs be cut up into
fireword.
About April
28th the police department issued an important order,
namely that the demimonde
of Seoul reside in a separate
district in the town and not be scattered all over the
city. In other words it
ordered the establishment of something corresponding to
the Japanese Yoshiwara.
The vicinity designated is Si-dong.
A Korean
living outside the South Gate offered to sell to a
Japanese 800 blank nickels.
The offer was apparently accepted bnt someone else who
was in the secret divulged
it to the police and the Korean was arrested.
The
difficulties that have arisen between the Seoul Blectric
Company and the His
Majesty the Emperor relative to the mortgage on the
electric road have been
settled by a new arrangement whereby the His Majesty is
to pay Yen 750,000 and
the two parties assume equal joint partnership in the
bosiness.
[page
217]
Kang Sok-ho, who has been for many years the head eunuch
in the palace and who
has exercised far greater power than many people
suppose, has been sent to the
country in disgrace because of his strong affinity for
Russia and Russian
interests in Korea.
The Korean
Government gave consent to the Japanese proposition of
cutting timber along the
road to Pyeng-yang to furnish poles for a supplementary
telegraph line.
A few days ago
a lamp in the Central Prison, Seoul, smoked and the
chimney was blackened, but
strangely enough the lamp-black formed the exact picture
of a man, down to the
finest details, so the story runs. The jailer was deeply
impressed with this
inexplicable phemonenon and averred that it foretold
some form of good luck to
the prisoners. There is a small shrine in connection
with the jail and
offerings were instantly made before it .
The estimated
revenue for 1904 is $14,214,537, and the expenditure
$14,214, 29S, leaving a
surpuls of $275. The Imperial household will receive
from this amount
$1,013,359; the War Department will receive $4»675,25i
of which $451,605 will
go to the Navy. The revenue this year is estimated to be
$3,448,458 in excess
of that of last year.
The Tonghak
element in the north has taken full advantage of the
state of unrest to commit
excesses in many places. The people have been as much
disturbed by them as by
the operations of the war. In many districts houses have
been deserted in great
numbers and frightful suffering has been endured because
of these
conscienceless brutes.
Yi To-ja
resigned the Ministry of Home Affairs on.May 3rd and was
succeeded by Yi Yong-t’a.
A Korean named
Kim Yun-jung went to America several years ago with his
son and set to work to
obtain an education. He had no money to start in with
but his tireless energy
found a way and at last he graduated from college. The
attention of the Korean
government was called to this man by the American
authorities and as a result
he has been appointed Secretary of the Korean Legation
in Washington.
When the news
of the Japanese victory at the Yalu was received in
Seoul, Yun Ung-yul the
Minister of War went to the Japanese Legation and
congratulated the Japanese
Minister upon this important event.
The Police
Department has interfered to keep down the price of
shoes in Seoul. The price
for a good pair had gone up to the phenomenal figure of
10,000 cash or $4.00;
the Department ordered that ordinary shoes be sold for
$1.60 and the best ones
for $2.40. The wet-weather shoes were allowed twenty
cents more. As the shoe
business is no longer a monopoly in Seoul we do not see
how the government can
regulate the price.
The Japanese
people in Korea have urged that the following places be
thrown open for foreign
residence. In Ham-gyung Province, Ham-heung. Kyong-song;
in Kang-won Province,
Won-ju, Kim-sung; in Kyong-sang Province, Taiku,
Chin-ju, Mi-ryang, Ye-ch’un;
in Chulla, Province Chun-ju, Na-ju, Nam-p’yung,
Kwang-ju; in Ch’ung
[page 218]
ch’ung Province, Kong-ju, Pu-yo, Chung-ju; in Kyung-geui
Province, Su-wun,
Song-do; in Whang-ha Province, Ha-ju, Whang-ju; in
P’yungan Province, An-ju.
On May 6th the
Japanese held a great festival in honor of the Wi-ju
victories. The main scene
of the festivities was the grounds of the Chang-dok
Palace. The streets were
alive that night with waving lanterns and crowds in high
spirits. All the
Korean Ministers of State participated in the
festivities at the “Old Palace”
grounds.
On May 4th
forty more Koreans started for Hawaii to engage in work
on the sugar
plantations.
The Government
has remitted the taxes on the fields which Koreans have
surrendered to the
Seoul Fusan R. R. Co. outside the South Gate.
On the 10th
inst forty-one men and four boys started for Honolulu to
engage in work.
Yi Kang-ho has
submitted to the Privy Council a scheme for a system of
common schools for
Korea. It proposes one primary school for each 200 or
300 houses in Seoul; the
transformation of all the present common schools into
intermediate schools;
compulsory attendance from the eighth year; a revision
of the curriculum; the
appointment of school trustees from each ward to manage
the affairs of the
school iu their respective districts; the listing of the
residents of each
district into five grades according to fin-ancial
standing of each, for the
purpose of proportional school taxation; the limiting of
the monthly expenses
of each school to $50; books to be provided by the
Educational Department; the
collection of ten times the maximum tax from any man who
employs private tutors
for his children; the collection of double tax from
those who keep their sons
out of school to work; the setting aside of special
school lands in the country
for the support of country schools; the change of the
present country schools
into intermediate schools; a biennial inspection of all
country schools by the
Provincial Governors,
On the 19th of
April a Russian force appeared at Chosan on the Yalu
about 60 li above Wiju and
took possession of all arms stored there by the Korean
Government for use by
the Border Guard, and then they retired into Manchuria.
On May 10th
the Emperor put forth an edict calling attention to the
unsatisfactory
condition of the government and using the following
language :
We have often
urged the officials to greater diligence in the
performance of their duties but
to no avail and so the government business has been
postponed and obstructed
and the laws of the land are in abeyance. We recognize
the limitations of our
own virtue and yet on what grounds can you venture to
disregard the plain
demands of duty? Our express commands are treated [page 219]
merely as literary productions, to be read indeed but
not to be acted upon and thus a condition of things has
arisen which calls for
stem censure. What is now needed is that you should
awake from your lethargy
and take our words to heart, not overcome with shame at
our rebuke but
stimulated to renewed activity thereby.
When the
officials received this expression of Imperial
displeasure an instant and
universal murmur of contrition went up from them and
memorial after memorial
was presented expressing inability to perform the
functions of office with
acceptability and craving leave to resign. The emperor
consented to this only
in the case of the Home Minister whose vacated place was
filled by Yi Yong-t’a
a favorite of Lady Om. And so everything went on as
before.
The Chinese
Minister asks the removal of the prefect of Kan-do, an
island in the Tuman
River, on the ground that he does not treat the Chinese
residents of that
island properly. It was long in dispute whether the
island belonged to China or
Korea and so Chinese continued to live on it even after
the Ussuri district was
ceded to Russia
The Korean
Minister to Peking urges that Korean consuls be placed
in Tientsin, Taku and
Peking.
The government
has at last put down the money to pay the returning
expenses of the Korean
Minister to Russia and he will shortly start from that
post.
Two of the
buildings erected by the Russian Timber Company at
Vongampo have been “accidentally”
destroyed by fire.
It is said
that a Japanese Language School established by a wealthy
Korean in Chung-ju, Ch’ung-ch’ung
Province is in a flourishing condition. A Japanese
teacher is employed and the
students number forty.
Rev. Mr. Honda
the well-known Methodist college president in Tokyo has
recently come to Seoul
to look into the matter of Christian work among the
Japanese in this city. He
is accompanied by Rev. H. Kihara of the Methodist Church
who will renuun to
carry on the work.
The
Congregational Church in Japan may also send a man to
carry on a similar work.
They will be heartily welcomed by those who realize what
a broad and promising
field of Christian work there is among th« Japanese of
Seoul and Chemulpo.
On May 25th
Mr. and Mrs. Mimashi gave a garden party at the Japanese
Consulate. The day was
a delightful one and the company came prepared to enjoy
a most pleasant hour on
the fine lawn behind the Consulate building. A cozy
pavilion had been erected
beneath which the table was spread.
On May 19th
the German Minister Herr von Saldem gave a large lawn
party at the legation. A
numerous and brilliant company were present including
many officers from the
German war-vessel at Chemulpo. The guests were
entertained with music by the
band from the ship. A very successful photograph was
secured which will be a
lasting memento of a very pleasant afternoon.
[page
220]
About the 5th inst the Japanese Minister communicated
with the Foreign Office
regarding the need of repairing the streets and the
drainage system of Soeul.
The different points were as follows:
(i) The drains
should all be cleared of obstructions so that water can
flow freely through them.
(2) All
garbage and refuse should be removed without the wall
(3) All
barracks for Korean or Japanese soldiers should be
cleaned and all drains
within a distance of sixty kan (450
feet) should be carefully repaired.
(4) Public
latrines should be constructed at many points in the
city for the use of the
peple.
(5) The
removal of night-soil from the city should be regulated
and carried out under
the surveillance of the police.
(6) Every
house should be compelled to use lime to disinfect the
cesspools.
In all but the
last of these points the Japanese and Korean authorities
will share the
expense, at least this is the proposition of the
Japanese authorities. . It is
urged that the Home Office or the Police Bureau should
take the work in hand
aided by the Japanese Consul and the gendarmes. It has
been decided to spend
$40,000 on this work and it was begun on the 27th inst.
On May 4th
when the Japanese Minister had audience with His Majesty
the latter asked all
about the Japanese victories in the north and expressed
satisfaction at the
result.
Yi Chi-yong,
the envoy to Japan, left Tokyo on the 5th and arrived in
Seoul on the 16th.
On May 5-6 the
third son of the German Emperor, Prince Adalbert, made a
visit to Seoul incognito.
He is nineteen years old and
an officer in the German Navy. He was accompanied by
some officers from the
German war-vessel Geier. We understand that His Majesty
was disappointed at not
meeting the Prince but under the circumstances the
German authorities did not
deem it advisable to arrange an audience.
On the 19th
inst. quite an exodus of foreigners from Korea took
place. Seventeen residents
of Seoul, Pyengyang, Sun-ch’on, Chunju etc., including
several children, sailed
for America by the Dairei Maru an excellent little boat
of the Osaka Shosen
line. The party consisted of Mrs. Ross and two children,
Mr. and Mrs. Donhaun
and child, Miss Dr. Ingold, Miss Best, Rev. and Mrs.
Noble and three children,
Lera and Lawrence Avison and Helen Hulbert. Most of them
are intending to catch
the “Korea” sailing from Yokohama on June ist. Mrs.
Campbell also left Seoul on
the 24th inst. for Shanghai, and from there she will go
to America via Europe.
We are given
definitely to understand that Rev. and Mrs. Bunker and
Dr. and Mrs. Scranton,
Mrs. Scranton Sr. and Miss Augusta are to come to Korea
either this Summer or
early in the Autumn. Miss Augusta Scranton has been
engaged to teach the
Foreign Childrens’ School in Seoul.
The Japanese
Minister has extended thanks to the Korean authorities [page 221] for the courtesy shown by
the prefect of Quelpart to some Japanese who were
wrecked on that island
recently.
In Tak-som, on
the river, a child was seen forcing his way through the
wattle fence about a
house. He was seized but some of the residents of the
town pitied the child and
argued that he was probably only trying to get into his
own home, since no one
would open the gate for him. When the child was
examined, however, it was
discovered that he was the tool of a powerful gang of
robbers. Through
information supplied by the boy a number of important
arrests were made.
The Russian
Minister in Peking cautioned the Korean Minister there
that all Korean vessels
should be careful to fly the Korean flag for otherwise
they might be taken for
Japanese boats and suffer damage at the hands of the
Russians.
The Emperor
sent a gift of Yen 100 to each of the foreign Legations
whose guards assisted
at the time of the Palace fire. The Italian Minister
presented the money to Dr.
Avison to be used towards founding a Pasteur Institute.
Min Ta-sik,
the son of Min Yong-jun, was arrested for gambling in a
disreputable dive in
An-dong and $2,000 were seized. He was detained for two
days in durance vile.
In pursuance
of the order that no soldier should pawn his uniform or
accoutrements, a
soldier was sentenced to one year in the chain-gang for
hypothecating his
clothes for sixty cents and investing the same in the
contents of the flowing
bowl.
For the past
few years it has been customary for prefects to pay
their own traveling
expenses in going down to their posts but because of the
trouble in the north
and the need of quick despatch the Government has
decided to cover these
expenses.
The people of
Kyong-sung near the Tuman River have been having a hard
time at the hands of
the Russians if the statements of the native press are
to be credited. It is
stated the people have been forced to furnish food for
man and horse without
receiving any equivalent and that the people have been
beaten and driven out so
that a majority of the houses within the wall are empty.
The town of
Mn-san on the upper Tuman has suffered severely at the
hands of Chinese raiders
and Russian Cossacks. Three hundred of the houses have
been burned and robbery
has been the order of the day.
The notes of
the Dai Ichi Ginko are a success as appears from the
fact that up to the end of
March the amount put in circulation was Yen 1,233,535.
The
examination for graduation from the Imperial Middle
School began on the 12th
inst. There are twenty candidates for graduation.
Heretofore
each of the schools has been accustomed to compose a
national song for its own
use but as these seldom agreed with the proper canons of
literature as held by
poetical experts in Korea, the Educational Department
has provided a national
song which is to be substituted for these various songs.
It runs as follows “May
the Supreme Ruler help the Emperor; and may his blessed
life be peaceful. May
blessings [page 222]
be ocean wide and mountain high. May his dignity and
pcwer be renowned
throughout the world and may his felicity not wane for a
thousand— nay,
ten-thousand years. May the Supreme Ruler help the
Emperor.*’
On Saturday
evening the 28th inst. the men of the British Legation
Guard gave an
entertainment at the barracks. It was largely attended
and proved a distinct
success. It was given to celebrate the third anniversary
of the commissioning
of the Cressy. The concert was made up of musical and
other selections both by
the marines and by residents of Seoul. Specially
noteworthy was the exhibition
of a marvelous invention, called, a “spoutophone,” by
“Professor” Deluhry,
which brought down the house. The men are to be
congratulated on the possession
of so much musical and histrionic talent within their
own ranks.
A Korean has
just arrived in Seoul from Wiju where he together with a
crowd of other
Koreans, witnessed the battle from an elevation behind
that town. He brings
many interesting particulars of the fight, but as he
comes at the moment of our
going to press we are obliged to leave this matter over
until our next issue.
Yun Eung-yul
resigned the position of Imperial Treasurer and Pak
Che-hong took his place.
The Japanese
have seized and taken Yi Kyung-jik, the prefect of
Yong-chun, to Antung and are
calling him to account for alleged aid which he gave to
the Russians.
The Seoul
Fusan R. R Co. have consented to make a detour around
the prefectural town of
Yong-dong instead of going through it.
The Korean
government has about decided to grant the Japanese
request for fishing rights
along the whole western coast of Korea.
Twelve Koreans
have been recently graduated from the private Japanese
school called the
Kyung-sung Hak-kyo.
The Emperor
has commanded that the record of attendance of officials
at their various posts
be sent in for his inspection every day.
Min Yong-whan
has resigned the portfolio of education and Yi Chi-geuk
has been appointed in
his place.
A tennis
tournament has been arranged among the gentlemen players
of Seoul, with sixteen
entries. There will be both single and double contests.
Tennis racquets will
form the prize.
The Minister
of Education announced that all Koreans who had studied
abroad should come to
the department on a certain day and those who had not
received diplomas abroad
would be examined and would receive certificates
according to their
attainments.
The Chief of
Police has warned all country-men who have not important
business in Seoul to
leave for their homes. The planting season has come and
the farm is the place
when they are needed most. He warns them that if they
remain in idleness here
they will be arrested.
The Japanese
authorities have asked the use of the glass manufactory
at Yong-san. We are
glad to see the building put to some use. A
glass-factory is about as useful a
thing in Korea as an air-ship factory [page
223]
would
be, unless the sapient originators of the glass
scheme expect to melt quartz crystals to make glass.
Since the war
now has crossed into Manchurian territory,
forty-one Japanese who acted as Korean interpreters have
been relieved of
active duty.
A telegram has
been received by the government stating that four
leaders of Tong-haks have
been arrested in Chun-ju.
Upon the
return of Yi Chi-yong he gave to His Majesty a detailed
account of his
conversations with various Japanese statesmen and gave a
careful exposition of
their ideas as to the Japanese-Korean relations in view
of the present
conflict.
Mr. Makashima
the teacher of the Imperial Japanese language school in
Seoul has resigned and
Mr. Kawayama has been employed by the government in his
place.
Because of the
cordiality with wluch he treated the Japanese, Chin
Heui-song the chief of
police at Hiju has, at the suggestion of the Japanese
Minister, been made
prefect of Cha-ryung.
The people in
the north along the Tuman and head waters of the Yalu
are having a very hard
time at the hands of the Cossacks. Hundreds of people
have fled from Kapsan,
Samsu, Musan, Chongsung and other border towns to the
mountains for safety.
This has given opportunity for Korean robbers in
addition to the exactions of
the Cossacks. The half grown barley crops have been cut
down in many places to
feed the Russian horses.
The people of
Pakchung, Kilju, Sungjin aud Tanchun are not in love
with the telegraph. They
thought it was because of the telegraph that the
Russians invaded their towns :
so they tore down the wires and assert that they will
not allow them to be
erected again under any circumstances
The Korean
Government has sent to Japan for a supply of fire
engines and other apparatus
for use in the palace.
In order to
complete the extra telegraph line between Seoul and
Pyang-yang the Japanese ask
the Koreans to furnish 130 telegraph poles which are
still lacking.
The Korean
people in the north and west assert that if the actions
of the Russians in
northern Korean are a fair sample of the Russian army
discipline, the Russians
will sooner or later come to grief.
A large number
of extraordinary taxes have been remitted on the island
of Quelpart.
The department
of Agriculture, Commerce and Public Works has announced
that the constitution
and regulation of the various guilds of the city must be
revised and the
business put on a more definite footing.
Two Russian
spies in the garb of Korean beggars were captured in
Pyeng Yang and were
brought to Seoul. We do not know what disposition the
Japanese will make of
them.
[page
224]Ha
Sang-geui the Chemulpo superintendent of trade has been
severely reprimanded for not having greeted Yi Chi-Yong
at the port upon his
return from Japan.
The law
department had asked the foreign office to demand of the
Japanese authorities
the punishment of a Japanese subject who recently killed
a Korean in the town
Ch’ung-ju.
Mr. Min
Yung-so has been appointed Chief of the Privy Council.
Han Kyu-sul
has resigned all office because of the death of his aged
mother.
On the 28th
instant the Foreign Office
announced to the various Foreign Representatives that it
had formally broken
off treaty relations with Russia because of
irregularities and oppressive acts
on the part of the Russian government toward Korea. At
the same time all
private or semi-private contracts and concessions of
whatever kind or nature
are declared null and void. The reason assigned for the
latter is that the
concessions were obtained in an illegal manner and by
indirection.
The Korean
government has sent word to its Legation in Berlin
ordering that the body of
the late Secretary Hong Hyun-sik be buried there and not
transported here.
Because of
financial difficulties the Whang-sung
Sin-mun suspended publication on the 18th inst.
But His Majesty presented
them with a building near the center of Seoul free of
rent fimd the paper
resumed publication on the 27th.
[page
225]
KOREAN HISTORY.
This year saw
the first embassy to Europe appointed in the person of
Cho Sin-heui but owing
to his illness his place was filled by Pak Che-sun who
started on his mission
but never got further than Hong-kong. It is probable
that it was through
Chinese influence that he got no further. The fourth
month of the year saw the
death of the aged Dowager Queen Cho, through whose
influence the present king
came to the throne. She was buried with royal honors and
the people assumed
mourning for one year.Serious difficulties
arose in regard to the fisheries in the south. The
Japanese had been accorded
the right to fish in Korean waters, but on the island of
Quelpart a curious
custom prevails. The women do the fishing. They enter
the water entirely nude
and gather shell-fish. All males are prohibited by law
from coming within sight
of the fishinggrounds. The Japanese fishing-boats,
however, did not hesitate to
pass into these prohibited waters and as a result the
Koreans were deprived of
the means of livelihood.
The
year 1891 beheld the elevation to power of Min Yong-jun
a man who championed
the most conservative principles of the retrogressive
party in power. The king’s
son by the concubine Lady Kang was made Prince Eui-wha.
Cor ruption in official
circles was accentuated by the lessening of the term of
office of country
prefects thereby entailing fresh burdens on the people,
for they had to provide
each prefect with money to liquidate the debt he had
incurred in purchasing the
position. There was an instant and loud outcry from all
sides. The powers that
be saw that the limit of the peoples endurance had been
passed and they
hastened to revoke the law. This same year a consulate
was founded at Tientsin
and Yi Myung-sang became the first incumbent.
Another sign of retrogression
was the execution of six men charged with being
accessory to the insurrection
of 1882 although eleven years had passed since that
event.
The
year 1892 passed without witnessing many events of [page 226]
special importance, excepting that the state of things
kept getting worse and worse. It was a time during which
the country was
ripening for the great disturbances of the following
year. History shows that
when the Korean people are treated with anything like a
fair degree of justice
they are loyal and peaceful. So long as the Korean is
called upon to pay not
more than three or four times the legal rate of tax he
will endure it quietly
and there will be no talk of seditious sects arising;
but the people are well
aware that they them selves form the court of final
appeal and when all other
means fail they are not slow to adopt any means of
righting their wrongs.
In
1893 Korea began to reap what she had sown in 1891 and
1892. Having sown the
wind she began to reap the whirlwind. The whole province
of P’yung-an was in a
ferment. Insurrections occurred in Kang-gye, Song-ch’un,
Hamjong and in other
parts of the province. But the difficulty was not
confined to the North. The
sect called the Tong-hak which had arisen in 1864 began
to show its head in the
south again. Rumors began to multiply in Seoul that they
were coming to the
capital in great numbers to drive out the Japanese and
other foreigners. The
government despatched O Yun jung, a civilian, to pacify
them and for a time
quiet was preserved, but in March threatening plackards
were fastened to
foreigners’ gates in Seoul inveighing against the
Christian religion and
warning foreigners to leave the country at once. It was
the general feeling
that although serious trouble was not likely to occur in
Seoul it would be well
to be in a state of preparedness in case the Tong-hak
saw fit to put their
words to the test of action.
At
this time the Queen was extremely well-disposed toward
that class of female
spiritual mediums called mudang and
one of them was elevated to the rank of Princess. A
Korean, An Hyo-je, who
memorialized the king against such practices, was
overwhelmed with obloquy and
was banished to the island of Quelpart. Min Yong-jun had
taken advantage of his
high position to add private profit to public usefulness
and loud complaints
were heard on all sides against him and against others
of the same name.
Insurrections of greater or less degree occurred in
different parts of the
country [page 227]
and it seemed as if Korea were on the verge of anarchy.
It can hardly be
gainsaid that this state of affairs was the legitimate
outcome of pro-Chinese
agitation and was directly in line with immemorial
custom in China. Nothing
could be truer than that Korea needed reforming. The
government found it
necessary to deal with great severity in some cases.
Four prefects were taken
to the center of the city and publicly beaten and then
banished. Even Min
Yong-jun had to go through the form of punishment in
this public way, for the
people of the capital were so incensed against him that
an insurrection seemed
imminent unless they were appeased. The Songdo people
revolted against the
extortion that was practiced against them but they were
overcome and their
ginseng was taken away from them by Kim Se-geui, the
right hand man of Min
Yong-jun.
Late
in the year the Tong-hak made a startling proclamation
which they secretly
nailed to the gate of the governor’s yamen in Chun-ju.
It called upon all
right-minded men to join in the march on the capital and
the extirpation of the
foreigners. This seemed more tangible than the former
rumors and foreign
men-of-war began to congregate at Chemulpo for the
protection of their
nationals in Seoul. Hundreds of Japanese left the city
and hurried to Chemulpo
for safety. A force of Korean infantry marched southward
to head off the
revolutionists but they were easily defeated and their
arms and accoutrements
fell into the hands of the enemy.
It
was quite evident that the Korean government was without
the means or the men
to cope with such determined opposition. This deplorable
state of things was
looked upon by Japan with some uneasiness. Korea seemed
to be coming more and
more under Chinese influence and in the same proportion
her internal management
became more corrupt. Japan regarded Korea as an
independent power and was
determined to see that independence upheld. This feeling
on the part of Japan
was sharply accentuated when in the spring of 1894 a
Korean detective, Hong
Chong-u, succeeded in gaining the confidence of Kim
Ok-kyun who was living at
Tokyo as a political refugee. He was induced to
accompany his betrayer to
Shanghai where, in a hotel, his betrayer shot him down
in cold blood. The
Chinese government condoned the dastardly [page 228]
deed and sent the assassin, together with the body of
his victim, to Korea in a Chinese gunboat. The body of
Kim Okkyun was
dismembered on April fourteenth in a most brutal manner
and the different
portions of his body were sent about the country as a
warning to traitors. This
lapse into the worst excesses of the old regime opened
the eyes of Japan to the
actual situation and gave her just the impetus she
needed to take the strong
position which she did later. Soon after this the
Tong-hak took the town of
Chun-ju and defeated all the government troops sent
against them. The governor
of the province, Kim Mun-hyun, made his escape from the
place.
The
government had at last become convinced of its inability
to cope with its
enemies single-handed and it determined to have recourse
to the dangerous
policy of asking China to throw troops into the
peninsula to aid in putting
down the Tong-hak uprising. China immediately complied
and on June sixth 1,500
Chinese troops were embarked at Tientsin and were sent
to Chemulpo under the
escort of three gunboats.
It
must be remembered that according to the third article
of the Tientsin
Convention China and Japan each agreed not to send
troops into Korea without
first notifying the other. In this case the Chinese
failed to notify the
Japanese until after the departure of the troops and
there can be no doubt that
at this point lies the strength of Japan’s contention.
When, later, the Chinese
agreed to leave Korea simultaneously with the Japanese
the latter naturally
refused. The Chinese broke the convention first; they
must leave first. But
there were other important points involved. Korea was
rapidly losing all
semblance of independence and Japan was being
jeopardized. The Chinese
abrogation of the treaty gave Japan just the excuse she
wanted for throwing
troops into Korea and compelling those reforms which she
believed could be
effected in no other way. No sooner was she informed of
China’s action than the
Japanese Minister Otori, then on leave of absence, was
recalled, and sent
immediately to Seoul with 400 marines, arriving June
ninth.
The
Chinese force did not approach the capital but landed at
Asan some eighty miles
south of Seoul. This force was soon augmented till it
amounted to 2,000 men.
But Japan was not idle. By the twelfth of June she had
approximately
[page 229]
8,000 troops in Korea. Matters stood thus when the news
came that the Tong-hak,
either frightened by the rumor of the approach of a
Chinese army or bsing
pressed by the government troops, had suddenly retired
and the south was at
peace. This tended to hasten a crisis between the
Chinese and Japanese. There
was no longer any cause why foreign troops should remain
in the peninsula. The
Chinese had come to put down the Tong-hak and the
Japanese had come ostensibly
to protect their nationals. Now that the Tonghaks had
retired it did not take
long to discover the real reasons underlying the actions
of the Japanese. On
June 16th she landed 3,000 more troops at Chemulpo and
matters began to look so
serious in Seoul that all the Chinese residents hastened
away from the city and
sought safety by embarking for China. About a thousand
people thus made a hasty
exit from the country.
On
June 25th the Russian, British, French and American
representatives in Seoul,
in the interests of peace, jointly requested the Chinese
and Japanese to
simultaneously withdraw. But the Chinese refused to go
until the Japanese did
and the Japanese refused to go until reforms had been
introduced which would
clear the political atmosphere and give some semblance
of truth to the fiction
of Korean independence. The Korean government was thrown
into consternation
when on June 28th the Japanese Minister demanded a
formal statement from Korea
as to whether she were an independent state or not. She
replied that she was an
independent power.
Early
in July the Japanese Minister handed the government a
list ot the reforms which
it deemed necessary. As they were all incorporated in
the reforms inaugurated a
little later it is unnecessary to enumerate them here.
Fifteen thousand
Japanese troops had by this time landed on Korean soil
and the capital was
thoroughly invested. The prospects of peace seemed to be
growing smaller each
day. The people of Seoul fled in large numbers leaving
their houses and all
their effects except such as could be carried on their
backs. Such was the
terror that the very name of the Japanese inspired.
On
July 20th the Japanese Minister sent an ultimatum to [page 230]
the king complaining of the introduction of Chinese
troops whose coming was undeniably to protect a
dependent state. He gave the
king three days to accept Japanese reforms. If within
that time he did not
accede to them they would be enforced. On the night of
the 22nd the king
returned an evasive answer and this decided the
immediate policy of the
Japanese. On the following morning two battalions of
Japanese troops, feigning
to start out for Asan, turned suddenly and marched on
the palace. They met with
a certain weak show of resistance at the gates but
easily forced their way in
and soon had the king in their care. Every member of the
Min faction was
forthwith driven out and the Prince Tai-wun was called
in to assume a leading
part in the management of the government.
By
this time China and Japan were hurrying troops into the
peninsula, the former
by way of Asan and the latter by Fusan and Chemulpo. On
July 21st eleven
steamers left Taku for Asan and the mouth of the Yalu
with 8,000 troops. Those
that came to Asan were ostensibly for the purpose of
aiding the government in
the putting down of the Tong-hak. The Japanese
government was immediately
apprised of the departure of the transports from the
Peiho and on July 25th the
Akitsushima, Yoshino and Naniwa, among the best of the
Japanese navy, were
ordered from Sasebo to Asan. Two days later at
six-thirty they encountered the
Chinese men-of-war Tsi-yuen and Kwang-ki in the vicinity
of P’ung Island off
Asan.
The
Japanese were not aware of the sudden turn which affairs
had taken in Seoul but
the Chinese were, and they expected the Japanese to take
the offensive. The
Japanese became aware of the situation only when they
found the Chinese did not
salute and that they were cleared for action. The
Japanese speedily put
themselves in fighting trim. As the channel narrowed and
the vessels came
within range the Chinese opened fire and were answered
with terrible effect by
the Japanese. The Kwang-yi was speedily disabled and
beached. The Tsi-yuen, her
bow-gun being disabled, withdrew toward Wei-hai-wei. It
is disputed as to which
side began firing first but it is quite immaterial. The
fact that the Chinese
knew what had occurred at Seoul, that they were cleared
for action and that
they failed to salute would seem to throw the burden of
proof upon them.
[page 231] While
the Yoshino was pursuing the Tsi yuen, two more ships
appeared on the horizon.
They proved to be the Chinese dispatch boat Tsao-kiang
and the British steamer
.Kowshing carrying about 1,500 Chinese troops. The
Akitsushima took the former
in charge and the Naniwa took the latter. The Naniwa
signalled the transport to
follow her, but the Chinese on board of her would not
let the English Captain
obey. Two parleys were held but the Chinese officers
were obdurate and would
not listen to reason. When it became apparent that the
Chinese were bent upon
self-destruction the Naniwa turned her battery upon her
and blew her up. More
than a thousand of the Chinese troops were drowned. A
large number were picked
up and held as prisoners of war. The sinking of the
Kowshing has been judged as
hasty but the situation was a peculiar one. The Chinese
would neither surrender
nor follow. They were plentifully supplied with small
arms and could keep a
boarding party at bay effectually. The better judgment
of second thought proves
that the Japanese were fully justified in their action.
The
results of the P’ung incident became apparent at once.
It made neutrals more
careful, it proved that the sea was dangerous ground for
the Chinese, it kept
over a thousand men from landing at Asan and it proved
beyond the shadow of a
doubt that Japan was fully in earnest and would fight to
the bitter end.
Moreover it changed the whole plan of campaign for
China. The Tong-hak were
forgotten and the co-operation of the force at the Yalu
and that at Asan and a
joint attack upon the Japanese was the plan determined
upon by the Chinese.
The
Japanese forces in and about Seoul were now ready for a
land campaign. It was
wisely determined to eliminate from the problem all the
Chinese forces south of
Seoul before advancing against those in the north along
the Ta-dong River. The
army in the north was being watched by mounted spies.
For the time being there
was no danger to be apprehended from these troops in the
north but the two
thousand at Asan» if reinforced, might advance on the
capital and make trouble
unless. they were dispersed once and for all.
Accordingly on the twenty-fifth
of July Gen. Oshima started for Asan with the greater
part of the troops in
Seoul. The march was rapid.
[page 232]
On the way the news of the P’ung incident was received
and applauded. The
vicinity of Asan was reached in three days. As the
Japanese approached, the
Chinese retreated a short distance to a point which they
could easily fortify.
On the twenty-eighth the Japanese army arrived within
five miles of this
position. A night attack was determined upon by Gen.
Oshima. It was not
explained to the army until midnight when it was aroused
and informed of the
intended movement. The advance was made in two
divisions. The right wing, four
companies of infantry and one of engineers under
Lieutenant-colonel Tadeka,
sought the enemy’s left. The left wing under Gen.
Oshima, and comprising nine
companies of infantry, one battalion of artillery and
one company of cavalry,
swept forward in the dark to attack the flank and rear
of the enemy’s right.
It
would have been a difficult undertaking even by daylight
but in the dark it was
fourfold more trying. The Chinese outposts in the
neighboring village gave the
signal, and, posted among the houses, offered a stubborn
resistance. The
assaulting column was repulsed and was compelled to lie
down to hold the ground
already taken. At last however the Chinese had to
withdraw. They crowded slowly
out into the neighboring rice fields.
This
preliminary struggle was followed by a brief breathing
space. It had lasted
less than an hour but had proved a stiff encounter. At
five the Japanese
attached the redoubts. The left wing now came into
action and under the smoke
of the artillery the troops stormed the forts at either
extremity. In half an
hour the Chinese were dislodged and the rising sun
looked down upon its flaming
image on Japanese banners flying victoriously from the
Chinese ramparts.
The
escape of the Chinese general, Yeh Chi-chao has given
ground for the alleged
Chinese victory at A-san. It often happened during the
Japan China war that,
unless the Chinese force was almost utterly annihilated,
they claimed a
victory. It it still a puzzle to many, however, that in
the Asan skirmish as
well as in the battle of the Yalu the victorious
Japanese permitted even a
remnant of the enemy to escape. Although thoroughly
defeated Gen. Yeh brought a
remnant of his force around the city of Seoul and
arrived [page
233]
safely at P’yong-yang, undoubtedly a difficult and
brilliant movement.
This
first battle won by Japan in a foreign land, for a
period of three centuries,
illustrated two points. Not only had the Japanese
soldiers learned their lesson
from instructors but the officers proved themselves
worthy of the steadfastness
of the men under them. One man out of every twelve
killed was an officer. Nor,
when elated by the victory, did the Japanese forget the
ends for which they
were working. They did not undertake any further
subjugation of the south, not
even attempting to exterminate the Tong-haks. It was the
Chinese in the peninsula
with whom they were measuring swords. The forces at
A-san being destroyed or
dispersed and danger from that quarter was consequently
removed, and the
banners of rising sun turned northward.
The
northern division of the Chinese army, which had been
landed on Korean soil
near the mouth of the Yalu River and had advanced
southward from that point,
had now held the city of P’yung-yang for upwards of a
month. In anticipation of
a Japanese advance they had fortified it as best they
knew how, but as is usual
with Chinese they had forgotten to guard their rear. On
three occasions in this
war they were attacked in their unprotected rear and
utterly routed.
During
the second week of August the commander of the Japanese
fleet, Admiral Ito,
with twenty men-of-war took a cruise into the mouth of
the Gulf of Pechili. The
feint had its desired effect, though wholly
misunderstood by the world at
large. It attracted the attention of the Chinese and
transport after transport
made its way safely across from Japan to Korea with its
complement of troops.
On
August tenth Major Ichinohe with the vanguard started
northward from Seoul. It
was the first step toward Peking. Songdo was reached the
following day. The
next few days were spent in reconnoitering the Ta-dong
River, but this part
retired eventually to Song-do and there awaited
reinforcements.
On
the nineteenth Lieutenant-general Nodzu arrived from
Japan with the
reinforcements for which Gen. Oshima had been growing
impatient. The latter
immediately forwarded a detachment by another route
toward P’yung-yang. [page
234]
This was ordered to occupy an important position known
as Sak Pass and was
reinforced on September eighth by a battalion of
infantry and a company of
artillery. This became known as the Sak Division.
On
the twenty-third Gen. Oshima set out from Seoul for the
north with a Mixed
Brigade. This was the name given to the Japanese army
which participated in all
the operations in the peninsula, so called because it
was made up of various
portions of the grand army. On the twenty-fifth Oshima
joined the forces at
Song-do. A few days before this Gen. Tadzumi had landed
at Chemulpo and had
been put in command of the Sak Divison. On the
twenty-sixth another division
under Gen. Sato landed at Wun-san on the east coast
nearly opposite P’yung-yang,
and was immediately put under the command of Gen. Nodzu.
This is best known as
the Wun-san (Gensan) Division.
These
three bodies of troops slowly converged upon P’yung yang
by three routes, and
made as if they were about to surround the entire city.
But the commanders knew
the weak point in Chinese tactics too well to begin
trying new methods.
P’yung-yang
was fortified beyond the expectations of the Japanese
and it should have held
out indefinitely. The Tadong River flows before its
walls giving it defense on
the south. On the north stands a high eminence called
Peony Mountain. To the
west there are no special natural defenses. The plan of
attack was to take
advantage of the proverbial Chinese Weakness, make a
feint in the front but
send the main body of troops around the city and attack
in the rear. The
capture of P’yung-yang was very much like that of
Quebec. The plan of attack
was the same in each case. The Japanese made a feint in
front of the town as
Wolfe did from the shores of Levis, and sent the real
attacking party around
behind the town. The capture of Peony Mountain like the
capture of the Heights
of Abraham determined the struggle.
On
the morning of the fifteenth the Japanese army was in
position. The Sak and
Gensan divisions lay before Peony and the other five
heights to the north of
the city. The Mixed Brigade lay beyond the river along
the Seoul road which led
by six fortified redoubts to the bridge of boats before
the [page
235]
River Gate of the town. The main body had crossed the
river at Iron Island
below the city and under cover of the cannonading of the
Mixed Brigade had
crept nearer and nearer the enemy from the west — the
rear.
At
half past four on the morning of the fifteenth a
terrific cannonading was begun.
Under cover of this the Sak Division took the fort
nearest the river, on the
northeast of the city. At the same time the Gensan
Division took by assult the
fort at the other end, on the north. From its vantage
ground the Gensan
Division planted its guns and poured a destructive fire
on Peony Mountain. The
Chinese commander being killed, the defenders became
discouraged and
demoralized and this strategic position was carried by
the Sak Division by a
single assault. The guns of the enemy, being turned upon
the city from the
summit of this hill, determined the contest. The main
body trained its guns on
the fifteen redoubts which guarded the western approach
and thus cut off all
hope of retreat from the city.
While
the Japanese were having it all their own way on the
north and west the Mixed
Brigade across the river was suffering severely. Five
Chinese forts guarded
this main approach to P’yung-yang. The Japanese troops,
though ordered to make
merely a feint, were carried away by the inspiration of
the hour and rashly
attempted to capture these forts by assault, but they
were greatly outnumbered
and were compelled at last to retire having lost
heavily. But the fall of Peony
Mountains settled the day, and that night the Chinese
soldiers, following in
the wake of their despicable commanders sought safety in
flight toward the Yalu
by such avenues as the Japanese left open for them. It
is generally believed
that the Japanese purposely left open a loophole of
escape, not caring to have
so many prisoners on their hands.
The
feint made by Admiral Ito during the first week in
August has been mentioned.
During the P’yung-yang campaign the Japanese fleet had
been patrolling the
Yellow Sea about the Korean archipelego. Finally the
last company of Japanese
troops were landed on Korean soil and the order was
given, “On to Peking.”
Never was an invasion undertaken with such relish since
the days when, three
centuries before, the hordes of Hideyoshi had landed on
the coast of [page
236]
Korea and raised this same cry. The outcome now was
destined to be far
different from that of the former invasion. Marshall
Yamagata arriving in Korea
on Sept. 12th with 10,000 reinforcements began the new
campaign as
Commander-in-chief.
During
the P’yung-yang engagement the Japanese fleet had been
stationed at the mouth
of the Ta-dong River, forty miles from the scene of the
battle, ready to be
used in any emergency. On the sixteenth, the campaign in
Korea being settled by
the flight of the Chinese army toward the Yalu, the main
and flrst flying
squadrons weighed anchor and departed for the supposed
scene of Chinese
activity at the mouth of the Yalu, where it was believed
that Chinese troops
were being landed. Two days previous 4,000 Chinese
troops had left Taku to
reinforce the new army, being gathered on the banks of
the Yalu for an invasion
of Korea. The transports which contained this detachment
were protected by six
cruisers and four torpedo boats and were reinforced at
Talien Bay by the
Peiyang squadron. On the sixteenth the transports landed
their burden and on
the following day departed again for Taku, attended, as
on the trip over, by
six cruisers and the Peiho squadron.
On
the same morning the Japanese fleet crossed the path of
the returning
transports. At nine oclock the smoke of the Chinese
fleet was first discovered
and about twelve the fleet came into full view. The
battle opened with the main
and flying squadrons leading in a single line across the
track of the Chinese
fleet, which was advancing at half the pace set by the
enemy. This formation,
the ironclads in the center and the weakest ships on
either wing, had been
assumed as soon as it appeared that the Japanese line
was coming head on as if
to pierce the Chinese fleet. At a range of 5,200 meters
the battle was opened
by the starboard barbette of the ironclad Ting-yeun. The
whole fleet soon
joined in the fight but the Japanese did not answer for
some minutes. As the
Yoshino came on, the course was changed and the enemy
was passed from left to
right. The comparatively helpless ships of the right
flank received the
severest fire. The two old cruisers on the extreme
right, which were of wood
and very inflamable, at once took fire and were
thenceforth useless.
[page 237]
The Yang-wei took fire at the outset and retired. The
Chao-yung was not more
fortunate and sank about half past two, the battle
having begun at one p.m.
Japanese time.
Two
of the twelve Chinese ships were thus disposed of at
once. Two more, the
Tsi-yuen and Kwang-chia, deserted the battle immediately
on various excuses and
departed for Port Arthur.
When
the Japanese line had passed the Chinese fleet the
flying squadron had begun to
port, when the two Chinese ships, which until then had
remained in the mouth of
the Yalu, were seen making their way toward the
remainder of the fleet.
Instantly the flying squadron began to starboard and the
oncoming vessels
prudently retired. These two ships, the Kwan-ping and
Ping yuen,
not having come into action, and two, the Yangwei and
Chao-yung, having retired from the battle in flames, and
two, the Tsi-yuen and
Kwan-chia, having deserted, we find six ships of 23,000
tons bearing the brunt
of the battle.
When
the flying squadron began to starboard, the main
squadron, which was following
in fine order, kept to port. The feint against the
Kwan-ping and Ping-yuen
proving successful, the flying squadron kept to
starboard and followed the main
squadron. Soon, however, it was seen that the slower
vessels of the main
squadron were being left exposed and Admiral Ito
signalled for the flying squadron
to starboard again and intervene between the distressed
vessels and the enemy.
Thus the main and flying squadrons moved about the
Chinese fleet in opposite
directions, the former on the inner track.
This
second round proved a severe one for the Chinese fleet.
The contest now assumed
a desperate phase. During the opening of the struggle
attention on either side
had been paid to the enemy’s weaker ships. The two slow
and defenseless ships
of the Japanese fleet, the Akagi and Saikio,
caused the Admiral much trouble, if indeed they did not
alter entirely his plan
of attack. That he brought them out of the battle at all
is a great credit to
his ability to manoeuver at short notice and under fire.
It is, however,
inexplicable that such ships were allowed to follow the
main squadron into the
engagement.
[page 230]
By two o’clock the ranks of the two struggling fleets
were considerably thinned
out and the battle became simplified though more
desperate than ever, as the
main squadron began to close in on the powerful
iron-clads and as the flying
squadron separated the remainder of the Chinese fleet
from their only hope of
safety and scattered them broadcast over the sea. The
Akagi was now out of the
fight and, under the protection of the flying squadron,
was making for the
Ta-dong River. The Hiyei, also disabled and protected by
the main squadron, was
making for tlie same destination. The Saikio having come
as it were from the
very jaws of death, when attempting to attack the
burning Yang-wei, lay between
the object of her deadly mission and the fleets,
watching how the battle fared.
On
the Chinese side there was far more destruction, because
of the larger number
of slow and inflamable ships. Of the total, two, the
Tsi-yuen and Kwan-chia,
had long since deserted as we have already said. The
Yang-wei and Chaoyung were
both desperately burning. The Chih-yuen, having passed
from the Admiral’s wing
to the right wing, had attempted the most ridiculous
feat of attacking the
flying squadron as the latter come to relieve the Akagi
and Saikio. Being
severely hit in her foolhardy course, her commander,
evidently as revenge for
going under, attempted to ram. The guns of the fleet
were instantly brought to
bear upon the illstarred ship and, riddled with the fire
of the heavy and
machine guns alike, she went under, flinging her crew
into the air as she
listed the last time. A similar fate overtook the
Ping-yuen upon whom the
flying squadron bore. A terrible fire from the Yoshino
riddled her burning hulk
and she too, went down like a monstrous bonfire into the
tawny waters of Yellow
Sea.
Meanwhile
the struggle between the two iron-clads and the Japanese
main squadron had been
raging until both the contestants were nearly exhausted.
The former, knowing
well that in them rested China’s only hope on the sea,
and equally desperate
because of the cowardliness and incompetency displayed
throughout the battle by
their own comrades as well as by the determined wrath of
their ancient foe,
fought to their last charge save three with undaunted
heroism. Nothing in the
conflict which raged so many hours could [page 239]
have equalled the sight of the crews of the two battered
ironclads, their ammunition far spent, meeting the last
onslaught of the main
squadron as it bore down upon them for the last time on
that memorable
afternoon, with perfect calm and a purpose to go down
with the ships when the
ammunition gave out.
The
last onslaught was made and met, but before another
could be made night had
begun to fall and the Japanese, themselves not far from
exhaustion, deemed it
wise to withraw. This battle has been called a Japanese
victory and probably
with reason, though according to the dictum of modern
naval warfare a decided
Japanese victory could have been achieved only by
capturing or disabling the
two Chinese ironclads which were the soul of the Chinese
fleet. Technically the
failure to do this made it a drawn battle, each side
retiring unconquered. But
there is every reason to believe that this battle, in
reality, decided the
Japanese supremacy over the Yellow Sea.
The
land battle at P’yung-yang and the naval battle off the
mouth of the Yalu
opened the eyes of the world to the fact that Japan was
a power to be reckoned
with. The incident at P’ung Island and the battle of
Ansan had proved nothing
except the fact that Japan was fully prepared togo to
extremities and that the
war was actually begun. It is probable that a majority
of intelligent people
thought the Japanese would fall an easy victim to the
Chinese forces. On the
sea China had several war-vessels that far out-matched
anything which Japan
possessed and on land she had unlimited population from
which to recruit her
armies. She had enjoyed the assistance of many foreign
military and naval men
in getting her army and navy into shape, and in addition
to this she had the
sympathy of Great Britain in the struggle. It was freely
predicted that the
superior quickness of the Japanese might bring her
certain small victories at
first but that as time went on and China really awoke to
the seriousness of the
situation a Chinese army would be put in the field which
would eventually drive
the Japanese off the mainland. The Japanese invasion of
1592 was cited to show
that though momentarily successful, the Japanese would
be ultimately defeated.
[page 240]
The battles of P’yung-yang and Yalia changed all this.
In the first place it
was discovered that the Chinese, with equal or superior
numbers, could not hold
a strongly defensive position against their assailants.
The Chinese had
everything in their favor so far as natural surroundings
went. They lacked the
one essential and it was the demonstration of this lack
at P’yung-yang that
made the world begin to doubt whether the Chinese would
really do what was
expected of them.
The
battle of the Yalu, while technically a drawn
battle, proved that the Japnese could stand up against
superior ships and hold
them down to a tie game. The Chinese ammunition was
exhausted and if darkness
had not come on the Japanese would have discovered this
and the big Chinese
vessels would have been captured. From that day the
progress of the Japanese
was an unbroken series of victories. The myth of China’s
strength was shattered
and the whole history of the Far East, if not of the
world, entered upon a new
and unexpected phase.
We
have already mentioned that 4,000 Chinese troops had
been landed at the mouth
of the Yalu to reinforce the army that had been gathered
there for the invasion
of Korea. That invasion was destined not to be carried
out, for the routed
Chinese army from P’yung-yang came streaming north in
headlong flight and the
Japanese followed them up just fast enough to worry them
but without making it
necessary to encumber themselves with prisoners. It
shows how perfectly the
Japanese had gauged the calibre of the Chinese that they
should have driven
them on in this contemptuous manner. When the Japanese
arrived at the Yalu they
found that the Chinese had occupied an advantageous
position on the further
side and would attempt to block the advance but it was
too late to stem the
tide of Japanese enthusiasm. The passage was made with
ease, the Chinese
quickly put to flight and the war left Korean territory,
not to return.
The
subsequent operations of war are of surpassing interest
to the general
historian but they cannot be called a part of Korean
history, so we shall be
compelled to leave them and go back to the peninsula,
where the results of
Japan’s victories were to be keenly felt.
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
June,
1904.
The
Russo-Japanese War,
With the
battle at the Yalu the active operations of the present
war moved across to
Manchurian territory whither it is not the province of
this magazine to follow
them, but the last month has seen some few movements of
scattered bodies of
Russian cavalry in Korea. We do not profess to
understand why the Russians wish
to have small bodies of Cossacks racing about northern
Korea where they cannot
possibly do any harm to the Japanese but succeed only in
making more bitter and
intense the hatred with which the Korean people look
upon Russia. At the
present moment the great mass of the Korean people
compare the Japanese with
the Russians much as they used to compare the people of
the Ming dynasty of
China with the Manchu hordes. We can scarcely believe
that the leading Russian
officials would permit the lawless actions of their
troops if they were
present, but these bands of Cossacks are sent out
largely on their own
responsibility, it would seem, and they are a law unto
themselves in the matter
of the treatment of non-combatants.
We
have already in a former issue spoken of the actions of
the Russians at
Ham-heung where they burned 300 houses and destroyed
part of the celebrated
bridge. On the thirteenth of June a communication
arrived from the governor of
South Ham-gyung Province, whose seat is at Ham-heung, in
which he first [page
242]
describes the subsequent movements of the Russians who
attacked Anju. This news
came by way of Ham-heung because couriers from Kang-gye
reached Ham-heung
before they did Anju and so got their message on the
wires first. And besides
this the road to Ham-heung was clear of Russians. He
says that after the
Russians retired from Anju they lacked ammunition and so
fell back toward
Kang-gye by the same road that they had gone south. The
prefect of Kang-gye
detailed a considerable number of Korean civilians to
take their positions on
elevated points and keep watch of the movements of the
Russians. On the 24th of
May 516 Russian infantry and 520 cavalry with 123
carriers started from
Kang-gye across country toward Ham-heung. On the way
they stole and pillaged on
every side and lived almost entirely off the country
paying nothing for cattle,
pigs, poultry, rice or fodder. They insulted women both
old and young and acted
generally like common brigands. They killed four Korean
civilians on the way
across and forced upwards of a hundred natives into
their service. Before
starting from Kang-gye they destroyed four kan of
barracks, one kan of powder
magazine and sixteen kan of other houses together with
books, deeds and other
important documents.
On
the 28th of May nineteen Russian cavalry with one
Chinese interpreter arrived
from Yi-wun at Pukch’ung and entered the postal and
telegraph office and asked
many questions, demanded various things and called upon
the people of the town
to provide them food. They said they had come from
Kirin. They then cut the
telegraph wires running south. That night twenty-two
more Russians arrived at
Puk-ch’ung and joined them.
On
the 30th of May the Governor at Ham-heung sent a
telegram to Seoul saying that
twenty of the Russian cavalry that had retired
northward, after the trouble on
the 19th, had returned to within twenty li
of Ham-heung again and were demanding food. The people
were in a state of great
excitement and all the young women and many of the other
citizens were running
away from the town to escape from contact with the
marauders.
[page 243]
On the third of June a telegram was received in Seoul
from the Superintendent
of Trade at Wonsan saying that twenty-five Russian
cavalry had arrived at
Ko-wun about thirty miles north of Wonsan and the people
had run away to the
hills. And on the same day he sent another message
saying that he had received
a letter from the Governor at Ham-heung to the effect
that the Russians had entered
I-wun near Sung-jin and had wrecked the telegraph. These
Russians declared that
290 more were about to arrive. Later, on the same day, a
third message from
Wonsan announced that the Russians had entered Mun-ch’un
only twenty miles from
Wonsan and had there come in touch with the Japanese and
that a skirmish had
occurred in which six Russians had been killed and the
rest had retired a short
distance from the town. The Japanese pursued them for a
few minutes at an
interval of only thirty meters and in the chase one
Russian was killed and one
was shot from his horse but managed to run away. The
Japanese heard that a
large force of Russians were coming and knew that with
their small force they
could not hope to stop them effectually; so they retired
to Wul-gyo-ri a short
distance south of Munch’un. A small body of Russian
troops arriving at a hill
near Mun-ch’un, called Ong-nyu-bong, dismounted there
and prepared to attack
the Japanese but as the latter were badly outnumbered
they retired, whereupon
the Russians mounted and came on in pursuit until they
had arrived at a point
800 meters from the Japanese. Then the Japanese turned
and offered fight. Three
Russians fell and the remainder retired to Ong-nyu-bong.
From here they retired
later to the villages of Yul-p’o and Kunch’ul-yi where
they set fire to several
houses. A few of the Japanese hastened back to Wonsan
and reported these
events. The foreigners in Wonsan were somewhat exercised
over the proximity of
the Russians and not knowing their numbers with
certainty deemed it advisable
to place the women and children in a safe place; so
almost all of them were
sent to the Suk-wang Monastery about forty miles to the
south, near the Seoul
road.
On
the 30th of May toward evening sixty-two [page 244]Russians entered Ham-heung and
on the next day 160 more arrived, and went into camp
outside the west gate.
That day they burned the telegraph office and ordered
the governor to arrest
the telegraph operators, but as these had fled, only the
servants of the office
were seized. These were put on the witness stand and
were ordered to tell where
the telegraph operators had hidden the telegraph
instruments and other
implements.
The
Japanese had their skirmish with the Russians near
Mun-ch’un on the third of
June. The Russians retiring burned eight houses in the
village of Pam-ga-si in
Mun-ch’un prefecture and in passing through the
prefecture of Ko-wun north of
Mun-ch’un they burned fiftytwo houses. They caught the
prefect of Ko-wun and
charged him with having withheld information about the
movements of the
Japanese and in their rage they stabbed him in the
breast. He managed to get
away and sought a place of safety about a mile away from
the town. He lay
there, at last reports, in a very critical condition,
but later advices will
show, it is hoped, that his wound is not serious.
Shortly after this the
Russians all retired across country in the direction of
the Yalu by way of
Yung-wun. On their way they buried two of their number
besides one interpreter.
At last advices they had gone into camp in the triangle
between the three
prefectures of Yung-wun, Chang-jin and Yong-heung.
A
later advice from the injured prefect of Ko-wun states
that he was badly beaten
by the Russians and that he is about to be carried to
Wonsan to be treated by a
Japanese physician.
The
Russians along the Tuman River are, for some reason or
other, very much afraid
of Japanese spies. Every Korean traveller or itinerant
that enters Kyongsung is
subjected to a rigid examination. His foot is carefully
examined to see whether
there is a wide space between the great toe and the
other toes, for the
Japanese, unlike the Koreans, hold the shoe to the foot
by a heavy cord passing
between the great toe and over the top of the foot. It
takes but a moment to
find out whether the man is a Korean or a Japanese. The
hair is [page
245] also carefully examined. It
is believed that constant cutting makes the individual
hairs much larger and
so, even though the hair has been allowed to grow long,
it gives an indication
as to whether the man has ever been accustomed to cut
the hair. The man is
stripped and his body subjected to a close scrutiny. If
he be short in stature
he is examined more carefully than if he be of ordinary
height. His intonation,
and speech generally, is also noted and any deviation
from the correct Korean
standard is suspicious. The contents of his pack, the
style of the money he
carries and every scrap of writing about him is examined
with care. Some time
ago the Russians seized a large amount of powder, fuses
and weapons that the
Korean Government had stored at Kyung-sung and threw
them all into the sea. The
telegraph machines were taken and connection established
with Vladivostock to
be used by the Russians alone.
Korean
rumor, which is about as unreliable as any rumors made,
says that the Russians
took steps to establish a sort of secondary headquarters
at Kyongsung with
20,000 Russian soldiers.
In
order to counteract the Russian freelances in the north
the War Office at Seoul
is contemplating the placing of garrisons of Korean
soldiers at various points
as follows; 50 at Ko-wun, 100 at Chong-pyung, 50 at
I-wun, 150 at Tan-ch’un,
100 at Myungch’un, 50 at Puryung and various numbers at
other important places
making a total of 3,100 soldiers. Of this number, 2,600
will be the
tiger-hunters and the troops already in the north. The
governors will be the
commanding officers and the prefects will be secondary
officers.
An
amusing story comes from Mun-chun to the effect that a
Russian soldier entered
a house to insult the women but was attacked by them,
his clothes were torn
nearly off, his weapons taken away and he was seized and
held by the Amazons
until the other Russians had all left the place and the
Japanese entered the
town, when they turned the said gentleman over to the
servants of the Mikado.
It
is not easy to indicate the general trend of feeling [page 246]
among the people of Seoul in regard to these Russian
depredations in the northeast. They seem to realize that
the Russians can
accomplish little or nothing in the line of war by these
incursions and they
see quite well how the Japanese might practically ignore
these movements so far
as any danger of serious consequences is concerned, but
they feel that the
Japanese should put enough troops in that section to
save the Korean people
from rapine and plunder. Korea has cast in her lot with
Japan and she would be
justified in attacking these Russians herself since they
are acting not
according to the laws of modem but of medieval warfare
and wantonly abuse the
people; at the same time Korea does not want to take up
arms against Russia.
The war is beween Japan and Russia and while Korea has
been induced to favor
the Japanese cause it is well known that this attitude
is not wholly
spontaneous, but that there are divergent opinions even
in the highest
quarters. We do not understand what the Russians are
trying to do in the
northeast. They cannot hope to effect anything of value
to the main cause, and
they are sending so few troops that they are not able to
divert any appreciable
number of Japanese from the main line of attack. If the
Russians should throw
ten or fifteen thousand men across the Tuman and march
southward there would be
some semblance of reason in it but at present all they
are doing is to heap up
against themselves the intense hatred of the Korean
people. Hamheung is nothing
to the Japanese, but to the Korean it is one of the most
noted, and even
sacred, places in the land, being the place where the
founder of the present
dynasty was born and reared. It bears the same relation
to the present Korean
dynasty that Mukden bears to the Chinese Imperial
family. The Russians could do
nothing that would more certainly alienate whatever
goodwill the Koreans ever
felt toward them. Some may try to explain the Russian
movements there on the
ground that they intend to occupy the northeast until
the great battle in
Manchuria shall decide the fate of the war; and if it
result in a Russian
victory the northeast will give a clear road for the
Russians on or beyond the [page
247]
Tuman to sweep southward and attack the retreating
Japanese on the flank. But
it should be noticed that from the Tuman River to Seoul
is more than 600 li
further than from Mukden to Seoul and
the roads are immensely more difficult. The Russian
policy is to mass all their
force in or about Harbin. If so the northeast route will
be of no value
whatever to the Russians in case of a Japanese retreat.
The only reason for the
Japanese to bother about the east side is consideration
for the feelings of the
Koreans, but the Japanese have heavy work to do
elsewhere and mere
accommodation can play no part in their policy at
present. As soon as the
Russian videttes came in touch with the Japanese near
Mun-ch’un they retired
and it is probable that they will not again move on
Wonsan.
When
the Russians seized the telegraph office at Kyong-sung
on the 28th of May they
took possession of all the account books and government
records. The next day
the Korean telegraph superintendent told the Russians
that these documents were
quite useless to them and asked that they be handed back
to him. This they
refused to do and their attitude was so suggestively
offensive that the
superintendent immediately put to sea in a fishing
vessel and made his way to
Wonsan where he arrived on the 15th of June.
Authentic
reports from the northwest indicate that the people are
rapidly recovering from
the panic into which they were thrown by the presence of
the Russians in force
and while the Cossacks create more or less disturbance
in the more remote
districts along the upper waters of the Yalu it is
considered practically sure
that there will be no more trouble in the more populous
portions of the
province unless the Russians should turn the tables on
the Japanese and the
latter should be compelled to beat a retreat. It has
even been considered safe
for foreign ladies to return to their homes in Sun-ch’un
and in Unsan.
We
see from the papers that a large amount of silver yen
are needed by the
Japanese army in their operations in Manchuria and the
Japanese government is
withdrawing [page
248]
the silver yen from Formosa for that purpose. While the
Japanese were operating
in Korea very large amounts of this coin came into the
country but now that the
army has passed on into Manchuria there is a silver yen
famine here. The
foreign mining companies use silver yen very largely in
paying their native
help and it has become quite a serious question where
these are to be procured.
Really this currency question is a curious factor in the
problem. In the
various territories now occupied by Japanese troops we
find the following kinds
of exchange medium:
(1) Japanese
paper yen. (2) Dai Ichi-Ginko notes. (3) Korean cash.
(4) Korean nickles. (5)
Japanese silver yen. (6) Chinese cash. (7) Sycee. (8)
Mexican dollars. (9)
Russian paper roubles.
There may be
others as well but there are these at least and in
almost every locality only
one of these is preferred.
A
foreigner passing through An-ju a few weeks ago gives
the following account of
the skirmish there between the Japanese and the
Russians, to which we referred
in our last issue. He says :
“The battle
here two weeks ago must have been very interesting.
There were only forty
Japanese here then. The army went over into China long
ago and left a few men
in each county-seat to hold the main road. Four hundred
Cossacks made a dash
behind the lines to cut the main road and tried to
capture An-ju. The forty
Japanese were more than ready They engaged a lot of
Koreans to sit down behind
a wall in a safe place and fire guns that the Japanese
furnished them and a lot
more were hired to yell whenever the Japanese yelled.
They then locked the city
gates, took their.places on the wall and picked off the
Russians whenever they
came in sight. Every time the Japanese fired, the men
detailed for that [page
249]
purpose would tell the Koreans to shoot like blazes and
every time the Japanese
yelled the Koreans followed suit, so that although the
Russians knew to a dead
certainty that there were only forty Japanese there,
they began to doubt
whether there were not 4,000. They hung around all the
morning afraid to walk
in and eat up the Japanese. At one o’clock sixty
Japanese from the next county
came hurrying up the road and took the Russians on the
flank, and the Japanese
in the town rushed out at the same time; so the Russians
came to the conclusion
that there were something less than a million Japanese
in the vicinity and
skipped out — that is, all but twenty-two that were
dead. If forty Japanese can
stand off 400 Russians and 100 can make 400 run for the
tall timber it would be
interesting to know how many it would take to whip the
whole population of
Russia.
“The
Russians killed and burned and did a lot of other bad
work in Ka-ch’un because
they said the people of that place had lied to them
about the size of the
Japanese garrison at An-ju.’’
The Ajun.
In the
February issue of the Review we began
a discussion of the Korean ajun but
in succeeding issues it was crowded out by press of
other matter. We return to
it now however as being a very important phase of Korean
life and one which has
always differentiated it from the Chinese social system.
The
main business of the ajun is the
collecting of the taxes. They form the physical arm by
which the government
enforces its laws and edicts. At the present day the
country is provided with
some sort of a police system separate from the ajuns but during the long centuries pre
ceding 1894 they attended
to all such matters. The reason why their main business
is the collection of
taxes is because this is the main interest the central
government has in the
people. As in all despotic countries, the people are
merely the bank on which
the [page
250]government draws perennially but
without making any deposits. The idea of mutual
benefits, while inculcated by
Confucian teaching, is purely an academic idea and forms
no part of the Korean
government’s working plan. Nature germinates the seed,
the people gather in the
harvest and the government in one form or another
relieves the farmer of any
considerable surplus there may be over and above his
actual needs. This
gathering of taxes is not only the ajun’s
main business but, unfortunately, it is one of the
government’s main concerns
as well. If we inquire what the government gives in
exchange for the money that
the people pay in taxes we find the list a rather
negative one. It does not
guarantee them immunity from oppression, it does not
afford them adequate
police protection, it does not provide educational
facilities. It simply grants
them the privilege to live and to grub away year after
year without hope of
betterment. One would suppose that there would be
constant and serious
disaffection on the part of the people. Well, there
would be if it were not for
the ajuns
whose business it is to
know the people well and to keep their hand on the
popular pulse, and give
warning of impending danger.
The
ajuns are the only students of political economy and
they learn it not from
books but in the pratical school of experience. They do
not bother their heads
about Utopian principles nor try experiments in
sociology but they study the
actual conditions of their various localities, have all
the practical factors
of the problem at their fingers’ ends and know exactly
how to handle any social
condition that is likely to arise. They are in such
close touch with the people
and their daily life that they can foresee probable
contingencies and, having
at hand all the possible means for meeting these
contingencies, they are never
at fault.
Suppose,
for instance, that the ajuns became
aware that the government was contemplating the building
of a palace or the
carrying out of some other public work that would
require a heavy outlay of
money. They would know instinctively that this money
must eventually come out
of the common people, the producing class, [page 251]
which, in Korea, means the farmers. Long before the blow
falls the ajuns
will have worked out
the problem as to how they will apportion and raise the
extra taxation without
exasperating the people. They fit the means to the end
with such nicety that
they generally succeed in tiding over the crisis without
any serious
disturbance. Of course there are times when there is no
possibility of
withstanding popular clamor, where the rapacity of a
central government passes
all possible bounds. Then the ajuns
simply spread out deprecating hands and deny all
responsibility. The people
rise in revolt, drive out the prefect and defy the
government. The ajuns remain
quiescent and the people do not molest them, knowing
that they are not to
blame. In time the government sends down another prefect
who walks softly at
first, takes counsel with his ajuns, acquaints himself
with the causes of the
late trouble and attempts to reorganize on some workable
basis.
The
ajuns are not
only the prefectural
financiers but they are the lawyers as well. In
enlightened countries any
citizen can secure legal counsel and sue another citizen
at law, but in Korea
there are no lawyers in our sense. The ajuns
monopolize that office so far as there is such an
office. As a result, they are
generally well up in the law; not as we reckon legal
knowledge with its fine
distinctions and its mass of precedents, but a sort of
rough-andready,
common-sense law which not infrequently serves theends of
justice as well as the intricate
codes of western lands. But the subject of legal
procedure in Korea deserves
and will receive separate notice.
The
salary of the ajun
is about fifteen
thousand cash a month, or six Korean dollars, but it
varies somewhat. Some ajuns receive
as much as eight dollars a
month. It is safe to say that no ajun
pretends to live on his salary, nor that any Korean or
Chinese official of any
grade whatsoever lives on his salary alone. The
government does not pretend to
pay him a living salary. There can be no doubt whatever
that most offices in
the gift of the government could be readily filled even
if there were no salary
attached.
[page
252]
What, then, constitute the supplementary sources of the
ajun’s income?
In the first place there
is always a heavy charge against the government for
transportation of the
revenue money. In every government budget we find that
out of a total
expenditure of $10,000,000 a full million is spent on
transportation. This is
because of the lack of good transport facilities. The
transport of cash by
pony-back is a ruinous transaction but inevitable, if
the government desires to
receive its revenue. But though the government pays this
enormous percentage
for transportation, it is not all used for that purpose.
The ajuns
carry on an exchange business
whereby much of this money requires no costly
transportation, and so the amount
the government pays on this item goes largely to the
pockets of the ajuns
and the prefects. In other words
the ajuns do
a banking business on
their own account. But besides this, and more frequently
still, the ajuns
invest the government revenue
money in merchandise and send it up to Seoul where it
realizes a handsome
profit. The amount paid by the government has paid for
the bringing of the
goods to Seoul and so the profit on the transaction may
be as high as forty or
fifty per cent. There are some forms of merchandise that
are worth twice as
much in Seoul as in the country and it is unlikely that
the ajun
would invest in the less paying
kinds. A very common way is for a Seoul merchant to
carry money to the Finance
Department and received an order for an equivalent
amount on some prefect, and
when this is paid to him in the country the ajuns
and prefect pocket the amount representing the
trasportation charges. This is
not a swindle but is one of the several perquisites of
the country official.
The government pays a fixed sum for transportation and
so long as the money is
transported the government cares not what becomes of the
price paid. There can
be no doubt that a national bank, begun in a modest way
and carried on with
skill, economy and rectitude would prove a very paying
proposition but in
Korean hands there is grave doubt about its success.
Another
source of income for the ajuns is
that which [page 253]
is called the eun-gyul or “hidden measure.” Taxes are
always levied on the yul which
corresponds to a certain
amount of unthreshed rice. The “hidden measure” refers
to rice or other grain
that is grown on new fields that have not as yet been
legally recognized and
for which deeds have not as yet been issued. Each year
sees a certain number of
new fields made, the “margin of cultivation” always
being on the rise. Now, the
central governrnent will take no cognizance of these
fields until such time as
it sees fit to order a general remeasurement of land
throughout the country.
Then they are all included; but this may be any-where
from two to ten years
after they are made, and during that interval the local
prefect and his ajuns
absorb all the taxes paid on such
property and we may be sure that no field escapes their
attention.
Then
again the house tax affords a means for personal
aggrandizement. The official
report of the number of houses in any prefecture never,
we may safely say, corresponds
with the actual number, any more than the listed value
of a man’s house in
America corresponds with its actual market value. This
is the reason why the
population of Korea can never be accurately determined.
Judging from the number
of houses on the grand list one would infer that there
cannot be more than
5,000,000 people in Korea, whereas there are doubtless
more than twice that
number. The difference between the listed , and the
actual number is the
measure of the local official’s squeeze. This too is
more in the nature of a
perquisite since it is perfectly well understood by the
central government and
is a recognized “institution” in prefectural
administration.
Such
are some of the more legal and reputable sources of the
ajuns’ income but it must be confessed
that in actual practice
there are many other and far less reputable avenues of
income. As we have
already said, it is a position which presents
exceptional temptations to
cupidity and it is but natural to expect that many will
succumb to these
temptations. It may be laid down as a general rule that
ajuns take their cue from their [page 254]
superiors and when there is a good central government
the ajuns
will walk circumspectly and
when the central government is corrupt the ajuns
throw off their restraints and work the people to the
last point of endurance
and occasionally beyond it.
The
ajun being
such an exceedingly
important factor in Korean life we are not surprised to
find that he plays a
leading role in the folk-lore of the land. The stories
in which he figures are
simply numberless. Sometimes he is represented as a good
man but more often as
a bad one and you will not read far in a Korean novel
without running across
him either as villain or hero or at least in the
back-ground of the tale.
From
the earliest times these ajuns were
the prefectural clerks and were skillful in handling the
brush pen. Just as in
Europe in the middle ages the nobleman could not read or
write but depended
upon his clerk for these offices, so at first and for
some time the same was
true in Korea. The ajuns write
with a
peculiar clerkly hand and any educated Korean can tell
at a glance whether a
document has been written by an ajun
or not. It was for the use of these clerks that
Sul-ch’ong made the diacritical
system called the i-tu This was a system of marks used
in a Chinese text to
mark the verbal endings and make it easier for the
Korean to read. The very
name i-tu shows the original position of the ajuns, for it means ‘‘ajuns’ style,”
the characters being **. This shows that it was
originally intended for use by
the clerkly class.
Up
to the year 1894 there were ajuns in
Seoul also but here they were called suri
**, or “writing ajun.’’ Since that date the place of the
ajun in Seoul has been
filled by the chusa.
Some of the
old-time suri
became chusas
in the new regime.
The
ajuns being hereditary office holders are more permanent
in their various
localities than any other people and they acquire local
characteristics and
hereditary traits which make it possible to compare them
in different
localities more perfectly than almost any other class.
The ajuns of Chulla Province are called the
best [page
255]
because they are of somewhat higher social grade and
their word carries more
weight, and withal they have more pride and feel more
fully the necessity of
upholding the dignity of their name. They are in a sense
the tribunes of the
people as well as the servants of the prefect. The
people of Chulla Province,
unlike those of Ch’ung-ch’ung and Kyung-sang Provinces,
are not so much
interested in studying Chinese and in getting official
positions and the ajuns
there pay special attention to the
industrial lines and are more helpful to the people than
elsewhere in the
country. The most celebrated ajuns
have come from that province. In fact well-informed
Koreans say that Chulla
Province is made up of their families and that there are
fewer of the low class
and fewer of the high class there than in any other part
of the’ country.
The
ajuns of the
north do not have a very
good reputation, for they are not so well educated and
they do not work so much
in the interests of the people.
The
better class of ajun
is an
illustration of what the Korean of the “higher middle
class” would be if there
were any such class. He is educated, bright, energetic,
a good student of human
nature and without the measureless vanity of the
gentleman. If any one thinks
that even under proper conditions the Koreans could not
become a strong and
successful people, a study of the better portion of this
ajun class would soon convince him of his
mistake.
Foreigners
in Seoul hear only the bad things about this most
necessary of all the
government agents and unfortunately the stories are too
often true, but we
should remember that there are thousands upon thousands
upon whom devolve the
most arduous and important duties and who perform these
duties, as a rule, with
great success.
The Oldest
Relic in Korea.
We recently
had the pleasure of a visit to Chun-deung Monastery on
the island of Kang-wha
and the celebrated [page 250]
Mari Mountain in the vicinity of that monastery. This
monastery is the only one
that has figured prominently in the recent history of
Korea and it is for that
reason, as well as because of the exceptional beauty of
its surroundings, well
worth a visit. The monastery lies in a sort of mountain
crater one side of
which has been broken down. It is near the southern end
of the island of
Kangwha and may be reached by sampan from Chemulpo in
about three hours under
favorable conditions of wind and tide. With a little
extra effort the round
trip may be made from Chemulpo in a single day with four
hours’ stop at the
monastery. It is an easy hour’s walk from tide water to
the gate of the
fortress, for this monastery is one of the few which is
both monastery and
fortress. The whole heavily wooded nest among the high
mountains where the
monastery lies can be plainly seen from the water as one
approaches Kang-wha
from Chemulpo. You land at a point called Ch’o-ji about
two miles below the
little fort which the Americans stormed in 1871, and
find a good road running
right over the low hills westward to the monastery. It
cannot be called a
really good bicycle road but a bicycle could be used to
advantage if one
wished. Three miles of easy walking bring you to the
foot of the steep hill
leading up to the gate of the fortress. You ascend the
smooth treeless slope by
a path that reminds you of the old-time bridle road over
the pass between Seoul
and Chemulpo, except that it is not so high. On either
side of you are two
sharp spurs along which run the battlemented walls to
right and left of the
gate so that you are immediately inclosed by these two
arms of wall high above
you on either side. It was at this point that the French
suffered a disastrous
defeat in 1866 when the expedition under Admiral Roze
made a descent upon the
island in retaliation for the execution of nine Roman
Catholic priests in that
year by the order of the late Regent, the Ta-wun-kun.
It
is not to be wondered at that the French authorities
should send an expedition
to Korea under the circumstances but it was unfortunate
that the matter was not
pushed to a finish, for the way in which the incident [page 257]
closed left the Korean Government convinced of its
ability to defy all foreign powers. The same was the
case five years later when
the Americans took the little fort near the same place
but then retired without
bringing the Government to terms.
In
1866 the French landed on the northern part of the
island and took the town of
Kang-wha. Hearing that there was a force of Koreans at
the monastery twelve
miles away, a force of some 160 men marched toward it on
a hot October day.
They were probably unaware of the number and the quality
of the troops they
were to meet and the strength of the position they held.
As a matter of fact
there were some 5000 Korean troops composed largely of
the hardy frontiersmen
of the north and they occupied a position that even with
their poor training
and equipment they could have held against an equal
number of foreign troops.
The French marched up the steep hill toward the gate but
before they reached it
there burst upon them from the heights on either side a
cross fire of both
muskety and cannon and within five minutes they were
hopelessly crippled. At
that time there were some few scattered trees and other
shelter below the gate
and the brave Frenchmen, not willing to give up the
fight so soon even against
overwhelming odds, sought shelter behind these natural
defenses; but it soon
became evident that the purpose of the expedition could
not be effected. So a
retreat was ordered. The dead and wounded were carried
down the hill under a
terrible fire from the enemy and the almost desperate
march toward the main
force was begun. The Koreans swarmed out of the fortress
in pursuit and had it
not been for a strong body of French who came out to
meet them the entire 160
men would probably have been sacrificed.
The
Koreans had prepared a large number of stone
cannon-balls to use in case their
iron balls should be exhausted. We secured a couple of
these curious missiles
at the monastery. They measure about four inches in
diameter and are made of
granite, roughly cut in the shape of a sphere.
[page 258]
Back of the monastery, across a valley, rises the
forbidding granite crag of
Mari Mountain. The characters for Mari are ** which were
evidently used merely
to transliterate the ancient Korean name of the
mountain. It is the highest
peak on the island and on its very top rises the rough
stone pile which has
been known through the centuries at the Tangun Tan or
“Altar of Tangun.” A
stiff climb of an hour brought us to this most ancient
relic. We entered a sort
of opening in a wall and found ourselves in a little
inclosure twenty feet
square. On the western side of this and forming part of
the wall of the
enclosure rose a flight of stone steps made of slabs of
stone put together
without mortar and rising some eight feet. Ascending
these steps we reached the
top of the altar proper which is eight feet high above
the floor of the enclosure
but some twelve feet above the foundations on the other
three sides. It is
almost exactly twenty feet square on top. The surface of
the top of the altar
is rough and shows the results of much vandalism. We
were told that boys had
thrown down many of the stones so that the altar is not
so high as it once was.
The structure as it now stands is probably not more than
a century old, for we
read in the annals of Korea frequent statements that the
government gave money
to repair it. Some parts of it, especially the more
solid foundations, are
evidently of extreme age and look as if they had been
there as long as the
mountain itself. The Tangun is believed by the Koreans
to have ruled in Korea
from 2300 B. C. until the time of Kija, 1122 B. C, but
works that claim some
degree of historicity say that he reigned from 1193 B.
C. until 1122 B. C. It
is probable that if there is anything real about this
word Tangun it refers to
a dynasty of native chiefs who antedated Kija. The grave
of Tangun is shown
today at Kangdong east of P’yeng-yang and is 410 feet in
circumference. It was
in 2265 B. C. that, according to tradition, he first
sacrificed on Kang-wha.
The fortress in which the Chondeung Monastery is
situated is called Sam-nang **
or “Three Sons” and according to tradition it was built
by the three sons of
Tangun.
[page 259]
The entire absence of any kind of inscription in
connection with the altar is
partial evidence of its extreme age, for if it had been
made subsequent to the
coming of Kija we should doubtless find some sort of
inscription, either in its
original shape or in the form of a restoration. One has
but to visit the spot
to be impressed by the evidences of extreme age,
especially in certain parts of
the structure.
Odds and Ends.
A Straight
Official.
Hu Mok was one
of the leading officials in the days of King Hyo-jong
1650-1660, and he was one
of the many good officials who died simply because of
party strife. The
following anecdote is told of him which exhibits a
striking contrast with
present day officialdom.
While
still a young man and before he had come into political
prominence he went to a
great monastery in Kyung-sang Province to study. In
those days a man could live
thus at a monastery free of expense, the expectation
being that by the literary
skill acquired be would obtain an official position and
at a later date recoup
the monastery for all expenses incurred and give a
handsome bonus besides.
Hu
Mok studied diligently and seemed in a fair way to
accomplish his object, but
money for repairs upon the monastery was urgently
needed. It was in danger of
falling about the ears of the monks. So they asked him
to write a “begging
letter” for them. This meant a fine literary production
overflowing with praise
of the monastery and begging all good men to subscribe
toward the repairs. Hu
Mok agreed to help them and told them to come the next
morning and the letter
would be ready for them. When morning came he told them
that he had a better
scheme and asked how much ready money they had. It was
only 20,000 cash, a mere
bagatelle. He told them to take it all and buy hemp and
bring it to him. They
obeyed, though with some hesitation. With the great pile
of hemp he told them
to make [page 260]
an enormous rope or cable as large as a man’s thigh.
They did so. He then led
them up a mountain till they came to a great isolated
boulder that stood poised
on the edge of a precipice. He put the rope around this
and told the 400 monks
to pull with all their might. Slowly the great stone
came up on end and was securely
propped. Hu Mok was either crazy or inspired, surely.
But when he pointed to
the bed where the rock had lain and discovered to them
an enormous hidden
treasure of silver they concluded that it was
inspiration rather than dementia
and forthwith carried the silver home. It was treasure
concealed long centuries
before by the inmates of a monastery that had stood over
the spot where the
stone lay. They never asked him how he knew but they
took the silver and put
their monastery into fine shapeTheir benefactor refused
to take a single ounce
of the silver and finally left for Seoul with only
enough money to pay his way.
He rose to the highest eminence and the Koreans believe
the tale that is told,
that all the emoluments of office which he received
amounted in the end to the
exact sum which he had given the monastery which is
supposed to illustrate the
justice of heaven. All the same Hu Mok died in prison at
the hands of his great
rival Song Si-ryul
Editorial
Comment.
The month of
June is filled with events of importance which demand
more than a passing
comment but with our limited space wc cannot hope to
deal with them adcquately.
We have given the year’s budget in detail. You can judge
of a man’s life by the
entries in his cash account. The same is true of a
country. In examining this
budget one is astonished at the proportion of the money
that is eaten up in
salaries. Take the Mining Bureau for instance. Out of
$10,453 not one cent is
expended for any useful end unless it be hidden under
the paltry item [page
261]
of $744 which is denominated, and probably with truth,
miscellaneous. The
Bureau of Decorations spent $11,000 out of $19,000 on
salaries. The Ceremonial
Bureau used up $19,000 on salaries and office expenses
out of a total of
$21,508.
The matter of concessions
to Japanese has assumed large proportions. It is too
complicated and important
a phase of the present situation to discuss in a few
words. We shall take it up
later and attempt a dispassionate review of the whole
situation. Meanwhile we
remember that Japan has guaranteed the independence and
safety of the Korean
people. We have no doubt that ultimately this large
consideration will dominate
the situation and that an adumbration of it because of
the redundant energy and
thrift of individual Japanese will be done away. We note
with satisfaction that
members of the Japanese Diet, who have nothing
personally at stake, applaud the
attitude of the Foreign Minister in his opposition to
sweeping concessions.
[Complete
national budget covering 10 pages]
NEWS
REPORT
Kim To-il who
was formerly a Russian interpreter in Seoul has been in
hiding, so the Japanese
press asserts, in the home of a foreigner in the city,
but because of a quarrel
with his host he was turned out and has been arrested by
the order of the
Mayor.
[page
272]
The Japanese paper states that the Foreign Office has
asked that the interests
of Korean subjects in Tientsin and other Chinese ports
be pat in the hands of
the Japanese Consuls, just as Chinese interests in Seoul
were put in the hands
of the English at the time of the China Japan War of
1894.
Because of
petty thieving of railroad ties on the part of Koreans
near the river, the
Mayor of Seoul, at the request of the Japanese
Consul-general has posted a
notice stating that anyone detected in such a felony
will be severely handled.
The money
specially issued for use by the Japanese army passes
current among the Chinese
at An-tong but suffers a discount of ten percent.
A Japanese
ship-building company at Fusan has asked for a piece of
land on the foreshore
about two miles up the bay from the settlement in order
to carry out its
project.
Three Koreans
charged with having supplied information of Japanese
movements to the Russians
were seized in the north and sent to Seoul.
Investigation showed that their
offense was not of a very serious nature and they were
let off with a gentle
reminder in the shape of eighty blows on the back with
the whechari.
The monks of
the Won-heung Monastry outside the East Gate were so
rash as to state that the
burning of the palace was due to the anger of Buddha.
They evidently thought
that they could work upon the fears of those in high
station and thus secure to
themselves substantial results, but they reckoned
without their host for the result
is that the whole monastry has been ordered to remove
far from the city, which
will deprive it of what few advantages it has heretofore
enjoyed.
Two Japanese
counterfeiters of the new Dai Ichi-Ginko notes have been
arrested. Some Yen
1,494 of their spurious notes have been discovered.
There is
prospect of great suffering in the north from three
causes combined (1) The
poorness of the last years crops, (2) the depredations
of soldiers and the
interferance with agricultural pursuits. (3) the serious
lack of rain.
The budget for
the current year has at last been published and reads as
follows :
The Home
Minister, Yi Yong-t’a, sent in a list of names of
candidates for prefectural positions
but Cho Pyung-sik the Vice Prime Minister whose duty it
was to examine and pass
the names refused to recommend them to His Majesty on
the ground that many of
the candidates were practically unknown men and there
was strong suspicion that
they had paid for the office. Therefore Yl Yong-t’a,
Hyon Yongun and others
secured the forced resignation of Cho Pyung-sik. Sim
Sang-hun was put in the
place vacated but he took the same ground that Cho
Pyong-sik had taken and
refused to pass the names. An [page 272a.]
attempt was made to overcome his scruples by putting the
name of his brother-in-law in the list but this had the
opposite effect and
only fourteen names out of thirty-two were passed.
Nothing is more necessary at
the present than the choice of thoroughly straight and
competent men as country
prefects.
On June 4th a
telegram from Wonsan said that Russians at Hamhung
demanded 3,700 bundles of
straw and that the road north of that town be repaired.
Twenty Russian cavalry
entered the town on the morning of May 30 and forty more
arrived the same
afternoon. On June 3rd this number was increased by 16
more. Some of them went
toward Pyeng-yang and some camped outside the west gate.
They demanded of the
governor where the manager of the telegraph office was
but as no one knew, they
seized two post couriers and beat them to make them
tell. They did not know.
The Russians then burned the telegraph office after
looting it.
The
authorities intended to dump the garbage of the city
just outside the East Gate
in some fields, but the Superintendent of the Imperial
Treasury objected on the
ground that from these and the adjoining fields came
vegetables for the palace
and at the same time the Electric Compauy put in a
protest on the ground that
it would be a nuisance.
The Secretary
of the Korean Legation at Paris started on his return to
Korea on June 2nd on
account of illness.
The Home
Department has received notice that three Japanese
entered the town of Ch’ang-sang
in Pyeng-an Province and killed a Korean named Kim, and
one of the latter’s
relatives and wounded another so that his life is
despaired of.
The prefect of
No-song, in the south, is in serious trouble. He
forcibly stoppped a wedding
procession, caused the groom to be thrown from his
horse, the bride’s chair to
be broken and the bride herself arrested. It was the
result of a feud. This, in
Korea, is a very serious offence.
The prefect of
Yon-gi, beyond Su-won, arrested several of the lawless
Koreans working on the
Seoul-Fusan Railway and locked them up. A hundred or
more of their fellows came
and broke open the jail and freed them, smashed the
house of the prefect and
beat the ajuns. The prefect went in person to the
governor at Kong-ju and asked
for military support against the ruffians.
A man named
Kim stole a nine year old girl in Kyo-dong and sold her
to a Chinaman in
Ku-ri-ga for 80,000 cash, $32. The girl’s parents sought
for her everywhere and
at last her mother caught sight of her. The girl ran
crying to her mother but
the Chinaman came and caught her and said he had bought
her. Policemen were
called but the Chinaman refused to let her go.At last the Chief of Police came in person and
after paying the amount
that the Chinaman had given secured the child and
returned her to her parents.
The man Kim was arrested and will be given an
opportunity to make it right with
the law by walking in the chain-gang a few years.
[page
272b]
Yun Tuk-yung has been appointed Judge of the Supreme
Court.
Pak Seung-bong
has been appointed Chief of the new Industrial and
Commercial School.
Yi Heui-min
the prefect of Yung-wun was convicted of extreme
extortion and cashiered.
The Japanese
press in Seoul states that among the spectators of the
battle at the Yalu there
were three Englishmen, two Americans, two Frenchmen, one
Italian, two Germans,
two Austrians and one Swiss.
It is stated
that about the end of May the indemnity demanded by the
French from the Korean
Government because of trouble between the Roman Catholic
and the non-Catholic
residents of Quelpart in 1901 has just been paid out of
the revenues of that
island. It amounted to Yen 6315.21.
About the end
of May the government at last acceded to the request of
Japan that fishing
privileges along the entire coast of Korea be granted to
Japanese for a term of
twenty-five years.
Kwak
Chong-sok, the famous scholar who visited Seoul a year
or two ago, has sent in
a very strong memorial against Yi Chi-yong, charging him
with unfaithfulness to
the interests of the country in several serious
particulars.
It is said
that the end of May saw the town of Ham-heung almost
deserted. All valuables
had been carried away or buried or otherwise carefully
secreted, the women had
all gone except those of the slave class, and all the
ordinary activities of
the town were suspended. The ordinary population of the
place is about 13,000.
Sim Sang-hun
was appointed vice Prime Minister in place of Cho
Pyung-sik, resigned.
The government
has agreed to pay the sum of Yen 18,624, as indemnity
for the Japanese shop
partially wrecked by Koreans at the electric road
accident last Autumn. The
total actual loss could not have exceeded yen 2,000.
Because of
great and increasing dilatoriness on the part of Korean
officials in putting in
their appearance at their respective offices at ten
o’clock in the morning, and
the consequent congestion of public business, the rule
has been promulgated
that each time an official is more than fifteen minutes
late, without good
excuse, he shall pay a fine of ten cents and if he is
absent a whole day, he
shall lose a month’s salary. That clause about “good
excuse” will cover a
multitude of sins.
The people of
Sun-ch’on, near Wiju, have secured a good reputation
among the Japanese. They
have shown themselves so ready to be of service that the
Japanese authorities
have sent Yen 300 to the prefect to be distributed among
the people.
It is stated
that the expense of burying Mr. Hong, the Secretary of
the Korean Legation in
Berlin, who committed suicide, is greater than the cost
of bringing the body
back to Korea for interment. It has therefore been
shipped from Hamburg and
will arrive soon.
[page
272c] The
Japanese are working up a company for the encouragement
of cotton culture in
Korea for the purpose of supplying raw material to the
mills at Osaka.
In spite of
the repeated orders of the Government, Yi Pom-jin the
Minister to St.
Petersburg declines to come back to Korea. His strong
pro-Russian tendencies
are said to have caused him to feel some hesitation
about returning to Seoul at
the present time. No steps have been taken against him
by the government
because of his apparent ignoring of its demands. There
are some who shrewdly
suspect that his return has never been seriously desired
by the powers that be.
The terms of
the recent Fisheries Convention between Korea and Japan
are briefly as follows;
( 1 ) Japanese
fishermen shall be allowed to fish anywhere off the
coast of Pyong-an, Whang-ha
and Ch’ung-ch’ong Provinces, and Korean fishermen shall
have the right to fish
off the Japanese coast in certain localities
(specified).
(2) This
agreement shall be in force for twenty years beginning
June 1st 1904.
(3) The
particulars shall be the same as those found in former
fisheries conventions
between the two contracting parties .
On June 10th
Mr. Hayashi, the Japanese Minister in Seoul, left for
Japan. It is generally
understood that he went to consult with the authorities
about the policy’ to be
adopted in the peninsula and it is rumored that upon his
return a definite and
positive plan will be put in operation.
The houses of
Seoul are to be divided into districts of 100 and a cart
is to be provided for
each district to attend to the matter of carrying
garbage and refuse.
A month ago an
order was promulgated forbidding people to ride in
sumptnous silk upholstered
chairs. A few days ago a woman’s chair was stopped by
police on the street, the
woman was compelled to get into a common chair and the
gaudy one she rode in
was smashed to pieces.
Mr. Hong
Il-gwan. for many years connected with the Educational
Department, has been
appointed head of the new Industrial School for which
the government has made
such a liberal appropriation. If properly carried on,
this school ought to
prove of great benefit to the Korean people.
The Governor
of South Pyung-an Province telegraped on the 12th inst
that 200 Russian cavalry
had entered Yung-wun from the east. This was part of the
force that has been
creating excitement about the vicinity of Ham-heung.
A Korean in
Tokyo had planned to start a bank in Korea with Korean
and Japanese capital, to
encourage the more complete development of agricultural
and other industries in
Korea. Money will be lent to worthy individuals to
engage in such pursuits. It
is said that the Korean government will grant a charter
and encourage the
enterprise.
On the 28th
inst the Foreign Minister Yi Ha-yung published in the [page 272d]Che-kuk Sin-mun
his views upon the requests of the Japanese for
industrial privileges in the
interior of Korea. He praises the Japanese for their
action in opposing Russian
aggression and says that Korea has given them every
facility for prosecuting
the war, but when it comes to making wholesale
concessions involving a large
fraction of the resources of the country it is going a
little too far. He declares
that as Foreign Minister he must decline to entertain
any suggestions as to
Japanese concessions in Korea. This attitude was
applauded by many of the
visiting gentlemen, members of the diet. Many memorials
have been presented
urging the government to take a firm stand in this
matter.
His Majesty
has promulgated an edict of great importance and of
sound statesmanship. He
says that as men from Seoul are timid about accepting
prefectural positions in
the north, thus increasing the hardships of the people
there, good men living
in those remote districts shall be appointed as prefects
without the necessity
of coming up to Seoul. This would be a grand thing for
the people and we wish
it might become a general rule for the whole country. A
measure of local
autonomy would be of immense benefit, for the incumbent
having large local
interests would be debarred from many forms of
indirection to which the
ordinary prefect is prone.
Yi Kyong-jik,
the prefect of Yong-ch’un, whom the Japanese seized and
held because of his
alleged assistance of the Russians, has been released at
the urgent request of
the Foreign Minister, who is so positive of the man’s
innocence that he offers
to shoulder all the responsibility if it should be
proved that there is any
truth in the allegations.
A bureau has
been formed in connection with the Household Department
to take charge of the
timber concession formerly held by the Russians along
the Yalu River.
News from
Yongampo shows that there is a large amount of
magnificent timber lying at that
port, having been cut and floated down the river by the
Russians. Out of
150,000 logs, 30,000 belonged to the Russians and the
remainder to Chinese. The
30,000 will be used by the Japanese. Some of them have
been brought to Chemulpo
already. We have not learned yet what the Japanese
propose to do by way of
payment to the Korean government, in view of the fact
that Japan considered
that the Russians had secured the property by
indirection. If the goods were
practically stolen, the original owner would seem to
have some claim upon them.
The prefect of
Tuk-ch’un, about sixty miles northeast of An-ju, reports
that on the third of
June Russians, guided by a Korean interpreter named Kim
In-su, came to that
district and looted a government sacrificial house
carrying away 643 bags of
rice, $12,040 in money, sixty seven bulls, fifteen
hordes and donkeys and 140
bolts of linen and cotton. They carried away 178 men as
forced carriers.
Japanese came and chased the Russians away and caught
the interpreter and shot
him.
On the
seventeenth of June the Japanese authorities made a very
important and even
startling suggestion to the Foreign Office, namely that
all uncultivated land
in Korea be opened for Japanese cultivation. [page 272e]
As
such land probably comprises one third of the arable
land of the peninsula the wide scope of this suggestion
will at once be
apparent. The question will at once arise as to how the
hundreds of thousands
of Japanese, thus accommodated, will be governed and
controlled. They will
evidently not consent to be governed by the Korean
authorities, as foreigners
are in Japan; and the thousands of Japanese civil
officials that would be
necessary for the government would form a curions
imperium in imperio which we
confess we do not consider feasible under present
conditions.
Up to the time
of going to press the championship tennis tournament
between Seoul and Chemulpo
has not been concluded. Each has won two contests.
Chemulpo has lost two good
men in the persons of Messrs. Wallace and Fox, and Seoul
has to forego the help
of Messrs. Chalmers and Gillett. So the contest bids
fair to be a very even
one.
The prefect of
Wiju says that in all the border towns the Tonghak have
arisen and number in
each district from 3,000 to 10,000 men.
Over 200
houses in Pyeng-yang are being pulled down to make room
for the station of the
Seoul-Wiju Railway.
A Japanese
drank copiously at a Korean wine shop but declined to
settle the bill. The old
woman who kept the shop followed him to a side street
outside the South Gate
where he turned on her and gave her an ugly wound with a
knife. The Korean
police arrested the man and carried him to the Japanese
Consulate.
The Privy
Council and the Cabinet have been flooded with petitions
from influential citizens
urging that consent be not given to the requests for
exclusive and sweeping
concessions to the Japanese.
The steamship
Manchuria arrived at Chenmlpo on the 23rd inst. with a
number of members of the
Japanese Diet and a dozen or more war correspondents. We
would not dare guess
at their destination but if they are “in” at the fall of
Port Arthur they will
be candidates for sincere congratulations. Hope deferred
makes the heart sick
but a little of that sort of medicine would soon put the
war correspondents on
their feet again.
We are highly
gratified to learn that a daily newspaper is to be
published in Seoul, and
under British editorship. We understand the first issue
will appear about July
1st. We wish this venture every possible success. We
would urge every foreigner
in Korea to remember that such a paper needs and should
receive unanimous
support.
On the 28th
inst. a small boy was killed on the electric tramway in
Seoul. Two boys were
carelessly playing beside the track and as the car
passed one of them fell in
front of it and was instantly killed. A crowd soon
gathered and began stoning
the car. Fortunately one of the American employees was
near by and the American
Marines were soon on the spot and order restored. No
blame whatever can be
attached to the Electric Company or its employees.
It is with
great pleasure we record the fact that J. N. Jordan, the
British Minister to
Korea, has been presented with the order of Knighthood [page 272f] by King Edward VII and he
is now a Knight Commaoder of the Order of St. Michael
and St. George.
At the request
of the Police Bureau the Home Department has drawn upon
the national treasury
for $40,000 for the repair of the streets and sewers of
the capital.
The Japanese
police have arrested several Koreans on suspicion of
having engaged in
counterfeiting Dai Ichi Ginko notes because they had
some such notes in their
possession. As it was not proved that they were guilty
they were released but
were again arrested by the Korean police on the ground
that they were knowingly
circulating counterfeit money.
The Japanese
Minister has informed the Foreign Office that four of
the eight Koreans who
have been studying military tactics in Japan have been
attached to the Japanese
forces and sent to Manchuria to learn on the field how
troops are handled in
actual battle. We shall watch with interest to learn how
these Koreans deport
themselves in the face of the enemy. We have always held
the opinion that
Koreans, when properly led, vnll prove as brave and as
efficient as any other
peoples.
A Japanese, in
Kum-san Ch’ung-ch’ong Province, shot and killed a
Korean. We have not learned
the particulars.
The Japanese
authorities have suggested that the Korean Government
sell to Japan the large
reserves of rice held in military granaries throughout
Korea but the Imperial
Treasury Bureau which controls it has replied that this
rice has already been
sold. This is believed by some to be a mere excuse.
The
predominance of Japan in Korea is reflected in the fact
that every Japanese
language school in Seoul is crowded with students eager
to learn that language.
There is no doubt that it will prove of greater general
utility than any other
foreign language.
We have
received from the Chemulpo Branch of the Hongkong and
Shanghai Bank a revised
statement of its financial position as follows :—
Paid up
Capital $10,000,000 Gold Reserve Fund at 2/10,000,000 Silver Reserve Fund 6,500,000 Reserve
Liability of
Proprietors 10,000,000 136,500,000
[page
273] KOREAN
HISTORY.
Chapter XVIII.
A great
Crisis. . . condition of affairs in Seoul . . . . flight
of Chinese . . .
Ta-won-kun summoned to palace . . .new Cabinet
tribulations of Min Yong-jun . .
. . Commission on Reforms appointed . . . names of
Government offices changed .
. . list of proposed reforms . . . the currency . . .new
coinage revenue
reforms. . . .a national bank. . . . standardization of
weights and measures .
. . . past abuses rectified . . . foreign advisers.
The year 1894
marked the greatest crisis in Korean history since the
seventh century, when
the kingdom of Silla gained control of the whole
peninsula. Considering the
fact that so many of the old abuses survived after the
year 1894, the above
statement may seem extreme but the facts of the case
warrant it. From the early
years of the Christian era Korea had been moulded by
Chinese ideas and had been
dominated by her influence. There was no time from the
very first when Korea
did not consider China her suzerain. In a sense this was
natural and right.
Korea had received from China an immense number of the
products of
civilization. Literature, art, science, government,
religion— they had all been
practically borrowed from China.
Never
once during all those centuries did Korea attempt or
desire to throw off the
garment of her vassalage. And even in this crisis of
1894 it was not thrown off
through any wish of the Korean government or people but
only through hard
necessity. There had been no radical change in the
mental attitude of the great
mass of Koreans which demanded the severing of the tie
which bound them to
China and even at this year of grace 1904, there is
every reason to believe
that a great majority of Koreans would elect to go back
under the mild and
almost nominal control of China. The change is not one
of attitude on the part
of the Korean but it is the fact that the war proved to
the world the
supineness of China [page 274]
and made it forever impossible to revive her claim to
suzerainty over Korea or
even, it is to be feared, to hold together her own
unwieldy bulk. The outward
influence of China upon Korea has ceased and other
influences have been at work
which are slowly drawing her away from her servile
obedience to Chinese ideals.
This was the first necessary step to the final
emancipation of Korea and her
national regeneration. It should be carefully noted that
from the earliest
centuries the Chinese implanted in the Korean no genuine
seed of civilization
and progress but simply unloaded upon her some finished
products of her
civilization. These the Koreans swallowed whole without
question, unmindful of
the fact that by far the greater part of them were
wholly unsuited to the
Korean temperament. The result was that as time went on
these Chinese
impositions were overlaid with a pure Korean product
just as the little leaden
Buddhas that are thrust into the shell of the pearl
oyster become coated over
with mothero’pearl. Buddhism came from China but Korea
has so mingled with it
her native fetichism and animism that it is something
radically different from
the original stock.
Now
this intrinsic freedom of the Korean from Chinese ideals
argued strongly in
favor of the belief that from the year 1894 Korea would
gradually cast off even
the mental vassalage and would begin to work along
individual lines. This could
happen only in case the individualism of the Korean had
outlasted the deadening
effects of Chinese predominance. There are many
evidences that this
individualism has survived but it must be confessed that
it is in a crippled
condition and all but unable to walk alone. It is to the
process and method of
this great transformation in Korean conditions that we
must now turn.
Up
to the time when the Japanese began active operations in
Seoul by the seizure
of the palace, Korea considered herself safe under the
aegis of China. Had she
not secured the murder of Kim Ok-kyun and the return of
his body on a Chinese
vessel for the purpose of wreaking upon it the old time
vengeance? Had she not
invited Chinese troops into the country in direct
contravention of the agreement
between China and Japan? In every way and by every means
Korea had expressed
her contempt of Japanese power and
of [page
275] Japanese
interests. Under tbe hideously corrupt regime of such
men as Min Yong-jun the
country had been going from bad to worse until the
people found it utterly
impossible to endure the oppression any longer. The
provinces were in a state
of anarchy and Yuan Shih-kei, the unscrupulous Chinese
“Resident” in Seoul,
stood smilingly by and watched the tragedy without
suggesting any remedy for
the disease that was destroying the country, but ready
to increase the prestige
of China in the peninsula by offering troops with which
to crush the starving
malcontents in the provinces. The condition of things
was about as bad as it
could be and it was at this psychological moment that
Japan lifted her hand and
at a single blow tumbled the Chinese house of cards
about their heads.
By
the twenty-first of July the situation in Seoul had
become unbearable for the
Chinese, There was a small Chinese force at Asan but
Seoul was occupied by a
strong Japanese force and every day the outbreak of
hostilities had become more
imminent. On the early morning of the 20th Yuan
Shih-kei, in a mean little
sedan chair, and entirely without escort, made his
escape from the city and
hastened to Chemulpo, leaving all his nationals to shift
for themselves. His
flight became known almost immediately and there was a
general scramble on the
part of the Chinese merchants and other Chinese to
escape from the town. When
the Chinese Minister left Seoul their interests were put
in the hands of the
British representative.
On
the morning of the 25th the palace was taken and the
city walls manned by the
Japanese. Min Yong-jun, who was largely responsible for
the parlous condition
of the government, fled that night to the country, and
found refuge in the town
of Ch’un-ch’on about sixty miles east of Seoul.
As
soon as the Japanese had secured the palace Minister
Otori sought the presence
of the king and assured him of his personal safety and
that of the Royal
family. At the desire of His Majesty the ex-Regent, the
Ta-won-kun was invited
to the palace to participate in the discussion of plans
for the future, and to
allay by his presence the natural fear of the king. It
was understood by common
consent [page 276]
that the former officials had all resigned and it was
necessary to form a new
government. Kim Hong-jip was summonedto
act as Prime Minister, He was a man of strong
personality and of progressive
tendencies, altogether a valuable man for the emergency
since he had the entire
confidence of the Japanese and was a man of the highest
standing in Korea.
Other leading men of progressive tendencies were called
in and a government was
formed for temporary purposes until matters could he put
on a firmer footing.
Min Yong-jun, Min Eung-sik, Min Hyung sik, Min Ch’i hon,
and Kim Segeui were
declared banished to distant points. No attempt was made
to send and arrest Min
Yong-jun but the members of the “Righteous Army” in the
country seized him and
charged him with being the main author of the
disturbances, and beat him nearly
to death. An enormous amount of money that he had
carried off with him was
divided up and made away with by his followers. He
barely escaped with his life
and fled to China where be gave the Chinese advice as to
the method of
reasserting their authority in the peninsula.
At
this same time the government recalled Yi To-ja, Sin
Keui-son, Yun Ung-yul and
others who had been in banishment for ten years because
of their espousal of
the liberal cause in 1884. The prison doors were opened
and innocent and guilty
alike received amnesty.
The
government was not yet ready to publish its full list of
reforms, based upon
the demands already made by the Japanese Minister, but
the king immediately
declared that as it was necessary to secure good men to
administer the
Government in Seoul and in the provinces, the
demarcation between the upper and
lower classes was a thing of the past and alll men of
all grades were eligible
to office, and at the same time he declared the
abolition of the great
political parties and forbade the apportionment of
government offices along
party lines. The different leading offices under the
government were put in the
hands of the best men that were available and it is
probable that these men
formed the best government that Korea was capable of at
the time. Some of the
names were as follows: Kim Hong-jip, Pak Chong-yang, Kim
Yun’ sik, Kim
Chong-han, Cho Heui yiin, Yi Yun-yong, Kim Ka-jin, [page 277] An Kyung-su, Chong
Kyong-wun, Pak Chun-yang, Yi Wun-gong, Kim Ha-gu, Kwun
Yung-jin, Yu Kil-jun,
Kim Ha-yung, Yi Eung-ik, So Sang-jip. Among these names
many will be recognized
as among the best that Korea has produced in recent
times.
On
the very next day after the Japanese took the palace and
gave a new direction
to governmental affairs a special High Commission was
called together by the
king to consider the matter of reconstructing the
government along the new
lines. It was composed partly of the members of the
Cabinet and partly of other
destinguishcd men. It was well understood that these men
were to carry out the
ideas of the Japanese authorities. Their deliberations
continued for a period
of forty-one days during which time they completed a
scheme for a new
government, along the following lines.
Before
this time there had been seven great governmental
departments, namely the Eui-jung-bu or
State Department, Yi-jo
or Home Departmeut, Ho-jo or
Finance Department, Yi-jo or
Ceremonial Department, Pyung-jo or War
Department, Hyung-jo
or Law Department, Kong-jo or
Department of Public Works.
Besides these there were the two Poch’ung
or Police offices, the Eui-gom-bu or
Supreme Court and other lesser offices. In the new
regime the seven Departments
above named were all retained excepting the Ceremonial
Department and in place
of this they founded for the first time in Korean
history a genuine Educational
Department coordinate in dignity with any other of the
great Department.s.
Besides this the Department of Public Works was
broadened to include
Agriculture and Commerce. A Police Bureau was formed to
take the place of the
former two Poch’ungs. They also prepared a list of
needed reforms in the
government.
(1) From this
time all Korean documents shall be dated from the year
of the present Dynasty.
(This was the 503rd year, as the Dynasty was founded in
1392).
(2) Korean
treaties with China shall be revised and ministers shall
be sent to the various
treaty powers.
(3) Class
distinctions in Korea shall be wiped out and men shall
be judged solely on
their merits in the matter of government office.
[page
278]
(4) The distinction between civil and military rank, in
favor of the former,
shall be done away and they shall stand on an equality.
(5) The family
and relatives of a criminal shall not be liable to
arrest or punishment for his
crime.
(6) The son by
a concubine shall be eligible for the succession.
(7) Men shall
attain the age of twenty and women the age of sixteen
before marriage.
(8) Widows
shall be allowed to remarry without loss of social
standing.
(9) All slaves
are declared free and the sale or purchase of human
beings is abolished.
(10) The
privilege of memorial is extended to the general public.
Anyone shall be at
liberty to address the throne through a memorial.
(11) The long
sleeves on coats, whether court dress or common are
abolished. But officials
shall be authorized to wear the sleeveless coat over the
ordinary one. Soldiers’
uniforms shall continue as at present for a time but may
be changed gradually
to the foreign style.
(12) The
people shall be given one month in which to prepare for
these changes.
(13) The
Police Bureau shall be an adjunct of the Home
Department.
(14) Officials
shall not ride on the streets in the high one-wheeled
chair nor shall they be
accompanied by a large retinue, nor shall the attendants
call out for people to
clear the way.
(15) No one
shall be obliged to dismount when passing an official
nor to show any other
sign of servility.
(16) The Prime
Minister shall have only four attendants, the Vice Prime
Minister and all the
other ministers of state shall have three, the
vice-ministers shall have two
and the secretaries one.
(17) Even
eunuchs, if they are men of ability, shall be eligible
for office.
(18) The law
that relatives may not sue each other at law shall be
abrogated except for very
near relatives, and feuds between families shall be
given up.
[page
279] (19)
All debts of long standing shall be cancelled (such as
debts contracted by a
father who is now dead or by relatives).
(20) There
shall be but eleven official grades (in place of the
eighteen which there had
been formerly).
(21) There
shall be no longer any outcast class in Korea but
butchers, contortionists,
acrobats, dancing girls, sorceresses and exorcists shall
all be considered
equal to others before the law.
(22) Even
after holding high office a man may engage in business
or other occupation, at
his pleasure.
(23) The
matter of the national examination shall be reserved for
fuller discussion.
It is not
necessary to go into an analysis of these proposed
reforms. They speak for
themselves; some of them were necessary and others were
the reverse But they
form a striking commentary on the condition of affairs
in Korea at the time.
Whatever may have been the defects of this plan it was
an honest and strenuous
attempt on the part of the best statesmen Korea could
produce and it promised
much. If its terms could have been carried out it would
have proved an
inestimable blessing to the people of the peninsula, but
one can easily see
that some of the proposals struck at the very fabric of
Korean society. For
instance the attempt to make acrobats, dancing-girls and
mudang the social
equals of reputable people was of course absurd. The
submerged classes cannot
be enfranchised by a stroke of the pen. What Korea
needed then and needs still
is education. This alone will make fundamental reforms
possible.
Early
in August the currency of the country received serious
attention. Foreign money
was in use in the open ports but the general currency of
the country consisted
of two kinds of perforated “cash” one called yup, each piece of which was called one
cash, and the other called tang-o or the
“five fitter.” These
represented five cash each. The yup
was the old, genuine and universally recognized money of
the country. It was
only in Seoul, the open ports and on the great
thoroughfares near Seoul that
the tang-o
circulated. This tang-o
was a debased coin made in 1883
and several succeeding years. At first each of [page 280]
the tang-o
exchanged for five of the yup but
within a few months the tang-o fell
to an inevitable discount which increased year by year
from 1883 until 1894,
when it was found that they were practically the same.
Successive issues of the
yup had
deteriorated the quality and
size of the coin until it was worth only a fifth of its
face value. For this
reason the Government declared in August that the yup and the tang-o were
on a par and that no distinction should be made between
them. The fair thing
would have been for the Government to redeem the debased
tang-o at its face value but of course no
one could expect this
under the circumstances. It had proved an indirect tax
upon the people equal to
four fifths its face value.
At the same time the
national financiers determined to place in the hands of
the people a foreign
style coinage, and soon a one cent copper piece, a
nickel five cent piece and
silver coins of twenty cent and one dollar
denominations, which had been in
process of manufacture since 1901, were issued. A few of
them had been issued a
year or two before but had not been well received. Now
they passed current and
were used, but it was soon found that the silver coins
were being bought up and
hoarded by wealthy people who placed no faith in banks,
and soon not a single
native silver piece could be found anywhere.
It
was the intention of the Commission to withdraw from
circulation all the old
cash and replace it with the foreign style money. How
absurd this was will be seen
at a glance. There is nothing else that people are so
timid about as their
money and the bare idea of making such a sweeping change
was preposterous, but
the Japanese were behind all these reforms and, while
their intentions were of
the best, they made the serious mistake in this as in
other attempted reforms
of hurrying things too fast.
Another
important problem attacked by the Reform Commission was
that of the revenue. It
had always been customary to pay taxes in rice, linen,
beans, cotton and a hundred
other commodies, but it was decided now to change all
this and have the revenue
turned into cash in the country and sent up to the
capital. In order to do this
it was necessary to have banking facilities in the
provinces and it was planned
[page
281]
to establish a great national bank with branches all
over the country.
An
attempt was also made to effect an inspection and
standardization of all the
weights and measures in the country.
It
was ordered that every house in the land should have its
owner’s name and
occupation and the number of his family posted iu a
conspicuous place on his
front gate. This was to facilitate the work of postal,
police and census
officials and agents.
One
of the reforms that was carried out was the sending of
students abroad to
acquire an education.
It
was decreed that all land or houses that had been
illegally seized by
unscrupulous people in power during the past ten years
should be restored to
their rightful owners. Many officials in Seoul, well
known in foreign circles,
lost large fractions of their wealth because of this
decree.
The
policy, was adopted of engaging foreign advisers for the
various great
Departments of State and as a result of this a number of
foreigners were
employed. Some of them had already been some time in the
service of the
government.
Chapter XIX.
The Ex-Regent
...The new Cabinet ...the Tonghak pacified... The
Ta-wun-kun retires . . .
Japan declares war . . . Korea abrogates all treaties
with China . . . Pak
Yong-hyo returns. . . .his memorial . . . he is pardoned
...’Chinese excesses
in the north . . . new KoreanJapanese treaty . . . .
Marquis Saionji visits
Seoul . . . Tong-hak in arms again . . . . Prince
Eui-wha goes to Japan . . .
Count Inouye comes . . . amnesty to offenders of 1884 .
. . . Dr. Jaisohn comes
. . . Army reform . . . . the privy Council . . . . the
King’s Oath.
The
Ta-wun-kun, the former Regent, was now a prominent
factor in the government and
the well known strength of his personality did much to
give stability to the
new regime. The Queen necessarily retired from active
participation in politics
for the time being and there was apparent promise of
better days to come. The
new cabinet chosen at this time [page
282]
was a curious mixture of progressive and conservative
men. It was composed of Kim Hong-jip, Kim Yun-sik, O
Yunjung, Pak Chong-yang
and An Kyong-su representing the progressive wing and
Min Yong-dal, Su
Chung-sun, Yi Kyu-wun, Yun Yong-gu and Um Se-yung
representing the conservative
wing. Among the secondary officials some were
progressive and some
conservative. This apparent blending of the various
factions was a hopeful sign
outwardly but it had no real significance. All were
appointed by permission of
the Japanese and they worked together only because it
was useless to oppose.
But the same intrinsic hostility remained and only
needed opportunity to
manifest itself. It was the calm of repression rather
than of genuine
reconciliation, and it helped to prove that there is no
hope for good
government in Korea by Koreans until the country has
secured the benefit of
genuine education.
These
reforms that were proposed had the apparent sanction of
His Majesty, as is
proved by the fact that after their proposal he called
all the high officials
to the palace and made them a speech in which he
referred to this as a splendid
opportunity to make a radical and beneficent change in
the government, and laid
it as a sacred duty upon the officials to carry out the
reforms, and he
declared that he, too, would become a new king and do
his part in bringing
about the desired renovation of the land.
In
spite of the previous declaration that the tong-hak
uprising was at an end
there was much unrest especially in the south and the
tonghak were really as
ready as ever to take the offensive. For this reason the
king sent a high
official to Kyung sang Province to make an attempt at
pacification and told the
people that the trouble was because of his own lack of
virtue and begged them
to be patient a little longer until the reforms could be
carried out. The
people were pleased, especially with the promise that
slavery should be
discontinued and that the barriers between the classes
should be broken down.
The fact that this effort on the part of the king was
entirely successful shows
that the donghak were not anarchists or banditti but
were merely desperate
citizens who required some assurance that certain
changes would be made so that
life would be bearable.
[page 283]
A word is necessary as to the attitude of the Ta-wunkun
toward these reforms.
He had been called to the palace and put in a
responsible advisory position by
the Japanese but he was not the sort of man to hold an
empty honor or to pose
as a mere figure-head. Several of the proposed reforms
were distasteful to him
but when he found that his objections carried no weight
he retired to his
private house in disgust. It took him only a few weeks
to discover that his
elevation had been merely a formality.
The month of August was an
anxious one in Korea. The battle of Asan had been fought
on the 28th and 29th
of July and it was known that there would be a decisive
battle fought at P’yung
Yang in the near future. Foreign opinion was divided as
to the probabilities,
some people believing that the Japanese would sweep
every thing before them and
others being equally sure that the Chinese would win.
But in spite of the state
of anxiety and unrest the month of August saw some
important results
accomplished in civil matters. The Commission on Reforms
were at work on their
scheme until about the tenth of the month. It was on
August 1st that Japan
formally declared war on China and a few days later
troops began to pour in by
way of Chemulpo and join those already here.
It
was on August 16 that there occurred the formal act of
casting off Chinese suzerainty.
On that day the Korean government declared all treaties
hitherto signed between
itself and China to be abrogated and all political
connection between the two
countries to be at an end. The Japanese Minister had
already on June 28th
demanded from the government an expression of its
attitude toward China and had
received the answer that Korea considered herself an
independent power. This
was now followed up by a definite diplomatic rupture
between the two and,
probably forever, the question of Chinese political
predominance in the
peninsula was disposed of.
It
was about the 20th of August that Pak Yong-hyo, the
refugee in Japan since his
participation in the attempted coup of 1884, was brought
to Seoul incognito by
the Japanese. He had long since been declared an
arch-traitor by the Korean
government, his house had been razed to the ground and
his [page
284]
family, dispersed. For almost ten years he had enjoyed
asylum in Japan and had
been treated with great consideration by the Japanese
who rightly saw in him a
man of strong personality, settled convictions and a
genuine loyalty to the
best interests of his native land. His worst enemies
would probably grant that
he falls below none in his desire to see Korea
prosperous and enlightened. It
was the methods adopted that made all the trouble and
drove him into exile.
At
first he remained in hiding in the Japanese quarter but
from that point of
vantage he sent a long memorial to the King relating the
fact of his high
ancestry and the fact that it was purely in the
interests of Korea that he
participated in the émeute o{ 1884. He had been however,
unsuccessful and was
branded as a traitor, compelled to fly the country and
see his house broken up.
Now that the country had fallen upon such critical times
and the King had
determined to effect a radical change in affairs it was
a cause of utmost
rejoicing to him and he could not help coming back even
though it cost his
life. He begged to see the King’s face once more, to be
allowed to collect and
bury the bones of his relatives and be given back his
life which had been
forfeited. If then the King should wish to use him again
he would be at the
service of His Majesty.
To
this plea the King listened, whether from preference or
out of consideration
for the Japanese, and replied that the petitioner was
forgiven and might resume
his former status as a Korean citizen. A number of
memorials immediately poured
into the palace urging that Pak Yong-hyo be executed as
a traitor, but as the
decree of pardon had already gone forth these memorials
were ignored.
The
fall of P’yung-yang before the victorious Japanese on
September 15-17 and the
flight of the Chinese inflicted great sufferings upon
the Koreans in the north.
The Chinese followed their usual medieval tactics and
pillaged right and left.
The local magistrates and governors fled to places of
safety and the people
survived the best they could. The government hastened to
send a high official
to the north to calm the excitement and counteract the
disintegrating effects
of the Chinese flight. At the same time the perfect
orderliness of the Japanese
army began to be understood by the [page
285]
people, and between these two agencies the northern
province speedily settled down to its former status. The
city of P’yungyang had
been almost deserted by its 60,000 or more of people and
it was many months
before the town resumed its normal status.
As
August drew to an end the Japanese deemed the time ripe
for completing the
purposed union with Korea and on the 26th there appeared
a provisional treaty
between the two countries, which was not an offensive
and defensive alliance
but one in which Japan guaranteed the independence of
Korea and Korea engaged
to look to Japan for advice and to aid her in every
possible way. The nature of
this agreement was practically the same as that made
between the same countries
at the opening of the Japan-Russia War in 1904. In it
Japan once more
emphasized the independence of Korea which she had
consistently championed ever
since the Japanese-Korean treaty was signed in 1876.
The
month of September opened with the arrival of Marquis
Saionji with presents and
a friendly message from the Emperor of Japan. The visit
was merely a
complimentary one and seems to have been devoid of great
political significance.
It
was evident that Japanese influence was overwhelmingly
predominant in Seoul and
as the government had committed itself to the policy of
selecting advisers for
its various departments there was reason to believe that
most of these places
would be filled by Japanese and that they would so
predominate numerically as
to seriously impair the autonomy of the government. As
foreign powers had
concluded treaties with Korea on the basis of equality,
this possibility became
a matter of concern to them and through their
representatives here they
protested against the employment of an undue number of
assistants from any one
nationality. Whether there ever was any such danger as
was anticipated we
cannot say, but this preventive measure was successful
at any rate and the
apparent independence of the government was never
shaken.
The
month of October saw the Chinese driven across the Yalu
and order restored in a
measure on Korean soil, but it also saw the resurgence
of the tonghak in the
south. [page 286]
These malcontents had been temporarily cowed by the
coming of Chinese and
Japanese troops but now they seem to have discovered
that the Chinese and
Japanese were too busy with each other to attend to the
civil troubles in the
interior of Korea. So they broke out much worse than
ever and the principal
anxiety of the month in Seoul was the putting down of
the serious insurrection.
Sin Chung-heui, the highest Korean general, was sent
south to Kong-ju with
three thousand Korean troops to meet a strong body of
Tong-hak who were
reported to be marching on Seoul. A few days later there
was a series of fights
at various points throughout the province, notably at
Kong-ju, Ung-jin, U-gum
Hill, Yi-in village. Hyo Harbor, So-san and Hong-ju.
About two hundred Japanese
troops aided the government forces and at every point
the government troops
were successful. Some of the fights were very severe. It
is probable that there
were some 20,000 tong-hak in all, but they were a mere
rabble compared with the
well armed and at least partially drilled government
troops. A large number of
the tong-hak leaders were captured and brought to Seoul.
Many were also
executed in the country, for the generals were given the
power of life and
death for the time being.
Having been thus dispersed
the tong-hak moved southward and took their stand at
various places in Chulla
and southern Ch’ung-ch’ong Provinces. Their main point
was the townof No-sung
where for eleven days they continued to revile the
government and put up
placards defying the government troops. The Korean
troops moved on them and
soon had them on the retreat again. Other encounters
took place at various
points but by this time the leading spirits in the
tong-hak movement had been
captured. Among these were Chun Nok-tu and Kim Ku-nam.
They were brought to
Seoul and the latter was executed and the former is said
to have been taken to
Japan, but there is some doubt as to his fate. Two
tong-hak leaders named Kim
Chong-hyun and An Seunggwan were beheaded at Su-wun and
their heads were raised
high on poles and the people told to take warning from
them. This put an end to
the tong-hak except for some small sporadic movements
which amounted to
nothing. But the tong-hak, like the poor, we have ever
with us, — in posse.
[page 287]
Prince Eui-wha was sent to Tokyo to return the visit of
Marquis Saionji and
present the compliments of the King to the Emperor of
Japan.
The
Japanese government evidently realized the necessity of
having an exceptionally
strong representation in Seoul, for Count Inouye arrived
on the 20th of October
and assumed the duties of minister. He had more than
once helped to straighten
out matters in Korea and he had the confidence of the
king and of the people as
well. No better appointment could have been made under
the circumstances.
The
end of October was signalized by the murder of Kim
Hak-u, the vice-Minister of
Law, who was one of the strongest and best men that the
reform movement had
brought to the front. He was stabbed at night in his
house.
The
month of November witnessed some progress in the
reconstruction of the
government. The pardon of Pak Yong-hyo had been the sign
for a general amnesty
to all those who had forfeited their rights in 1884. Su
Cha-p’il, known better
as Dr. Philip Jaisohn, who had been many years in
America and had become a
naturalized citizen of that country, had come back to
Korea quietly and was
awaiting an opportunity to make himself useful. Su
Kwang-bom had also come back
from exile in Japan and others who had been kept
sedulously in the background
because of their liberal tendencies all came forward and
received recognition
by the king and Were put again in line of political
preferment. So rapid was
the progress of this movement that by the middle of
December the king found
himself moved to form a new cabinet composed almost
entirely of men who had
been foremost in the attempt of 1884, as the following
list will show. The
Ministers were Kim Hong-jip, Yu Kil-jun, Pak Yonghyo, Su
Kwang-bom, Cho
Heui-yon. Sin Keui-siin, Um Seyung, O Yun-jung. Kim
Yun-sik, Pak Chong-yang and
Yi Cha-myun. At the same time Dr. Jaisohn was employed
as adviser to the Privy
Council for a term of ten years.
This
era of change also affected the Korean Army. The various
regiments in Seoul,
numbering five, had heretofore been under wholly
independent and separate
commands but now they were all placed in the hands of
the War Department, their
names were changed and many men were dropped [page 288]
because of age and younger men
were appointed in their places. The tactics that had
been taught were given up
and the Japanese tactics were introduced instead. .
We
have referred to the Privy Council. This was an advisory
board or council
composed of some forty men whose business it was to take
up and discuss all
important government matters, and it was supposed to
have a sort of veto power.
It exercised this power for about three years but lost
it when the Independence
Club was overthrown. The entire personnel of this
Council was progressive and
pro-Japanese. There can be no question that the
machinery was now all complete
whereby Korea could be governed properly. There was no
great obstacle in the
way. All that was needed was that no serious blunders
should be made and that
the Japanese should act firmly but wisely. At the same
time there was a strong
pressure being exerted behind the scenes in the opposite
direction and, as we
shall see, not without effect. And so the year 1894 came
to a close and the new
year opened with great promise of better things to come.
On the fifth of the new
year the king went to the Ancestral Temple and in the
most solemn manner took
an oath to carry out the reforms already determined upon
and partly
inaugurated. It is unnecessary to give this oath in full
but only to enumerate
the principal points. After a long preamble in which the
king declares his
intention to uphold the government as an independent one
he guarantees
specifically that —
(1)
All thought of dependence on China shall be put away.
(2)
The line of succession and rank in the Royal Family
shall
be clearly marked.
(3) The King
shall attend to public business in person and in
consultation with his
ministers, and the Queen shall not interfere in
government matters.
(4) The
affairs of the Royal Household shall be kept quite
distinct from the general
government.
(5) The duties
of Ministers and other oflficials shall be clearly
defined.
(6)
Taxes shall be regulated by law and additions to them
are forbidden.
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
JULY, 1904,
Japanese
Industrial Projects in Korea.
The request
which the Japanese have made for agricultural and other
industrial privileges
in the interior of Korea opens up a very large and very
important question,
important both for Japan and for Korea. It will be
difficult to find precedents
for it in the pages of international law, and recourse
can be had only to
general principles. It may be said in a general way that
every land owes to the
world the development of its resources. This is
especially true of agricultural
resources, for whereas a country might be justified
under certain circumstances
in delaying the development of its mineral resources on
the ground that they
are definitely limited and therefore exhaustible such
argument cannot be urged
in excuse for allowing arable land to lie permanently
fallow, for if properly
cultivated it forms an inexhaustible resource. By
withholding it from use, the
country deprives the world of a source of food supply
without in any way
benefitting herself thereby.
For
many centuries Korea has been in the enviable position
of having a food supply
far larger per capita than any other Oriental country.
But on this point a few
facts must be given. It is perhaps not generally known
that the amount of land
under cultivation today in Korea is very much less than
fifteen years ago; and
this in spite of a constant increase in population. The
cause of this is
manifold. In the first place the constant increase [page 290]
in population has called for a larger and larger supply
of building material and fuel. This has accelerated the
deforestation of the
country and this in turn has caused an enormous waste in
the water supply. The
rain flows off the hillsides rapidly, causing floods
which overwhelm the rice
lands with sand and rubble and at the same time denude
the slopes of all vegetation,
rendering the work of reforestation next to impossible.
In
the second place it is estimated by fairly competent
Koreans that as a result
of tonghak depredations during the past decade 30,000
kyui of land have been
abandoned. This represents several million bags of rice
deducted from the
annual yield. The province of Chul-la has suffered the
most from this cause and
has come near to surrendering its proud title of “Garden
of Korea.”
In
the third place there has been a gradual deterioration
in the thrift and
diligence of the people. Whether this has been caused by
official indirection
does not affect our argument; suffice it to say that the
average Korean of
today appears to have less incentive to strenuous
exertion than formerly. We
believe that the causes of this deplorable fact lie
largely outside the
individual Korean and are easily susceptible of
rectification, but of that
later.
Now
from all these causes combined, of which the first is
doubtless the most
important, we see that the margin of cultivation in
Korea, so far from being on
the rise is constantly on the decrease; instead of
steadily creeping up the
valleys and adding new land to the cultivated area the
Koreans arc coming back
down the valley’s and abandoning the less productive
areas to mother nature.
Now
let us glance at another phase of the question and ask
how the Koreans have
responded to the live demand for agricultural produce
made by Japan, to what
extent she has accepted the invitation to exert her
latent energies in the
supplying of raw material to Japanese manfacturers. The
answer is a lamentable
one. The Koreans have never grasped the significance of
passing events. They
have been absolutely blind to their opportunities and so
far from leaping to
the opportunity they [page 291]
have had to be coaxed and wheedled into accepting even
the cream of that
opportunity. Had the Koreans been possessed of even a
fair degree of enterprise
we should long since have seen their capitalists joining
hands and formulating
a hundred reasonable plans for taking this tide of
opportunity at the flood.
The establishment of cotton manufactories in Japan would
have been the signal
for putting in ten thousand acres in cotton in the
peninsula, and careful and
exhaustive experiments with seeds brought from Egypt,
America and other
successful cotton growing countries. But instead of all
this we see the Koreans
universally howling because the export of rice and beans
has raised the price
of food stuffs at home. They sigh for the good old days
and hanker for the
fleshpots of Egypt.
And
yet is there nothing to be said for him? He knows
nothing about the
interrelationship of supply and demand. He sees no
connection between Japanese
industrial enterprise and Korean agricultural produce.
He sees and knows nothing
beyond the hills that bound his vision. He has no faith
in any man. He
distrusts any medium of exchange that does not represent
in itself intrinsic
value. Within the limited range of his observation he is
ready and quick to
take advantage of enlarged opportunity and he is a keen
judge of relative
values. His whole training goes to prove that
combinations of capital are as a
rule but traps to catch his money and finally leave him
in the lurch. The
investment of capital is so precarious that there is no
inducement in it
unless, as in a lottery, a man has a chance to double
his money in a year’s
time. The trouble lies not in lack of energy nor in
innate laziness but in
crass ignorance and in suspicion bred of long centuries
of indirection. If he
could be educated up to his privileges and his mind
could be broadened so as to
grasp something more than his immediate environment he
would equal the Japanese
in every line excepting, perhaps, that of art.
It
is necessary to take this brief survey of the status of
affairs in Korea in
order to understand the drift of these new currents. If
the Koreans were wide
awake [page 292] and
anxious to improve their opportunities, and if the
margin of cultivation were
steadily, even if slowly, on the rise things would look
less dark for the
Koreans; but with everything going to the bad,
agriculture languishing, the
people wholly apathetic and hundreds of thousands of
acres of land withdrawn
from cultivation, it looks seriously as if Korea were
not fulfilling her duty
to society in general, and there is some cause for
Japan’s complaint. If Korea
will not cultivate her land herself someone else is sure
to do it; but if she
refuses she cannot complain if someone else does it for
her. Shall we call it
The International Law of Eminent Domain? It follows the
primal law of the
survival of the fittest, whose moral side is expressed
in the words—To him who
hath (energy to develop resource) shall more (resource)
be given, but from him
who hath not (such energy) shall be taken even that
(resource) which he hath.
On
the Japanese side, as well, there are some facts to be
noted. Korea is
recognized as an independent government by the treaty
powers, who have
established legations at Seoul. The Japanese government
has guaranteed the
continuance of that independence. The mere preponderance
of Japanese influence
in Seoul does not necessarily impair the independence of
the Korean government.
But the very pertinent question arises whether the
attainment by the Japanese
of their object in opening the uncultivated areas of
Korea to Japanese
enterprise will not necessarily put an end even to the
nominal independence of
the country. There are those who say, and with some
reason, that this act on
the part of the Japanese is the finger-writing on the
wall “Thou hast been
weighed in the balance and found wanting,” and that it
will necessarily be
followed by the declaration of a protectorate. There are
others who believe
that if properly carried out it need not mean the
obliteration of Korea as a
co-ordinate treaty power. There is very little use in
taking any sentimental
ground in this matter. The fact that Korea has had an
autonomous government for
three thousand years, that she supplies Japan with many
of her most cherished
ideals, that here we have one of the most ancient [page 293] of extant civilizations —
none of these things weigh in the balance. Might not the
same or similar things
be said of India, of Egypt, of Poland, in greater or
less degree? And yet all
these, for one cause or other forfeited their moral
right to autonomous
existence. To those who have known Korea intimately and
who have identified
themselves with her life and growth it seems a pity, and
yet their view is
circumscribed by personal considerations. They must take
the larger broader view
and recognize that these sentimental considerations must
give way before larger
interests. Who knows but that under the changed
conditions the lot of the
Korean people as individuals might be much better than
it is now?
Now
let us inquire what things are included in this new
policy of colonization in
Korea. To bring their margin of cultivation up to the
point that it has reached
in Japan or in China would require the labor of at least
a half million of
laborers. It is more than likely that from the very
first the Japanese would
employ Korean labor to a considerable extent in carrying
out the work,
especially during the time that will be required in
“breaking” the virgin soil
and in making the embankments for rice fields. There can
be no reasonable doubt
that all this will give a great impetus to Korean labor.
And, moreover, the
improved methods which the Japanese will introduce will
be object lessons to
the Koreans and we may confidently expect to see a new
impetus given to the
native agriculture and a consequent increase of
production. But this
considerable influx of Japanese population will also
create a lively demand for
numberless other commodities which the Koreans produce,
such at paper, hemp,
oils, beef, and other non-agricultural products. The
stimulus will be felt in
every direction and there is reason to believe that a
healthful emulation will
be aroused which will do much to counteract the slovenly
habits of the Koreans.
In
spite of many objections which may be urged we are able
to imagine a state of
things which would do Korea an immense amount of good.
It must be remembered
that a settled farming class of Japanese would be far
different from the
coolies who engaged in work upon the [page
294]
railroads here. The latter have nothing in common with
the Koreans among whom they work, and exasperate them to
the last degree by
their harshness, and the Koreans have no place to appeal
against the rough
treatment which they receive; but in an agricultural
community all this would
be changed and as a rule the Japanese and Korean farmers
would live at peace
with each other. This depends, of course, upon the
method by which the Japanese
colonists will be governed. And here we come to the crux
of the situation.
It
cannot be expected that the Japanese will submit to
native Korean government.
Under present administrative conditions this would be
impossible. There would
have to be some sort of consular jurisdiction which
would work in conjunction,
and in harmony, with the country prefectural
governments, and the Japanese
should give the Koreans clearly to understand that they
had a perfect right to
cite any Japanese subject before a joint prefectural
court to right any
grievance which they may have, and the Japanese settlers
should be clearly
instructed that before the law the Korean has precisely
the same rights that
the Japanese has. If this were done and the Koreans were
shown that this
colonization did not mean an opportunity for Japanese to
maltreat the natives
with impunity, all would go well.
One
of the greatest sources of difficulty will be the
regulation of the water
supply. The growth of rice depends entirely upon this
supply and as the fallow
lands lie, as a rule, further up the valleys than the
cultivated lands there
will be many nice questions to be decided as to water
rights. It would be a
monstrous wrong if the colonists shold divert the
present water supply away
from the fields already under cultivation by Koreans and
yet this will be the
constant temptation, especially in times of drought. But
there need be no
trouble on this score if the Japanese are made to find
or make supplementary
sources of water supply which will make it unnecessary
to encroach upon the
Koreans. This is the most discouraging point in the
whole discussion but of its
absolute necessity there can be no doubt, or at least [page 295]
there will be no doubt as soon as the Koreans see their
water supply diverted to the fields of Japanese. They
will fight to the death
before they will submit to such injustice. It is very
customary for the
foreigner to judge of the Korean by what he sees of him
in Seoul but it must be
remembered that the supineness of the average yangban
and the plasticity of the
average official give no indication of the temper of the
common man, the hard
working farmer. He is capable of becoming distinctly
dangerous, and while he
would in time be put down by force of arms he could keep
the colonizing work of
the Japanese in continual chaos for the next fifty
years. If he is grievously
wronged this will be the result; if he is treated fairly
all may go well. With
a fair-minded Japanese agent working in conjunction with
each prefect in whose
district there are Japanese colonists, and a guarantee
of eqality of rights
before the law, it is probable that in most, places all
would move along
quietly. The question is whether the Japanese government
has at its disposal
the requisite number of men of the necessary judicial
quality to carry on this
delicate work. Unfortunately the class of Japanese with
whom the Koreans have
come in contact in the interior have led the natives to
the conclusion that
their rights will receive scant recognition. This at the
very start is a heavy
handicap to the Japanese, must be overcome before the
Japanese and Koreans will
be able to live side by side in peace.
Whether
the Koreans could offer serious opposition to the
success of this colonization
project will be seen from the following considerations.
In most manufacturing
industries the plant is all in one place and susceptible
of careful guardianship,
but the farmers’ fields stretch out over a large area,
the population is
relatively sparse and a determined enemy outnumbering
the Japanese ten to one
could commit nightly acts of depredation that would ruin
his prospects and
drive him from the soil. It would take an army of police
in every prefecture to
make the colonist safe. Who does not know that a
standing crop is the most
easily ruined of any form of wealth? His very field of
grain will be the Japanese
[page 296]
colonist’s hostage and guarantee of good behavior.
We
believe that if this project is put in operation it will
have to be done very
gradually indeed. If it is hurried the natural and
violent prejudices of the
Koreans will drive them to instant reprisals and violent
methods will have to
be adopted. This in the nature of things will intensify
the prejudice and will
veto any lasting results. But, on the other hand, if the
Japanese should select
a dozen prefectures or so, place a thoroughly honest and
judicious agent in
each who will assure the Koreans of protection against
wrong, let him have the
power to veto illegal taxation of the Koreans themselves
and be a check upon
the prefectural ajuns, and in a few years we would find
the people of every
prefecture in the country begging that such an agent be
placed in their
districts as well. It would prove an object-lesson in
government as well as in
agriculture. The people would get a taste of fair
government, they would feel
the incentive that comes from added self-respect and
from the feeling of security
in the possession of their hard-earned wealth; and the
day would not be far
distant when the Japanese government would find itself
able to hand back the
keys of government to the Koreans, confident of their
ability to profit by the
lessons that they had learned. This might take ten years
or twenty. We doubt if
it would take more.
Since
writing the above we see, from the daily paper in Seoul,
that the Japanese
authorities who made the request for the use of the
fallow lands intend that by
far the greater part of the labor is to be done by
Koreans, but under the
direction of Japanese, and it is distinctly denied that
this is a scheme for
colonization. This we consider to be a very happy augury
though whether this
proviso is caused by the commotion which was raised by
the original proposition
or whether such was the original intention it is hard to
say. There can be only
one voice in regard to the proposal to open up the
untilled land of the
peninsula. It must prove a great benefit to the country.
If the work is done at
Japanese expense of course the Japanese will claim the
usufruct of the land and
of course [page 297]
the difficulties in regard to water supply will be the
same as if the Japanese
settlers came in force; but the absence of any large
Japanese farming class
will make the solution of all other difficulties
comparatively easy. There is
one matter that should receive careful attention. The
Korean government obtains
almost all its revenue from the land tax, and the
Japanese should be made to understand
that this new land will properly be subject to precisely
the same taxation as
other land. This is all the more reasonable when we note
that the use of the
land will be free to the Japanese so far as rent or
lease is concerned. There
is no reason however why it should be tax-free as well
as rent-free. If the
land does not pay taxes the Japanese will simply be
taking the land without
giving any thing at all as exchange. This is the least
the Korean government
ought to expect in compensation for this valuable
concession. There are those
who will claim that this concession is much like that of
the Russians on the
Yalu, but to our mind there is a distinct difference.
That meant simply the
cutting off of the valuable timber which has a large and
immediate market value
highly in excess of the labor required to market it and
which cannot be
replaced when once cut, while the other is an attempt to
work up a new and
permanent source of wealth which will afford a perennial
income. One adds to
the assets of the country. The other subtracts from
them. But, as we have said,
there are grave difficulties to be overcome and
obstacles to be surmounted
before the scheme can be carried to a conclusion. There
should be a campaign of
education not only among the Koreans of the common class
but among the Japanese
of the same class as well. If the Koreans must be taught
that peaceful
enterprise of the Japanese in Korea cannot hurt them,
the Japanese must also be
taught that the Koreans have exactly as good a right to
personal protection and
immunity from petty assault as the Japanese themselves,
and there are some who
think the lower ranks of the Japanese will take a lot of
teaching along this
line. We can clearly foresee that if they are not so
taught, there will be
trouble.
[page
298]
Meum et Tuum.
Two gentlemen
sat in a room in Seoul discussing a rather delicate
matter. One was Mr. Yo, or,
by interpretation, Mr. Law, and the other was Mr. Yu
which means, of course,
Mr. Willow. There relationship was not an unusual one.
Mr. Law was a
blue-blooded yangban, the blueness of his blood being
increased, it may be, by
the fact that in spite of his fine house he had so
little money that he could
not buy enough food to supply red corpuscles to his
vital fluid. For this
reason he had been driven to taking in boarders, that is
he had let a comer of
his house to Mr. Willow for a consideration. This Mr.
Willow seemed always
supplied with money but he was silent as to the source
from whence he obtained
it.
They
were now seated in the tenant’s sarang
and Mr. Willow was urging his landlord to strike for the
position of prefect in
the country. Mr. Law agreed to the suggestion in the
abstract but objected that
he had not a single cash wherewith to urge his claims
upon the Home Minister
who had charge of these administrative .plums.
“But
don’t
let a little thing like that stand in your way. How
much will it take to give piquancy to your claim?’’
“I
suppose a hundred thousand would move his heart, but
this sum is nowhere in
sight.”
Mr.
Willow unlocked his ponderous pandaje
and counted out the necessary sum.
“Take
this and secure an appointment. I cannot see such talent
as yours wasted in
merely playing chess with me as you do every day.”
Who
ever heard of a Korean yangban accepting a loan! But Mr.
Willow insisted and
Mr. Law succumbed to the tempter. The next day he had
his commission in hand
but
[page 299]
“I can’t go without a secretary,
and I know no one to ask to accompany to me.” Mr. Willow
smiled.
“Perhaps
I would do.”
“You!”
exclaimed the prefect-elect in an embarassed tone. “I
have known you only a few weeks, and it would be — well,
anything but
conventional.”
“But
there are considerations that sometimes compensate for
such irregularities,”
said Mr. Willow glanc ing significantly toward the chest
from which the money
had been provided. Mr. Law saw the force of the argument
and with a show of
cordiality offered his tenant the position.
A
week later the prefect in his two-man chair and his
secretary on a donkey rode
up in state to the prefectural buildings in the little
fourth class district to
which they had been accredited, and Mr. Law took over
the keys of office.
For
a time all went well, but Mr. Law thought more of chess
and his pipe than he
did of administering the government of his district and
gradually he fell in
arrears in his accounts with the central government. The
revenue due to be paid
in Seoul had a way of finding its way into his private
purse and thence by
various avenues into the hands of the shop-keepers,
wine-merchants and other
purveyors to his magisterial comfort. The official
communications from Seoul
began to take on a critical tone and one fine day Mr.
Law was dismayed to learn
that another prefect had been appointed in his place and
ten days of grace was
all that lay between himself and open disgrace.
During
the year that had elapsed one of the ajuns or
prefectural clerks had been
taking advantage of his manifest opportunities and had
extorted enormous sums
from the people and filled his store-house with valuable
goods. At this painful
juncture Mr. Willow, his confidential secretary, stood
in the breach and by a
plan, all his own, extricated his patron from his
painful position. It was late
one night when Mr. Willow pushed back the chess pieces
and said :
“There
is only one way out of the woods, Mr. Law, [page 300]
and I fear you will have to take that way however much
it may shock your ideas of propriety. Come with me. I
have something to show
you.” The bewildered prefect followed his guide and soon
they brought up in the
rear of the afore-mentioned ajun’s well-filled
store-house. To the prefect’s
horror Mr. Willow proceeded to make a hole in the wall,
and he worked with such
evident experience and to such good purpose that Mr. Law
soon saw the
explanation of Willow’s ready money. The hole was now
large enough to admit the
body of a man, and Mr. Willow, brushing the dust from
his hands, bade the
prefect enter, which he did on all fours, thinking
perhaps that he would simply
feast his eyes upon the ajun’s wealth and then retire.
The
first thing their eyes rested on was a generous jar of
wine, which Mr, Willow
proceeded to sample. It was of prime quality, and before
long the prefect had
forgotten everything and between bowls was humning to
himself a ditty whose free
interpretation would have been “We won’t go home till
morning.” Nor did he, as
the sequel shows. About two o’clock Mr. Willow left him
in a drunken stupor on
the floor and climbing to the roof lay down and began
making curious noises
which soon brought the occupants of the house to their
feet. They investigated
and found the doughty prefect in sweet slumber beside
the half empty jar of
wine. There was no hesitation as to the method of his
disposal. A great leather
bag was brought, the unconscious prefect was tumbled in,
and ten minutes later
the bag and its queer contents were tied to a huge tree
that grew in the
prefect’s yard. The morrow would show what it would
show.
Soon
all was still again, the graceful Willow glided off the
roof and showed by his
actions that the night’s work was not completed. He
glided around the ajun’s
house till he came to the room where the bed-ridden and
speechless grandmother
of the latter reposed. By arts known to the brotherhood
he soon had the door
open and in almost as little time as it takes to tell he
had the aged person on
his back and was speeding toward the big tree.
[page 301]
The transfer took but a moment and after the prefect had
been taken to the well
and treated to a few buckets of cold water, externally,
night reigned once more
undisturbed.
The
early morning beheld an unusual stir in the town. The
ajun was busy calling the
people out to witness the sight of a life-time. In his
excitement his mangun
was loosened and his hair flew
about his face. Followed by an excited crowd he came
into the courtyard of the
prefect’s house. Big and little, old and young, came
crowding after him with
mouth agape.
“There,”
cried the ajun, striking a tragic attitude and pointing
toward the bag, “I have
caught the thief and I will have him paddled to a pulp,
even if he is the prefect.
What?
could it be that the prefect was in that bag? The crowd
stood transfixed. With
trembling hands the ajun tore open the mouth of the bag
and, spurning it with
his foot, rolled it over and over. Out came the
venerable form of his
grandmother, while at the same moment the prefect,
dressed in his most imposing
uniform, and showing no signs of the night’s
entertainment except a certain
suffusion of the eye, stepped out and inquired what the
disturbance was all
about.
The
crowd stood open-mouthed and the horrified ajun was
transfixed with amazement
at the sight of his honored grandmother whereas he had
expected to unmask the
prefect.
The
latter loudly ordered the yard cleared and then calling
in the ajun smoothly
informed him that justice could be compounded for by the
payment of five
million cash or $2,000. What was there to do? The whole
village were witnesses
of his undoing and the ajun meekly paid the fine and
made his way homeward with
his grandmother on his back. The prefect and his
secretary packed up and left
forthwith. All of this goes to prove that knavery may
prove the antidote to
knavery, for the ajun had amassed his fortune by means
as questionable as those
by which he was relieved of it.
[page
302]
The Russo-Japanese War.
The past month
has seen little of importance in Russian operations in
Korea. It is still as
difficult as ever to guess what possible use this
worrying of the Koreans can
be to the Russian cause in general. It is not done on a
large enough scale to
detach any of the Japanese forces from direct operations
in Manchuria but it is
difficult to believe that there is no definite plan
behind it. We shall have to
wait developments before we can see what they are really
up to.
The
only incident of any particular importance has been the
wanton bombardment of
the treaty port of Wonsan and this was important only
because of the
inconvenience it caused the people living there. It had
no influence whatever
on the war itself but it illustrated, as perhaps no
other incident has done so
clearly, the Russian disregard for the courtesies of
civilized warfare. We give
an account of the affair from the standpoint of a
foreign eye-witness.
About
five o’clock on the morning of June 30th seven Russian
torpedo-boats entered
the harbor of Wonsan. Five of them stopped some distance
out but two came near
the customs schooner, a boat was lowered and some
Russian officers boarded her.
Mr. Thorson of the customs customarily sleeps or board
the schooner, and he was
closely questioned by the Russians. They insisted on
being shown the location
of the Japanese consulate, barracks and telegraph
office, but Mr. Thorson was
not there for the purpose of supplying the Russians with
information and all
they learned was the rather unsatisfactory information
that these buildings
were not in sight. He willingly pointed out, however,
the foreigners’
residences and the Chinese quarter. The Russians
apparently intended to spare
these portions of the town if they found it convenient.
Of
course the Japanese residents were immediately aware of
the situation although
the Russians took no [page 303]
pains to inform them or warn them of danger, and hasty
preparations were made
throughout the Japanese settlement for immediate
removal, but the people had no
idea that the ball would open without giving
non-combatants time to remove to a
place of safety. When, therefore, the Russians began to
shell the place an hour
after their arrival it took the people unawares, and
naturally a panic ensued.
Women and children cannot be expected to stand quietly
and be shot at. The
streets were immediately filled with a struggling,
panting, screaming crowd of
men women and children some trying to carry a bundle of
their valuables and
others throwing everything aside in the mad rush to get
out of range of those
terrible missiles. Our informant lived on the hill
facing the bund and coming
out on his verandah he saw the pitiful sight in the
streets below. He heard the
shell whizzing through the air and one of them fell just
outside his gate. It
failed to explode and he went out and secured it,
finding it be a four pound
shell. He then hurried away to the houses of some other
foreigners to learn if
any damage had been done, for the Russians were firing
wildly and without any
regard to the position of foreigners’ houses. In about
half an hour there was a
cessation of the firing, but the respite was only a
short one. The Russians
opened up again but this time at a large Japanese
schooner that was entering
the harbor with a full cargo. They set fire to her and
she burned all that day
and the following night. A newspaper man who was in the
town told him that he
had counted 276 shots in all.
Some
of the shells went over the town and struck in the
valley two or three miles
back. Several struck near the house of Pastor Fenwick
and at other points in
the environs of Wonsan. It seemed as if the Russians
were trying to find the
Japanese barracks but did not know where to aim. Strange
to say, with all this
firing no one was killed or even wounded. Besides the
schooner which was burned
a small Japanese steam launch was sunk. Many shots were
fired into the
warehouses along the shore but very little damage was
done. The foreigners in [page
304]
their exposed position on the hill had no time to get
away and so remained
perforce and watched the novel scene. They all felt very
much outraged that a
Russian fleet should come in and bombard an unfortified
port without giving the
least notice of their intentions.
From
their outlook on the hill they watched the torpedo-boats
go out and join the
Russia, Gramoim, Rurik and a collier which came up from
behind an island. All
sailed off southward at about eleven o’clock. The people
in Won-san think that
thay have a right to expect a periodical visit from this
fleet until such time
as it falls in with the Japanese squadron, after which
they fear no more
trouble.
It
is unnecessary to comment on this wanton violation of
international usage. To
scare women and children out of their wits and send them
in a wild and
breathless chase out of a peaceful settlement does not
appeal to our ideas of
chivalrous warfare. It can do nothing to cripple the
enemy’s fighting force,
and can only invite reprisals. We doubt very much,
however, whether even this
wanton cruelty would so exasperate the Japanese as to
make them forget the
ordinary decencies of modem warfare. It is no credit to
the Russians that
scores of these innocent women and children were not
killed. It merely
emphasises the bad marksmanship of the Russians. We
shall be surprised if a
strong protest is not made by those foreign Powers whose
subjects were
imperilled by this wanton exhibition of brutality.
The
life of a Korean official in northeastern Korea must be
anything but pleasant.
He has to sit and see his people plundered without being
able to lift a hand in
opposition. He even has to act as an instrument of the
Russians in collecting
plunder for them. He cannot help him, and yet he knows
all the time that every
ounce of aid he gives the Russians will add pounds to
the punishment that will
be meted out to him at Seoul. The Russians built a
bridge across the Tuman and
occupied Korean territory in the vicinity with some
thousands of their troops,
according to Korean reports which may exaggerate
anywhere from three to ten
fold. The rains [page 305]
swelled the river and washed away the bridge, we hear,
which must have been of
the frailest kind. It is said that the Russians were
short of clothing and so
appropriated Korean men’s and women’s garments but they
soon got so filthy that
even the Koreans were disgusted at them.
Odds and Ends.
The Ten
Thousand Year Bridge
The great
bridge at Ham-heung which the playful Russians partly
destroyed a few weeks ago
is considered quite a wonder by the Koreans. It is their
“Tay Bridge” or “Brooklyn
Bridge.” It is about half a mile long and crosses the
wide sandy bed of a
stream that fills its banks only during the rainy
season. It is built on wooden
pillars and during most of the year it has, like the old
time London Bridge,
many houses or shops built upon it. These are all taken
away however upon the
approach of the rainy reason. In the hot summer nights
many people go out and
sleep on the bridge and more than once sudden storms
among the mountains have
swollen the stream so suddenly that it has been partly
swept away before the
sleepers were aware of their danger. Its curious name
came from the following
incident : A gentleman of Ham-heung had an only son who
was the pride of his
heart. The lad’s name was Man-se ** or “Thousand year,”
or “generation.” The
boy was standing on the bridge one day looking down into
the water, when he
lost his balance fell in and was drowned —the father was
inconsolable and the
fatatily made such an impression on the people that they
always spoke of the
bridge as the place where Man-se was drowned. So it came
to be called the
Man-se-kyo or “Ten Thousand Year Bridge.” The pillars
that uphold the bridge
are natural forked timbers sunk in the sand and in the
crotches of these lie
the cross pieces. The floor of the bridge is made of
squared timbers seven
inches thick laid [page 306]
side by side and tied together with the tough Korean
vine called chik.
The bridge is so little elevated
above the ordinary surface of the water that portions of
it are washed away
almost every year. As its repair devolves upon the
Government and the contract
nets a handsome profit to the builders the annual fall
of this bridge is looked
upon as one of the good things of the season by many a
thrifty carpenter, and a
slight rainy season is looked upon as something of a
misfortune.
Editorial
Comment.
It has been
many years since Seoul has enjoyed so startling a
sensation as that which
followed upon the Japanese request that the uncultivated
lands of Korea be
turned over to Japan for exploitation. We do not propose
to discuss the etlhics
of the proposition. The foreign public and the Koreans
have so fully made up
their minds on that point that it requires no mention,
but we may be permitted
to examine into some of the causes for the panic which
seems to have seized all
Korean officialdom in view of the request of the
Japanese.
We have before intimated in
the Review
that the Koreans are very
interested and very keen observers of the actions of the
Japanese and of the
Russians in view of the contest now being carried on.
They do not have much to
say by way of definite opinion but their interests are
too greately at stake
for them to be at all apathetic as to the result. As a
rule the Korean is glad
that Japan is proving victorious in the fight. He is
passionately desirous that
neither Russian nor Japanese shall have more than
advisory power in the
peninsula and his leaning toward Japan has been simply
because he had weighed
the chances so far as he could and had come to the
conclusion that the Japanese
would be less likely to encroach upon Korean sovereignty
than the Russians
would be. Ever since 1876 Japan has stood up for the
independence of Korea and
in spite of minor mistakes [page 307]
has given the Korean reason to believe that that
independence will be upheld.
The treaty of Shimonoseki embodied the idea; the
Japanese agreement with Russia
clearly stated it; the terms of the Anglo-Japanese
alliance reiterated it; the
protocol of last winter between Korea and Japan
guaranteed it. It has always
been and we believe is now a fixture in Japan’s policy
anent Korea, The Koreans
as a rule believed this and gave the Japanese their
tacit sympathy in their
fight against Russia. But all the time they have been
keenly on the watch to
see to what extent Japan would swerve from this policy
under stress of
circumstances. They did not object to the Japanese
armies landing here and
traversing the country in pursuit of the Russians. They
did not object to the
granting of the fisheries concession on the northwest
coast, for the Japanese
pointed out that this was necessary in order to help
feed the armies at work in
Manchuria,
But
now that the war has passed on across the border the
Japanese authorities,
without any mention of military necessity, ask the
Korean Government to turn
over to them the fallow lands of the entire kingdom. The
Korean stands aghast
at the magnitude of the demand and asks what Japan has
done for Korea or what
she proposes to do as an equivalent for this concession.
He can see nothing
that will begin to compensate Korea for the loss of what
he believes to be one
half the area of his country. The natural suspiciousness
of his nature leads
him to the instant conclusion that this is a wanton
aggression. Now we have
pointed out elsewhere that Korea owes it to the Japanese
and to the world at
large to develop these resources, to put this potential
wealth into
circulation. The miser is a foe to society in that he
keeps money out of
circulation. The same is measurably true of any land
which persistently allows
arable soil to lie fallow. The Japanese have done much
for Korea and it is only
fair that Korea should do this much for Japan especially
since in the doing of
it she will benefit herself even more than Japan. So far
Japan is well within
her rights, but the Korean is [page 308]
not educated up to the point where he can recognize that
he owes anything to
the world at large. Moral obligation weighs very lightly
on his conscience. He
sees in this move nothing but wanton aggression. Hence
the panic.
But
the question arises whether it is true that all that
Japan wants is that this
land be put under cultivation so that Japan may have an
enlarged food and raw
material supply. If so she would be as well satisfied if
the Koreans themselves
should develop it as if she should do it herself The
product in food stuffs and
raw material would be practically the same. If this were
her object the obvious
course for her to have pursued would have been to
approach the Korean government
with a friendly proposition urging that the Koreans loe
encouraged to undertake
the work and offering to aid by finding a part of the
necessary capital, which
would of course be thoroughly secured. But if the
Japanese were convinced
beforehand that the Koreans would not carry out this
work and that if done it
must be done by Japanese, it would have been in place
for them to have asked to
be allowed to do it subject to some definite and
specified plan which would
have indicated clearly the scope of the work and the
limitations under which it
would be carried out, but instead of this they made a
general demand and left
the particulars to be worked out later. If Korea should
accede to such a demand
and grant the concession it would be like contracting
for the building of a
house and afterwards drawing up the specifications. The
fact that the demand
was pushed strongly and without waiting to formulate a
definite scheme has led
some to believe that it was the purpose of the Japanese
to secure the concession
and then use it as collateral on which to raise another
war loan. If so it
would have been better to have frankly said so for the
demand in the bare form
in which it was made was sure to be interpreted by the
Koreans as a direct
aggression. It was a proposition that needed to be made
in the most careful way
that human ingenuity could devise. But it may be asked
why it was necessary to [page
309]
put it in such a way as not to excite the people. If the
government should
acquiesce and the concession be definitely granted why
would not everything
move on as smoothly as did the railway or mining or
timber concessions? The
answer to this question brings us to the kernel of the
matter and lies embedded
in the very fiber of the Korean character. The Korean is
an agriculturist. You
may take his mines, his fisheries, his forests and yet
not touch him to the
quick, but his land is his very flesh and substance and
when you tamper with it
you flick him on the raw. The soil gives him his food
and drink, on it he rears
his house and in it he buries his dead. It is the only
thing that he will fight
for or has ever fought for. He may despise his central
government, hate his
local magistrate and sneer at the flag, but he loves the
soil with a passion
which makes up for all other seeming lapses. For this
reason we believe that
even though the government might grant the concession
and the Foreign Office
might affix its seal the work itself could never be
brought to a successful
issue without the acquiesence and good will of the
Korean people.
There
is reason to believe that the storm of remonstrance with
which the people met
the demand of the Japanese came as a great surprise to
the latter. There had
been a failure to gauge the feelings of the Koreans and
when the quiet attitude
of the disinterested onlooker changed in an hour to
fierce invective and
clamorous protest it was a revelation to the Japanese.
It showed conclusively
that the matter had been taken hold of at the wrong end,
and it is greatly to
the credit of the Japanese that they hastened to clear
themselves of the charge
of aggression. We understand that the original scheme
has been laid on the
table but that the Korean government has been asked to
formulate a
counter-proposal. In other words the Japanese hold, and
rightly, to the
necessity and propriety of insisting upon the
development of these latent
resources, and say in effect “If you will not permit us
to do it in our way it
is ‘up to you’ to suggest how it shall be done.” And it
is probable that this
point will be carried. The Japanese have offered to lend
the [page
310]Korean
government Y10,000,000 with which to establish
banking facilities throughout the country whereby a
beginning may be made and
we hope that it will be carried to a successful issue.
The trouble has always
been in such enterprises that after an enthusiastic
beginning the Koreans
rapidly lose interest in the undertaking and it comes to
nothing. The reason
for this is a lack of genuine business ability or
perhaps only of business
training. The Korean is apt to look askance upon any
business enterprise that
will not double his money in a year. He prefers great
risks and great profits
to safe business and small profits. In this the Koreans
need to take a lesson
from the Chinese. It will be necessary therefore for the
Japanese to stand back
of the undertaking and hold the Koreans strictly to the
work if it is once
begun, or else it will end as so many government
industrial projects have ended
in Korea.
Now
that the Japanese authorities have, by their prompt
recognition of the
insuperable obstacles to the carrying out of the
original proposition, shown
their continued regard for the integrity of Korean
territory the excitement
will be completely allayed. The whole difficulty arose
from the Koreans’ lack
of knowledge of the Japanese intentions. Now that it is
clear that there will
be no arbitrary seizure of land the Koreans will soon be
brought to a point
where they will recognize the necessity of developing
their waste land and
bringing the country measurably up to its producing
capacity. What
counter-proposition the government will make we do not
pretend to guess but
that some good understanding will be reached we do not
doubt.
There
appear to us to be two preliminary steps that must be
taken before the
development of the fallow lands be well begun. The
monetary system must be put
on a firm basis so that the rapid fluctuation of
exchange will not make
business a mere lottery, and the administration of the
prefectural governments
must be purged of many evils which now stand as a bar to
the exercise of thrift
and energy on the part of the farming classes. The
common people who till the
land must receive an absolute
[page 311]
guarantee that they shall be taxed only to some definite
and known extent and
that they shall be permanently freed from the system of
extra and irregular
taxation which has prevailed from time immemorial. This
is no small
undertaking, but until it is done we see no possibility
of a successful
development of the agricultural resources of the
country. Some way must be
found whereby the prefects themselves shall voluntarily
forego their enormous
perquisites or whereby they can be checked in the
exercise of these illegal or
at least extralegal prerogatives. It has been said that
the Koreans have not
the energy to develop these waste lands, but give them
the absolute assurance
that they shall be thoroughly protected in the use of
profits which will accrue
from such development and it would not be five years
before the area under
cultivation would be increased from thirty to fifty per
cent. In our opinion
the Japanese should bend their energies to the solution
of these necessary
questions and then it will be found that the others will
solve themselves. It
would be interesting to know how many foreigners have
been approached by
Koreans with propositions looking toward the artificial
irrigation of large
tracts of land. The Koreans themselves are eager for the
reclamation of those
lands but they want the cooperation of the foreigner,
for his connection with
it would prevent official squeezes, at least so the
Koreans believe. This being
so, the Japanese can confidently expect the development
of these resources just
so soon as they can bring about reforms in the
administration of government
which will insure to the laborer the enjoyment of the
profits of his labor. We
believe that such is the intention of the Japanese
government and that it will
be carried out speedily, and that in spite of the
unfortunate misunderstanding
that has arisen the Koreans, secure in the possession of
their own land, will
willingly cooperate with the Japanese in effecting the
necessary reforms.
During
the past weeks the foreign element in Korea has been led
into the expression of
very strong sentiments regarding the Japanese demands.
We believe these have [page
312]
been caused more because of genuine sympathy with the
real interests of Japan
than out of an unfriendly spirit. It has been felt that
she was jeopardizing
her own position and widening the gulf between herself
and the Korean people,
whereas she should be doing everything to bridge it. We
believe that the
outspoken opposition of foreigners generally has done
much to modify the
position of the Japanese and to show to them the danger
of unnecessarily
antogonizing the deepseated prejudices of the Korean
people. We have heretofore
expressed the sentiment that Japan has, in some senses,
a more difficult job in
handling Korea than in whipping the Russians. The latter
is a military
enterprise for which the Japanese are equipped both by
natural aptitude and by
diligent training but the former is one that calls for a
different and in a
sense, higher qualification. The handling of an alien
people so sensitive as
the Koreans is a task that will require all the patience
and tact that has
characterised the work of the British in India and
perhaps more since Japan
claims no such administrative hold upon Korea as Great
Britain has upon India.
To uphold the independence and integrity of Korea, hold
in check the
acquisitiveness of a certain class of Japanese with one
hand and secure the
renovation of the administrative, monetary and
industrial systems of Korea with
the other is a task which if successfully accomplished
will add to Japan’s
military renown the higher glory of constructive
statesmanship and will be the
final proof of Japan’s claim to enlightenment as
distinguished from mere
civilization.
News Calendar.
On June 28th a
young man named Yi Seung-sol sent a strong memorial to
His Majesty arguing
against the granting of the concession asked for by the
Japanese. This was only
one of a dozen or more of the same tenor. The Japanese
press has accused them
of hating the Japanese but they reply that they do not
hate the Japanese but
that it is necessary to check the ambition, of the
Japanese when it goes so far
as to atten:pt to take away Korean land. A few days
later the [page
313]
Japanese chargé d’affaires informed the Foreign Office
that these constant
memorials and the false rumors circulating so wildly in
Seoul were a danger to
the friendly relations between Korea and Japan, and he
urged the Korean
authorities to suppress such demonstrations, adding that
if the Koreans did not
attend to the matter it would be necessary for the
Japanese to interfere and
make arrests. The War Office communicated with the
Foreign Office saying that
the government had established a bureau specially for
the purpose of opening up
fallow lands and that the Japanese demands were
therefore unintelligible. It
urged that the Japanese demands be returned and that a
firm stand be taken
against these encroachments upon the sovereignty of
Korea.
On the 24th
the Police Bureau sent a body of police to Chong-no to
prevent any meeting of
the people or any public demonstration. All the big
shops were shut for the
day.
In addition to
the $5000 given by the government to the Whang Sung
Sin-mun the Emperor has
also given $4000, and ordered that the paper be not
suspended again. It is
evident that the paper is in some sense a government
mouthpiece, but what
effect it will have on the policy of the paper remains
to be seen .
Song Su-man
and Song In-Sop have been turned over by the Japanese
police to the Korean
police, though the Koreans have given no guarantee that
the men would be
punished.
On the 26th
the Foreign Office again returned the Japanese demand
for land rights, to the
Japanese Legation saying that the matter was creating so
much disturbance among
the people that the government hoped the Japanese
Minister would not press the
matter.
We understand
that the Japanese authorities have asked the Korean
government to formulate a
counter proposal anent the development of latent
agricultural resources. It is
said that Y 10.000,000 have been offered as a loan
wherewith to make possible
the establishment of a bank which will loan money
wherewith to develop the
waste lands.
On the 27th
the Japanese began throwing additional troops into
Seoul. It is said that the
number would be six thousand. A modified from of martial
law has been
established by the Japanese in Seoul in view of the
possibility of trouble from
the populace.
All the
Koreans who have been graduated from schools in foreign
countries and have
returned to Korea will assemble at the Educational
Department on the first of
August to receive from the department diplomas
reognizing their various
attainments.
The Home
Department has sent a notice to each district stating
that the Japanese demands
have been refused and will not be pressed and ordering
that if any Japanese
have anticipated the granting of the concession by
marking out land he must be
immediately informed of the status of the matter and
stopped.
We understand
that the war correspondents who sailed away on the
Manchuria, rejoicing that at
last they were going to the front, are now back at Kobe
having seen nothing of
any account. Hard, luck!
[page
314]
The Russians made an attack on Wonsan from the sea on
June 30th a description
of which will be found elsewhere in this issue of the Review. The police determined to
exterminate the dogs of Seoul on
the ground that they ate up so much food and created
such a disturbance barking
at night, but so many people objected and such an outcry
was raised that the
scheme was abandoned. For a few days however dog was
quoted in the market
reports at a greatly reduced figure!
On July 1st
the Minister of Education graduated the first class from
the Imperial Middle
School. The number of graduates was twenty. The course
covered mathematics,
history, geography, chemistry, physics, political
economy and language,
completed in the course of four year’s study.
Because of the
large number of Koreans who have gone to Hawaii the
Korean government has
determined to establish a consulate there.
On July 2nd a
class of twelve was graduated from the Government
Medical School. The faculty
of this school is made up of Korean and Japanese
instructors.
A Korean
Colonization company has been organized in Kobe and
Osaka for the purpose of
taking advantage of opportunities which diplomacy is
opening up in the
peninsula.
The prefect of
Yun-san was attacked by Japanese coolies working on the
Seoul-Fusan Railway and
was badly injured. The Japanese had demanded forty pairs
of straw shoes and the
prefect had promised to procure them but as they were
not immediately
forthcoming some of the Japanese, the worse for wine,
entered the prefect’s
rooms with weapons and maltreated him severely. Two of
the culprits were
arrested then and sent up to Seoul where they were
doubtless handled by the
Japanese authorities as they deserved.
Heavy hail
fell in the three districts of Tuk-ch’un, Yong-yu and
Suk-ch’un in Pyeng-an
Province and the young crops were badly damaged,
Yi Chi-yong
resigned from the Ministry of Law and Pak Che-sun took
his place.
The prefect of
Yong-duk in Pyeng an Province reports that Koreans are
making very serious
complaints against the Japanese fishermen who have
lately begun to ply their
trade along that coast in accordance with the late
agreement. They claim that
one Korean has been killed and others severely injured.
The Korean
account of the arrest of Song Su-man and Chong Insop is
as follows. On the 16th
inst. about three o’clock in the afternoon about ten
members of the newly
founded Po-an society met at the Cotton guild at
Chong-no. Many other Koreans
were present simply as spectators. Song Su-man was
acting as Chairman and was
haranguing the crowd, giving what arguments he could
against the granting of
the Japanese demand for farming and other privileges in
Korea. The speaker was
not on the street but inside the house, but the audience
overflowed into the
street to some extent. While the speaking was going on
two Japanese policemen
arrived on the scene, one of them being the [page 315]
Japanese
Chief of Police. They entered the house and
quietly said that the Japanese acting Minister would
like to see Mr. Song
Su-man and have a little conversation with him. Mr. Song
replied that he had
not the pleasure of knowing the Japanese Chargé and he
had nothing to discuss
with him and declined to go. Thereupon the Japanese
loudly insisted upon his
going and seized upon the persons of the two men and
prepared to take them
away. Korean policemen came on the scene and objected to
the arbitrary arrest
of Korean subjects without the order or permission of
the Korean authorities.
No attention was paid to this protest and a move was
made to take the arrested
men away. This would have been impossible owing to the
great excitement of the
Korean crowd, had it not been for a number of Japanese
civilians who hurried up
with drawn revolvers and formed a cordon about the
arrested men. The Society
immediately appealed to the Government and the Foreign
Office. Yi Ha-yung the
Foreign Minister sent an agent to the Society to secure
an accurate account of
the busi’ ness after which he and the Vice Foreign
Minister went to the
Japanese Legation and protested against the arrest, but
without result, for the
two men were held at the Japanese police station. The
Korean police authorities
ordered a discontinuance of the public meetings of the
Society, solely in the
interests of peace, though the government and the entire
Korean populace are in
complete sympathy with the purposes of the society. In
spite of this
prohibition an enormous crowd gathered on the 20th inst.
at the Cotton guild
and sent to the Foreign Office asking if the government
had taken steps to
frustrate the designs of the Japanese upon the
sovereignty of the Korean
Government, and to secure the release of the two men,
The answer was in the
affirmative. On the day before this, the 19th, the
Japanese Minister invited
the Judge of the Supreme Court, Yun Tuk-yung, to a
conference, at which the
Minister strongly objected to the opposition which the
Judge had made to the
proposition of the Japanese, and asserted that if he
showed such a hostile
spirit he could not continue to hold office under the
government. The Judge was
highly incensed and immediately memorialized the emperor
asserting his
unworthiness to hold office and asking to be released,
but the emperor did not
accept his resignation. The Japanese authorities sent to
the Foreign Office
stating that the meetings at Chongno were composed of
evil men who wished to
stir up riot and rebellion, and demanding what steps the
government was going
to take to suppress them. On the 21st a great crowd
gathered at the
headquarters of the Po-an Society and a long
communication was sent to the
government urging prompt action in the matter of the
Japanese demands. About a
hundred Japanese soldiers were present at the meeting
but merely as spectators,
for no opposition was made nor any attempt to break up
the meeting. On this
same day Yi Yu-in one of the vice presidents of the
society had a talk with the
Japanese Minister, and on the next day he met the
members of the society and
said that he had asked the Minister whether this action
on the part of the
Japanese was ordered from Tokyo or whether the Japanese [page 316] had merely taken advantage
of their military occupation of Korea to press the
demand. The Minister had
replied that as Korea would not develop the waste lands
the Japanese would do
so, but he gave no answer to the definite questions of
the vice president. But
he did promise, so the vice president said, to withdraw
the demands provided
the society would disband first. To this the members
loudly dissented,
asserting that it was merely a trick to get them to
disband; that when the
demands were withdrawn it would be time enough to think
of disbanding, for then
the object of the society would be effected. Shortly
after this some Japanese
policemen came to the Society and said that the Japanese
Minister would like to
confer with some of the leading members. So five men
were selected, Pak
Chi-hun, Whang Yongsung, etc., to go and see the
Minister, but after they had
gone with the policemen they were detained without being
taken to the Japanese
Legation. Soon after this a large number of Japanese
gendarmes came to the
Society headquarters and arrested Wun Se-seung, Sim
Sang-jin, Chong In-ho and
Sin Hak-kyun and at the same time seized all the records
and documents of the
Society.
The society
had opened new quarters in Chan-dong at the Chinese
Language School, because
there was not enough room at the Cotton guild, but the
Japanese closed it and
guarded the doors. When the four men above mentioned,
were arrested a young
Korean rushed up to the Japanese gendarmes and
passionately demanded that he
and all the other members be arrested, since they were
all alike involved, but
the Japanese paid no attention to him. Arriving at
Chong-no the Japanese and
their captives were met by an enormous crowd of angry
Koreans and were obliged
to use force to prevent a stampede. One Korean in his
frenzy threw off his
coat, baring his bust, and dared the Japanese to thrust
him through with their
swords. The Japanese charged the crowd with drawn swords
and in the rout which
followed many Koreans were injured by being trampled
upon. One of the captives
Sin Hakkyun was pierced by a bayonet. The Japanese took
him to the Japanese
Hospital for treatment.
A message of
condolence upon the death of the Queen Dowager has been
sent by the Pope to the
Emperor of Korea and it was presented by Bishop Mutel in
audience on the 21st
inst.
The Japanese
Minister called in the editors of the two Korean daily
papers and informed them
that the matter to be inserted in their journals must be
submitted to the
Japanese authorities for approval the night before its
publication.
On July 1st
the Japanese authorities having received the application
which was returned by
the Foreign Office, immediately sent it back to that
office saying that this
answer could not be entertained and urging that the
application be granted. On
the third or fourth inst. the Japanese representative
informed the Foreign
Office that the Japanese demands for ( 1 ) A site for a
military station at
Chemulpo, (2) the abolition of the Northwest Railway
Bureau, (3)
the repair of the Seoul-Wiju road, (4) the arrest of the
men who are sending in memorials [page
317]
hostile to the Japanese, must be promptly attended to
and that delay in these particulars will make it
necessary to revise the treaty
between Korea and Japan. The Foreign Office has stated
that as the people are
busy with their farming it will be impossible to begin
the repairs on the
Seoul-Wiju road till autumn.
The most violent
memorial yet presented was by Yi Sun-bom, in which he
spoke rather severely of
His Majesty and of the Japanese authorities and
predicted the destruction of
the country. Anticipating his own arrest he went to the
Supreme Court and gave
himself up, saying that he was ready to meet and answer
every charge against
him.
Two hundred
and nine spears of barley that had three, four or five
stems were brought to
Seoul from Nam-p’yung and presented to His Majesty.
These are considered a good
omen for the country.
There are four
hundred ex-prefects that are worrying about arrears of
taxation that they
failed to send up to Seoul when it was due. The
government is pressing them for
payment. The aggregate of their indebtedness to the
government mounts up into the
millions.
The government
has discovered a plan on the part of people in Seoul to
send down letters to
people in all the districts urging them to rise in
revolt against the Japanese
and oppose them in every way. The government has
therefore sent orders to each
prefecture to seize such letters and burn them. One was
so burned at Chin-ju on
the 3rd inst.
The police
have issued orders that women shall not be found on the
streets at night nor
shall any woman use a jinriksha except palace
dancing-girls.
We learn that
the payment of Y750,000 by the Emperor to the Electric
Company is not only to
cover half interest in the company but cdso in
settlement of various
outstanding claims against him, on the part of the
company. From now on the new
company will be known as the American-Korean Electric
Company.
A German
steamer brought 20,782 bags of rice from Saigon
recently. The high price of
rice in Seoul probably made the transaction a profitable
one.
On the 1st
inst. the Foreign Office returned to the Japanese
Legation the application for
the use of fallow lands in Korea. The Korean government
seems to have taken a
very determined stand on this question
The Japanese
authorities have stated that miscreants who cut the
telegraph wires between
Seoul and Wonsan must be punished by the Koreans to the
extreme limit of the
law, and that if it is not done the Japanese will seize
them and inflict
capital punishment.
Yi To-ja,
formerly Foreign Minister but now vice president of the
Privy Council, has
organized a large company for the purpose of developing
mining and agricultural
resources in Korea. This is since the Japanese made
their demand for special
privileges. There is a good deal of money behind the
venture. There are 200,000
shares of $50 each making a total of $10,000,000. Of
this amount $200,000 is
already paid up.
[page
318]
The Japanese Legation instructed the Consul General to
deal out strict justice
to the two Japanese who murdered Koreans in Kom-san.
On the 11th
inst. the government ordered the release of all
prisoners held on the charge of
minor offenses. This applies to about 200 men, many of
whom have already
profited by the order.
A company of
Japanese consisting of 150 men has been organized to
take advantage of the new
fishing privileges lately granted by the Korean
government on the western coast
of the country.
A large number
of influential men in Seoul have united in sending
letters to all the
prefectures in the land urging that country people come
up to Seoul to aid in
impressing the government with the extreme seriousness
of the proposed granting
of Korean land to Japanese. In other words they propose
a national
demonstration which shall impress both the Koreans and
the Japanese.
The government
has abolished the Northwest Railway Burerau, which
planned to build a
Seoul-Wiju Railway under French supervision.
Since the 13th
inst. there has existed in Seoul a Society called the
Po-an-whe or Society for
the Promotion of Peace and Safety. It numbers many
leading men, among whom are
Sin Keui-sun, Yi To-ji and Song Su-man. Its object is to
discuss ways and means
for the protection of Korean interests. Public addresses
have been delivered
before large popular audiences at Chong-no. The Japanese
police have interfered
with these gatherings and arrested one of the speakers,
Song Su-man, and took
him to the Japanese Consulate in spite of imminent riot.
This society sent to
all the government offices and invited the officials to
attend the meetings of
the society outside of regular office hours. In one of
their meetings a man
arose and argued that it would be well to grant the
Japanese request. Instantly
the meeting was in an uproar. They wanted to despatch
the man on the spot but
better counsels prevailed and he was sent under arrsst
to the Police
Headquarters, where after re-: ceiving a beating and
promising to make a
handsome donation to the society he was let off. Because
of these evils which
threaten the country Cho Pyung-se and Sim Sun-t’ak have
come up from the
country. They are very strong men, former high officials
who left for the
country because of their too outspoken criticism of the
evils of the
administration. Now they are needed again.
The Governor
of Pyeng-an reports that serious disturbance is
threatened by the people
because of the large extent of ground staked out for the
railway station there.
It is believed to be from two to three times as large as
is necessary and as
the Koreans do not receive full value for the land and
houses which are taken
it causes great dissatisfaction.
Because of the
accident on the electric road by which a child was
killed two conductors were
arrested and the Chief of Police said that $10,000 must
be paid as indemnity
for the life of the child. As the entire blame for the
accident rested on the
child who fell in front of the car a little diplomacy
secured the release of
the conductors.
Messrs. Harry
and Morris Allen arrived in Chenmlpo early in July [page 319]
on a visit to Dr. and Mrs Allen. We understand that they
stay until the first of August.
Viscount de
Fontenay left Seoul about the middle of July, upon the
return of M. Collin de
Plancy, the French Minister.
The Foreign
Minister has been bitterly criticized for his
pro-Japanese sympathies, in spite
of the fact that he rejected the application for the
unoccupied land of the
country, and he desired to resign his position and tried
to do so several times
but His Majesty has not been willing to dispense with
his valuable services.
Ninety young
men of good family have been selected by the Educational
Department to go to
Japan and study. They are between the ages of sixteen
and twenty-five.
Three Koreans
who had sent in memorials against the granting of the
Japanese demands were
arrested by the Japanese police and taken to the
Japanese police headquarters
where they were questioned. They indignantly denied the
right of the Japanese
to arrest them or call in question their acts in any
way. The Japanese
therefore sent them to the Korean police office where
they were straightway set
at liberty.
The Foreign
Office has protested against the great extent of ground
appropriated at
Pyeng-yang by the Japanese for a railway station and the
inadequate prices paid
the people for their land and houses.
The British
Government has sent a despatch urging the Korean
Government to fill the vacancy
caused by the retirement of the Korean Minister to the
Court of St James.
The prefect of
Ka-ryong, in Kyong-sang province, reports that some
lawless, armed Koreans
infested the highway and that one Japanese was killed on
the road and says that
every effort will be made to apprehend the guilty
parties and bring them to
justice.
Something very
like cholera has broken out in the river town of So-gang
just below Mapo. Fears
are expressed that it may become epidemic in Seoul and
the Japanese authorities
have urged the government to take prompt steps to
prevent it.
In answer to
the Japanese charged against Yi Kyung-jik the prefect of
Yong-ch’un that he
aided the Russians, the Foreign Office has declared that
the charges are false
and that if Yi Kyung-jik is to blame the Foreign Office
itself is the one to
bear the blame. His Majesty ordered that the accused
party be brought up to
Seoul but the people of Yong-ch’on decline to dispense
with his services and
will not allow him to come. They seized his baggage and
prevented his
departure. This is a pretty good recommendation. In too
many cases the people
would be glad to “speed the parting guest.”
Twenty-three
students of the government Law School have been
graduated alter a course of
three years of study.
The
Superintendent of Kyong-heung reports that for the
purpose of reconstructing
the telegraph line from that point to the Tuman River
the Russians have
demanded that Koreans cut the timber and set up [page 320]
the poles, but the prefect says that he informed them
that he would not consent to this until he had consulted
with the Seoul
government, and he asks instructions from Seoul. It is
not known what actual
commands have been given. Ostensibly the request has
been refused.
Yi Sun-bom,
one of the most active Koreans in opposition to the
proposed concession of
fallow lands to the Japanese, was arrested by the latter
and lodged in the
Japanese police station. The Foreign Office demanded his
release but the
Japanese replied that he would be released after the
Korean government took
active steps to put down the opposition. The Japanese
police took the man to
Chong-no and ordered him to announce publicly before the
crowd that compliance
with the Japanese demand would result in great benefits
to the Korean people.
He indignantly refused and the people were greatly
enraged. He was then carried
back to the Japanese police station, but was released
later.
Kwon Chung-sok
was the Korean appointed by the Emperor to go to
Manchuria and watch the
progress of the war in the interests of the Korean
government but as he
actively supported the request of the Japanese for the
use of the fallow lands
he became an object of grave suspicion to the Korean
officials and so his
appointment was cancelled and Kwin Chung-Pyon was
appointed in his place.
Cho Pyong-p’il
has been made Home Minister in the place of Yi Yong-t’a,
resigned.
His Majesty
has graciously remitted the house tax in the northern
provinces where the
people have been disturbed by the military operations of
the Japanese and
Russians.
Mr. Hagiwara
has again pressed, the Government to carry out its
promise to mend the road
from Seoul to Wiju.
The Korean
press states that the Japanese Government has decided
not to place a general
adviser at Seoul.
The prefect of
Kyong-heung informed the central Government at the end
of June that the
Russians had bridged the Tuman and were compelling the
people to mend the road
between the river and Kyongheung.
The Governor
of North Ham-gyong, who, by the way, is a nephew of Yi
Yong-ik, informed the
Government about the end of June that the Russians had
seized large amounts of
provisions and cattle in his territory, that twenty
Russians seized the
telegraph office at Kyungsung and carried away 400 coils
of telegraph wire and
500 insulators and compelled the Koreans to carry them
away for them.
The Russians
broke up a common school in Kyong-sung and sent the
students home. This is a
characteristic Russian move. They apparently hate
schools and education.
In June the
weather became so dry that fears were felt for the
crops, and sacrifices were
offered at Yong-san, Puk-ak and Nam-san.
Two men were
condemned to banishment last April but through bribery
they delayed the
execution of the sentence till July; but an
investigation followed and the
guilty police were punished and tbe twomen sent to their
places of banishment.
[page
321]
KOREAN HISTORY.
(7) The
assessment, collection and disbursement of the national
revenue shall be in the
hands of the Finance Department.
(8) The
expenses of the Royal Household shall be reduced, that
the example may becouu a
law to the other departments.
(9) An annual
budget shall be made out so as to regulate the
management of the revenue.
(10) The laws
governing local officials shall be speedily revised in
order that their various
functions may be differentiated .
(11)
Intelligent young men shall be sent to foreign countries
to study.
(12) A method
for the instruction of military officers and a mode of
enlistment for soldiers
shall be determined upon.
(13) Civil and
criminal law must be clearly defined and strictly
adhered to and imprisonment
and fines in excess of the law are prohibited.
(14) Men shall
be employed irrespective of their origin. Ability alone
shall determine a man’s
eligibility whether in Seoul or in the country.
CHAPTER XX.
The exRegent’s
influence . . .The queen’s influence . . . continued
reforms . . . King adopts
new title . . . cruel punishments abolished. . . .Arch
demolished . . . Yun
Chi-ho. . . . Korea astonished at Japanese victory over
Chinese . . . Buddhist
monks allowed in Seoul. . . . Yi Chun-yong bannished
. . Independence Day . . . Pak Yong-hyo again banished .
. . American Mining
concession . . . . Count Inouye retires . . . . cholera
. . . . official change
. . . Educational reform . . .arrival of Viscount Miura.
. . Japanese policy .
. . Miura directly [page
322] implicated
in murder of queen . . . . Inouye not concerned. . . .
Japanese Government
ignorant of Miura’s plot.
The year 1895
was big with history. Its events created a strong and
lasting impression upon
the whole Korean people and it is in the light of these
events that the whole
subsequent history of the country must be interpreted.
The year opened in
apparent prosperity. The king had taken oath to govern
according to enlightened
principles and had exhorted his officials to adhere
strictly to the reform
program, protesting that if he himself failed to do so
it would be an offence
against Heaven. The Ta-wun-gun had retired from public
life but as his son, the
brother of the king, was Minister of the Household and
his grandson Yi
Chun-yong held a position near the king, there can be no
doubt that in a
private way the Ta-wun-gun exercised fully as much
influence as he had done
while in active office. It is necessary to bear in mind
that the enmity of the
queen against the ex-Regent extended to the sons of the
latter and in spite of
the terms of the king’s oath constant pressure was
brought to bear upon the king
from that direction. Whatever be the reason, we find
that in January Yi
Chun-yong was sent to Japan as Korean Minister, an act
that was really in favor
of the anti-Regent faction since it temporarily removed
one of the chief actors
from the immediate stage.
The
progress of the so-called reforms went on apace. The
outside, the integuments,
were changed, whatever may or may not have happened in
the inner mind. The long
baggy sleeves which had distinguished the true yang-ban
were done away and the
side-openings of the long coats were sewed up. The width
of the hat brims was
curtailed and other minor changes were effected. A
salutary change was made by
putting power into the hands of the ministers of state
to carry out the work of
their respective offices according to law without
referring every thing to the
central government, excepting in very important cases
where it affected other
departments. The immemorial customs regarding the
salutations of inferiors to
superiors and vice versa were largely done away and more
democratic rules
formulated. The Home Minister undertook to correct many
abuses in the [page
323]
country, to ferret out cases where cultivated land
returned no revenue, because
of the indirection of the ajuns, and by this means the
revenue of the
governraent was very largely augmented.
At
the advice of the leading members of the Cabinet His
Majesty adopted the title
of Ta-gun-ju Pyeha (*** **) in place of his former title
of Chonha (**). This
elevated him to a position somewhat higher than that of
Wang (*) but still much
lower than the title of emperor which he later assumed.
All other members of
the Royal Family were likewise elevated one degree.
At
this time a radical change was made in the manner of
punishing criminals. The
cruel forms of execution and of torture which had always
prevailed were done
away and more humane methods instituted. Decapitation
was done awny and
strangulation substituted. This worked no relief for the
criminal but the
horrible spectacle of public decapitation was relegated
to the past.
A
large number of men who had been banished or who had
fled the country because
of connection with the troubles of 1884 and other years,
were pardoned and
their relatives were again recognized as eligible to
office.
On
the native New Year which occurred in February the king
issued an important
edict saying that office should be given not only to men
of noble blood but to
others of good character and attainments, and he ordered
that such men be
selected and sent up from the country as candidates for
official position. This
was very pleasing to the country people and was hailed
as a genuine sign of
political renovation. At the same time the ancient arch
outside the West Gate
was demolished. This arch was the only remaining sign of
Chinese suzerainty and
its demolition broke the last visible thread which bound
Korea to her great
patron. We say visible advisedly, for there can be no
doubt that the intrinsic
loyalty of the vast majority of Koreans to China was
still practically
unimpaired.
On
February thirteenth Yun Chi-ho returned from many years’
sojourn in America and
China where he had gained a genuine insight into truly
enlightened government,
and his return to Korea would have been a most happy [page 324]
augury had there been enough enlightened sentiment in
the country to form a basis for genuine as distinguished
from superficial
reform.
Meanwhile
the Japanese were carrying every thing before them in
Manchuria and the end had
now come. The Korean government therefore sent a special
envoy to the Japanese
headquarters on the field at Hai-cheng, congratulating
them upon their
brilliant successes. Soon after this the war terminated
with the treaty of
Shimonoseki by the terms of which China ceded to Japan
southern Manchuria, and
the island of Formosa, abjured all interest in Korea and
paid an enormous
indemnity. The result astonished the Koreans but so
strong was the feeling in
favor of China that very many still clung to the idea
that China would pay the
money and then go to work preparing for a much greater
struggle with the
victorious Japanese.
Since
the year 1456 Buddhist monks had been forbidden to enter
Seoul. This was part
of the general policy of this dynasty to give Buddhism
no political foothold.
Now the Japanese secured from the government a
reinstatement of the Buddhists
in their original position and for the first time in
four centuries and a half
the mendicant monk with his wooden gong and rosary
begged on the streets of
Seoul.
In
April a great misfortune overtook the house of the
ex-Regent. His grandson, Yi
Chun-yong, nephew to the king, was arrested and charged
with having connived
with tonghaks and others to depose the king and assume
the reins of power. It
was not shown that Yi Chun-yong had been a main mover in
the scheme or that he
had even favored tbe idea, but the very fact that his
name had been used in
such a connection wns enough to send him into banishment
on the island of
Kyo-dong, off Kang-wha. Four other men connected with
this affair were
executed. This was a severe blow to the ex-Regent and
did much to bring him to
the point which made possible the terrible events of the
following October.
The
sixth of June witnessed a great celebration in Seoul
which has gone down in
history as Independence Day. A fete was held in the “Old
Palace” which exceeded
in brilliancy [page 325]
any similar demonstration since the opening of Korea to
foreign relations.
It
was inevitable that, from the moment of his arrival in
Korea, Pok Yong-hyo
should be at sword’s points with the Ta-won-gun, for the
returned refugee
represented the radical wing of the reform party, which
the ex-Regent had
always bitterly opposed; and besides the presence of
such a strong man would
necessarily subtract from the influence of the aged but
autocratic prince. It
is probable that the Japanesebrought
Pak Yong-hyo back to Korea under the impression that he
would prove a willing
instrument in their hands, but they soon discovered that
he had ideas and
opinions of his own and that he was working rather for
Korea than for Japan. He
failed to fall in with some of the plans which would
help the Japanese but at
the expense of Korea and, in fine, be became something
of an embarrassment to
his former benefactors. Meanwhile the king and queen
were both attached to him,
and this for several reasons. He was a near relative of
the king and would have
no cause for desiring a change in the status of the
reigning house; in the
second place he was a determined enemy of the
Ta-wun-gun, and in the third
place he was sure to work against a too liberal policy
toward the Japanese.
This attitude of increasing friendliness between him and
the Royal family was a
further cause of uneasiness to the Japanese, although
Count Inouye himself had
done much to win the good will of the queen. Finally Pak
Yong-hyo had won the
lasting gratitude of the king and queen by exposing the
machinations of Yi
Chunyong.
The
ex-Regent was determined that Pak Yong-hyo should be
gotten out of the way. To
this end he concocted a scheme which, with the probable
sanction of the
Japanese, seemed to promise success. He laid before the
king certain grave
charges of treason against Pak, which, though not
believed either by the king
or the queen, convinced them that it would be impossible
to shield him from
probable destruction; for the people still called him a
traitor, the ex-Regent
would spare no pains to see him put out of the way and
it was evident that the
Japanese would not take any strong measures to protect
him. The queen called
him up and [page 326]
advised him to make good his escape before action could
be taken on the charge
of treason. He complied and forthwith escaped again to
Japan. He had not as yet
broken with the Japanese and they were doubtless glad to
help him away. It was
early in July that he passed off the stage, perhaps for
ever, and thus there
were lost to Korea the services of one of the most
genuinely patriotic Koreans
of modern times. If the Japanese could have determinedly
put the ex-Regent in
the background and allowed Pak Yong-hyo to work out his
plans on terms of amity
with the Royal family all the evils which followed might
easily have been
averted. It was this act, as we believe, of allowing the
ex-Regent to carry out
his scheme of personal revenge that caused the whole
trouble and there never
was a time, before or since, when brighter hopes for
Korea were more ruthlessly
sacrificed.
But
progressive measures kept on apace and during July the
government issued new
and important mining, quarantine and army regulations
and organized a domestic postal
system. A valuable mining concession in the district of
Un-san in the north was
granted to an American syndicate, a transaction that has
proved the most
profitable, at least to the foreigner, of any attempt to
open up the resources
of Korea.
Near
the end of the month Korea suffered the misfortune of
seeing Count Inouye
retire from the Legation in Seoul and return to Japan.
Never did the Japanese
have such need of a strong and upright man in Seoul and
never had a Japanese
Minister in Seoul opportunity for greater distinction.
There are those who
believe that he despaired of accomplishing anything so
long as the two opposing
factions in Seoul were led by personalities so strong
and so implacable in
their mutual hatred as the queen and the exRegent. It is
not unlikely that he
felt that until one or other of these should be
permanently removed from the
field of action there could be no real opportunity for
the renovation of Korea.
This by no means implies that he desired such removal to
be effected by forcible
means but it is not unnatural to suppose that he must
have given expression to
the conviction as to the futility of doing anything
under existing conditions
in the peninsula. There have been some who have believed
that the Japanese
authorities in Tokyo [page 327]
determined upon the removal of the obstacle in Seoul by
any means in their
power. Subsequent events gave some color to this surmise
but we cannot and do
not believe that the Japanese government was a party to
the plot which ended in
the tragedy of the following October but that a
fanatical and injudicious
Japanese Minister to Korea privately gave his sanction
to an act which the
Japanese government would have sternly forbidden had
they been consulted.
The summer of 1895
witnessed the first serious epidemic of cholera in Korea
since the far more
destructive one of 1886. Special plague hospitals were
erected in Seoul and in
spite of their temporary and inadequate nature the
foreign protcstant
missionaries of Seoul, who were in charge, accomplished
very much in the way of
local relief. It is impossible to say what the total
mortality in Seoul was, to
say nothing of the country at large, but it is probable
that ten or twelve
thousand people died in the Capital before the
subsidence of the epidemic.
The
forces which worked to the expulsion of Pak Yonghyo also
operated to curtail
the term of banishment of Yi Chun-yung who was recalled
from Kyodong Island on
August 6th, but even the ex-Regent could not secure the
residence of his
grandson in Seoul, so he sent the young man to Japan,
since which time he has
been numbered with the political refugees and has never
been able to think of
returning to his native land. After the departure of
Count Inouye, who had
enjoyed the partial confidence of the queen, the
ex-Regent’s prospects improved
to such an extent that several of the ministers of state
who were well affected
toward Her Majesty were removed and others substituted;
especially significant
was the removal of the king’s brother Yi Chamyun from
the Ministry of the
Household. As he was the son of the ex-Regent, this
would seem to be a defeat
for that faction but, in fact, his removal from that
position was a necessary
step to the carrying out of the dangerous plot which was
already being
formulated in the mind of the queen’s determined enemy.
This
summer, which witnessed so many curious contradictions,
was further
distinguished by a determined effort in the line of
education. The Educational
Department [page 328]projected
a Normal school and a beginning was made. One
hundred and seventeen young men were sent to study in
Japan and other measures
of lesser importance were carried out.
On
the first day of September Viscount Miura arrived from
Japan to assume the
duties of Minister. Over a month had elapsed since the
departure of Count
Inouye. The Viscount was an entuhsiastic Buddhist and
evidently belonged to the
old rather than the new Japan. He was, withal, a
strenuous man and is said to
have considered the settlement of the Korean
difficulties merely a matter of
prompt and vigorous action. At the time of his arrival
the ex-Regent was living
at his summer-house near the river and from the very
first he was in close
relations with the new JapaneseMinister. It was quite
evident that the latter
had espoused the cause of the ex-Regent as against the
queen and that instead
of trying to close the breach which was constantly
widening between these two
powerful personages he was preparing to make use of this
estrangement to
further what he supposed to be the interests of Japan.
Min Yong-whan, the most
powerful of the queen’s friends, was sent to America as
Minister; and
everything was ready for the coup which had undoubtedly
been determined upon.
From the mass of conflicting evidence, charge and
counter charge, it is
difficult to escape the following conclusion. There were
two different policies
held by political parties in Japan as to the best way to
handle the Korean
question; one was what we may call the radical policy
which advocated strong
measures and the instant and complete overthrow of all
opposition to the will
of Japan in the peninsula; the other, or conservative,
policy looked to the
attainment of the same object by gradual and pacific
means. It seems that the
failure of Count Inouye to accomplish anything definite
in the line of a
settlement of internal dissentions at Seoul resulted in
the appointment of
Viscount Miura as an exponent of the extreme radical
policy. He was supposed to
do prompt work but what that work would be perhaps
neither he nor his constituency
saw clearly before his arrival on the scene. It would be
going much too far to
say that the assassination of the queen was once thought
of, and yet it is more
than likely that those [page 329]
most conversant with conditions in Seoul felt that by
some means or other her
enormous influence must be permanently checked and that
affairs must be so
managed that she should have nothing more to do in the
handling of questions of
state. How this was to be accomplished neither Miura nor
any of his advisers knew
until he came and looked over the field.
For
this reason it is easy to see how the ex-Regent would be
the first man in Korea
with whom the Japanese Minister would wish to consult,
and it is certain that
the Ta-wun-gun would have but one word to say as to the
solution of the
difficulty. His experience of twenty years had convinced
him that there was
only one way to accomplish the object which the Minister
had in view and while
Viscount Miura naturally shrunk from adopting that
course it would seem he too
was at last convinced that it was the only feasible
plan. That he actually
advised it in the first instance we do not believe, but
that he fell in with
the plan which others suggested and which they offered
to carry through without
his personal intervention there can be no doubt
whatever. Nor can there, be any
question as to where the responsibility for the tragedy
rests; not with the
Japanese Government, surely, except in-so-far as its
appointment of such a man
to the difficult post of Minister to Seoul may reflect
upon its wisdom.
It
has sometimes been hinted that Count Inouye upon his
return to Japan advocated
some such policy as that which was carried out by
Marquis Miura but there is
nothing to indicate that this is other than a libel, for
the whole career of
that able statesman gives the lie to such suspicions and
his dispatches to his
government show the very opposite spirit from that
intimated in these
slanderous reports. For instance we have the extract
from his reports read in
the Japanese Parliament in which he says :
On
one occasion the queen observed to me, “It was a matter
of extreme regret to me
that the overtures made by me toward Japan were
rejected. The Ta-wun-gun, on
the other hand, who showed his unfriendliness toward
Japan, was assissted by
the Japanese Minister to rise in power.” In reply to
this I gave as far as I
could an explanation of these things to the queen and
after allaying her
suspicions I [page 330]
further explained that it was the true and sincere
desire of the emperor and
government of Japan to place the independence of Korea
on a firm basis and in
the meantime to strengthen the Royal House of Korea. In
the event of any member
of the Royal family, or indeed any Korean, attempting
treason against the Royal
House, I gave the assurance that the Japanese Government
would not fail to
protect the Royal House even by force of arms.
This
unequivocal promise of protection was made by Count
Inouye just before his
departure for Japan and we do not and cannot believe
that he expressed anything
but his honest sentiments and those of the government
that was back of him. It
has been urged that the action of the Japanese
Government in acquitting
Viscount Miura in the face of the evidence given proves
the complicity of that
government in the outrage and its previous knowledge
that it was to be
perpetrated, but this does not necessarily follow. That
government was
doubtless unwilling to stultify itself by acknowledging
that its accredited
minister to Korea was actually guilty of the crime
indicated in the charge.
This attempt to evade the responsibility was of course
futile. There was no
escape from the dilemma in which that government was
placed but the deduction
that it was particeps
criminis in the
events of October 8th is unbelievable. It was the work
of Viscount Miura and of
his staff and of them alone, as is shown by the
following extract from the
Decison of the Japanese Court of Preliminary Inquiry,
which court sat in
Hiroshima in January 1896.
CHAPTER XXI.
Decision of
Hiroshima Court on queen’s assassination . . . Miura’s
estimate of situation .
. . .Approached by Ta-wun-gun . . . pledges required of
ex-Regent . . . Miura’s
instructions . . . . preparations complete . . . . The
rendezvous at the
Ta-wun-gun’s summer place . . . . a final exhortation .
. . . joining the
Korean troops outside the West Gate . . . . The move on
the palace . . . . the
entrance . . . Royal quarters surrounded . . . . The
search for the queen . . .
. the assassination . . . . Viscount Miura arrives on
the scene. . . . an
audience . . . . other representatives arrive and see
the king . . . . Miura
disclaims any connection with the plot . . . .
degradation of the queen . . . .
foreign representatives refuse to recognize it . . . .
Miura recalled.
[page
331] We
append the decision of the Hiroshima Court
in full as it gives the fullest and probably the most
nearly correct account of
the events which led up to the assassination of the
queen. It reads as follows
: —
“Okamoto
Ryunosuke, Adviser to the Korean Departments of War and
the Household, etc.
“Miura
Goro. Vicount, Sho Sammi, First class order, Lieutenant
General, etc.
“Sugimura
Fukashi, Sho Rokui, First Secretary of Legation, and
forty-five others.
“Having, in
compliance with the request of the Public Procurator
conducted preliminary
examinations in the case of murder and sedition brought
against the
above-mentioned Okamoto Ryunosuke and forty-seven others
and that of wilful
homicide brought against Hirayama Iwawo, we find as
follows : —
“The accused, Miura Goro,
assumed his official duties as His Imperial Majesty’s
Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary at Seoul on Sept. 1st, 1895,
According to his
observations, things in Korea were tending in the wrong
direction. The court
was daily growing more and more arbitrary, and
attempting wanton interferance
with the conduct of state affairs. Disorder and
confusion were in this way
introduced into the system of administration that had
just been reorganized
under the guidance and advice of the Imperial
government. The court went so far
in turning its face upon Japan that a project was mooted
for disbanding the Kunrentai
troops, drilled by Japanese
officers, and for punishing their officers. Moreover a
report came to the
knowledge of the said Miura that the court had under
contemplation a scheme for
usurping all political power by degrading some and
killing others of the
Cabinet Ministers suspected of devotion to the cause of
progress and
independence.
“Under
these circumstances he was greatly perturbed inasmuch as
he thought that the
attitude assumed by the court not only showed remarkable
ingratitude toward
this country which had spent labor and money for Korea,
but was also calculated
to thwart the work of internal reform and jeopardize the
independence of the
kingdom. The policy pursued by the court was
consequently considered to be
injurious to [page 332]
Korea, as well as prejudicial in no small degree to the
interests of this
country. The accused felt it to be of urgent importance
to apply an effective
remedy to this state of affairs, so as on the one hand
to secure the
independence of the Korean kingdom and on the other to
maintain the prestige of
this empire in that country. While thoughts like these
agitated his mind, he
was secretly approached by the Ta-wungun with a request
for assistance, the
Prince being indignant at the untoward turn that events
were taking and having
determined to undertake the reform of the court and thus
discharge his duty of
advising the king. The accused then held at the legation
a conference with
Sugimura Fukashi and Okamoto Ryunosuke on the 3rd of
October. The decision
arrived at was that assistance should be rendered to the
Ta-wun-gun’s entrance
into the palace by making use of the Japanese drilled
Korean soldiers who being
hated by the court felt themselves in danger, and of the
young men who deeply
lamented the course of events, and also by causing the
Japanese troops
stationed in Seoul to offer their support to the
enterprise. It was further
resolved that this opportunity should be availed of for
taking the life of the
queen, who exercised overwhelming influence in the
court. They at the same time
thought it necessary to provide against the possible
danger of the Ta-wun-gun’s
interfering with the conduct of State affairs in future
— an interferance that
might prove of a more evil character than that which it
was now sought to
overturn. To this end, a document containing pledges
required of the Ta-wun-gun
on four points was drawn by Sigimura Fukashi. The
document was carried to the
country residence of the Ta-wun-gun on the 15th of the
month by Okamoto
Ryunosuke, the latter being on intimate terms with His
Highness. After
informing the Tawun-gun that the turn of events demanded
His Highness’
intervention once more, Okomoto presented the document
to the Prince saying
that it embodied what Minister Miura expected from him.
The Ta-wun-gun.
together with his son and grandson gladly consented to
the conditions proposed
and also wrote a letter guaranteeing his good faith.
Miura Goro and others
decided to carry out the concerted plan by the middle of
the month. Fearing
lest Okamoto’s visit to the Ta-wun-gun’s residence [page 333]
should excite suspicion and lead to the exposure of
their plan, it was given out that he had proceeded
thither simply for the
purpose of taking leave of the Prince before departing
for home, and to impart
an appearance of probability to this report, it was
decided that Okamoto should
leave Seoul for Chemulpo and he took his departure from
the capital on the
sixth. On the following day An Kyungsu, the Minister of
War, visited the
Japanese Legation by order of the court. Referring to
the projected disbanding
of the Japanese drilled Korean soldiers, he asked the
Japanese Minister’s views
on the subject. It was now evident that the moment had
arrived, and that no
more delay should be made. Miura Goro and Sugimura
Fukashi consequently
determined to carry out the plot on the night of that
very day. On the one
hand, a telegram was sent to Okamoto requesting him to
come back to Seoul at
once, and on the other, they delivered to Horiguchi
Kumaichi a paper containing
a detailed program concerning the entry of the
Ta-wun-gun into the palace and
caused him to meet Okamoto at Yong-san so that they
might proceed to enter the
palace. Miura Goro further issued instructions to
Umayabara Muhon, commander of
the Japanese batallion in Seoul, ordering him to
facilitate the Ta-wungun’s
entry into the palace by directing the disposition of
the Japanese drilled
Korean troops and by calling out the Imperial force for
their support. Miura
also summoned the accused Adachi Kenszo and Kunitomo
Shigeakira, and requested
them to collect their friends, meeting Okamoto at
Yong-san, and act as the
Ta-wun-gun’s body-guard on the occasion of His Highness’
entrance into the
palace. Miura told them that on the success of the
enterprise depended the
eradication of the evils that had done so much mischief
to the kingdom for the
past twenty years, and instigated them to dispatch the
Queen when they entered
the palace. Miura ordered the accused Ogiyara Hidejiro
to proceed to Yong-san
at the head of the police force under him, and after
consultation with Okamoto
to take such steps as might be necessary to expedite the
Ta-wun-gun’s entry
into the palace.
“The
accused, Sugimura Fukashi, summoned Suzuki Shigemoto and
Asayama Keuzo to the
Legation and acquainted them with the projected
enterprise, directed the former
to [page
334]
send the accused, Suzuki Junken, to Yong-san to act as
interpreter And the latter
to carry the news to a Korean named Yi Chu-whe, who was
known to be a warm
advocate of the Tawun-gun’s return to the palace.
Sugimura further drew up a
manifesto, explaining the reasons of the Ta-wun-gun’s
entrance into the palace
and charged Ogiwara Hidejiro to deliver to Horiguchi
Kumaichi.
“The
accused Horiguchi Kumaichi at once departed for Yong-san
on horse-back. Ogiwara
Hidejiro issued orders to the policemen that were off
duty to put on civilian
dress, provide themselves with swords and proceed to
Yong-san. Ogiwara also
himself went to the same place.
“Thither
also, repaired by his order the accused Watanabe
Takajiro, Oda Yoshimitsu,
Nariai Kishiro, Kiwaki Sukunori and Sakai Masataro.
“The
accused Yokowo Yutaro joined the party at Yongsan.
Asayama Kenzo saw Yi Chu-whe
and informed him of the projected enterprise against the
palace that night.
Having ascertained that Yi had then collected a few
other Koreans and proceeded
toward the Ta-wun-gun’s place Asama at once left for
Yong-san. Suzuki Shigemoto
wejit to Yong-san in company with Suzuki Junken. The
accused Adachi Kenzo and
Kunitomo Shigeakira, at the instigation of Miura,
decided to murder the Queen
and took steps to collect accomplices. Twenty-four
others (names here inserted)
responded to the call, by Miura*s order, to act as
body-guard to the Ta-wun-gun
on the occasion of his entrance into the palace.
Hirayama Iwahiko and more than
ten others were directed by Adachi Kenzo and others to
do away with the Queen
and they decided to follow the advice. The others who
were not admitted into
the secret but who joined the party from mere curiosity
also carried weapons.
With the exception of Kunitomo Shigeakira Tsukinori and
two others all the
accused went to Yong-san in company with Adachi Kenzo.
“The
accused Okamoto Ryunosuke on receipt of a telegram
saying that time was urgent
at once left Chemulpo for Seoul. Being informed on his
way, at about midnight,
that Hoshiguchi Kennaichi was waiting for him at Mapo he
proceeded thither and
met the persons assembled there. There he received from
Miura Goro the draft
manifesto [page 335]already
alluded to, and other documents. After he had
consalted with two or three others about the method of
effecting an entrance
into the palace the whole party started for the
Ta-wun-gun’s place with Okamoto
as their leader. At about three o’clock a.m. on the
eighth of October they left
the Prince’s place escorting him in his palanquin, with
Yi Chuwhe and other
Koreans. When on the point of departure, Okamoto
assembled the whole party
outside the gate of the Prince’s residence and declared
that on entering the
palace the “Fox” should be dealt with according as
exigency might require, the
obvious purport of this declaration to instigate his
followers to murder Her
Majesty the Queen. As the result of this declaration,
Sakai Marataro and a few
others, who had not yet been initiated into the secret,
resolved to act in
accordance with the suggestion. Then slowly proceeding
toward Seoul, the party
met the Japanese drilled Korean troops outside the West
Gate where they waited
some time for the arrival of the Japanese troops. With
the Korean troops as
vanguard the party then proceeded toward the palace at a
more rapid rate. On
the way they were joined by Kunitomo Shigeakira and four
others. The accused
Husamoto, Yasumaru and Onra Shigehiko also joined the
party having been
requested by Umagabara Muhon to accompany as
interpreters the military officers
charged with the supervision of the Korean troops. About
dawn the whole party
entered the palace through the Kwang-wha Gate and at
once proceeded to enter
the inner chambers.”
At
this point the recital of the facts abruptly stops and
the court goes on to
state that in spite of these proven facts there is not
sufficient evidence to
prove that any of the Japanese actually committed the
crime which had been
contemplated, and all the accused are discharged.
It
is very much to the credit of the Japanese authorities
that they frankly
published these incriminating facts and did not attempt
to suppress them. Their
action discharging the accused was a candid statement
that in spite of the
actual proof which they adduce it would not be possible
to punish the
perpetrators of the outrage, for Miura had been sent as
the accredited Minister
of Japan and his acts, through unforeseen by his
superiors could not but
partake of an official [page 336]
character, and therefore the onus of the affair must fal
on the Japanese
Government. This is the effect that was produced in the
public mind, and while
the Japanese Government as such must be acquitted of any
intention or desire to
secure the assassination of the Queen, yet it can
scarcely escape the charge of
criminal carelessness in according to the Korean Court a
representative who
would so far forget the dignity of his position as to
plan and encourage the
perpetration of such a revolting crime.
The
description of the scene as given by the Hiroshma court
stops abruptly with
the entrance into the palace before the actual business
of the day began. It is necessary for us to take up the
narration from that
point. The buildings occupied by the King and Queen were
near the back of the
palace enclosure almost half a mile from the front gate,
so that the Japanese
and Korean force accompanied by the ex-Regent had to traverse a
long succession of passage-ways through a great mass of
buildings before
reaching the object of their search. Some of the palace
guard were met on the
way and easily pushed aside, some of them being killed,
among whom was Col.
Hong. When the Japanese arrived at the buildings
occupied by their Majesties a
part of them formed about it in military order guarding
all the approaches, but
they did not enter the building. A crowd of Japanese
civilians commonly
believed to be sosi
and a
considerable number of Koreans, all heavily armed,
rushed into the Royal
quarters. A part of the crowd went into the presence of
the King brandishing
their weapons but without directly attacking his person
nor that of the Crown
Prince who stood beside him. Another part of the crowd
ranged through the
apartments of the Queen, seizing palace women and
demanding information as to
the whereabouts of the Queen. They met Yi Kyong-jik the
Minister of the
Household before the Queen’s apartments and at once cut
him down, but he managed
to crawl into the presence of the King, where he was
despatched by the
Japanese. The Queen was found in one of the rooms which
constituted her suite
and was ruthlessly cut down. It is impossible to state
with absolute certainty
whether the blow was struck by a Korean or by a Japanese
but the overwhelming
probability is that it was done by one of the armed
Japanese.
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
AUGUST, 1904.
The Fusion of
Korean Society.
The casual
onlooker can form little or no idea of the enormous
changes that have taken
place in recent years and that are now taking place, in
the mutual relations
that exist between the different classes of Korean
Society. It is well known
that the barriers between the upper and the lower
classes have been shaken to
their foundations if not, in some respects, entirely
broken down; but the
causes which have brought this about and the changes it
has effected in the
running of the social establishment are a sealed book
even to many who have
lived in the country for years. It is believed by many
that in spite of all
that has happened during the past three decades, the
Korean people are
practically where they were previous to that time and
that the leaven of
so-called civilization has as yet hardly penetrated the
cuticle of society. We
propose to indicate briefly a few of the evidences which
go to prove the
contrary.
One
of the most powerful factors in this change was the
abolition of the national
examination or kwaga
in 1894. The
fact that these examinations were an empty form and that
not once in a thousand
times did they reveal the really superior scholar has
little to do with the
question. There can be no doubt that they stood between
the upper and the lower
classes as a real if only imaginary line of demarcation.
If it is objected that
a thing cannot be real and still only imaginary I would
[page
340][point
out that a???] few years ago no one could sell silk
or cotton or shoes or hats or in fact any of the staples
of commerce except
wine, tobacco and a few other things, in Seoul, except
he joined the guild.
This no yangban
could do, of course,
but when the guilds were disfranchised and competition
became possible
thousands of gentlemen invested money in these
enterprises. The broadening
effect of such a change can hardly be exaggerated. Some
would consider it a
lowering of the standard but we consider it to have been
a great blessing. In
Western countries gentlemen have scores of ways whereby
they rub against their
fellows and gain practical experience. The arts and
professions afford ample
opportunity for all round development; but in Korea the
yangban was well nigh useless. He had no
acquaintance with
practical affairs, was helpless in an emergency and
unless possessed of wealth
was a burden upon his relatives or lived off the labor
of his wife. There was
no way to earn an honest living. But now all this is
changed, and even the yangban is
beginning to see, though as
yet darkly, that it is as little a sacrifice of real
dignity to earn a living
as to sponge on his relatives and friends.
The
radical changes that have taken place in the system of
education has had a more
far reaching effect than is generally supposed, for
after the discontinuance of
the kwaga and
the establishment in
Seoul and in the provinces of schools based upon modem
ideals the attention of
the people has been directed to them as the avenues
through which distinction
can be attained. But these schools are open to the
middle as well as to the
upper classes and this helped to demonstrate to the
public that the old order
of hereditary yangbanism is passing rapidly away. Of
course the intermediate
stage is one of confusion and friction. The older
generation fume and fret
because the old dignified standards are being laid
aside, and the younger
generation fumes and frets because the conservative
element still blocks the
progress of popular education by ignoring the graduates
of the schools in the
distribution of offices. It is for this reason that the
recent lapse into
conservatism has practically emptied [page
341]
the schools. The pupils say, and rightly, “Why should we
take these liberal courses of study since the government
not only fails to
recognize the graduates but exercises a system of
espionage over the schools as
if they were centers of sedition?” There can be no
question that these schools
have awakened many Koreans to a recognition of the
serious lacks which exist in
the intellectual ideals of the people. The study of
mathematics and its
applications, for instance, has shown how little the
old-time standards are
fitted to prepare a man for practical life; and the
study of the sciences,
however rudimentary, has revealed the inanity of the
Chinese classics. This has
bred in many minds a certain contempt for the persons
and the opinions of the
older statesmen who arc necessarily old school men. The
young men are coming
more and more to recognize that the future belongs to
the survivors of an
obsolete system. This is why all such popular movements
as that attempted by
the Independence Club are led by young men backed by
still younger men, and
this in turn has made almost inevitable their temporary
failure. But it must
always be remembered that it is these young men who are
gradually taking the
places of their conservative elders. Look about and note
the sons of many of
these older men of influence. In many cases they have
travelled and observed
more or less widely and they afford the greatest
contrast to their conservative
fathers. There have been a few startling cases where
foreign travel and modem
education have failed to emancipate men from the worst
forms of conservatism
but they are notable exceptions to the rule.
Another
factor that is working powerfully to transform existing
conditions is the
improvement in facilities for communication between the
capital and the
provinces. The postal system in spite of the fact that
it shows a large annual
deficit is one of the most paying investments of the
government. A necessary
preliminary to definite and general reform is the
welding of the people into a
more homogeneous whole. Through all the past centuries
it has been the
impression that by leaving [page 342]
the Capital a man shakes off his feet the dust of
politics and joins the
passive majority, but in these times of more perfect
intercommunication between
town and couutry the people of even the most distant
places keep in touch with
the events and thoughts of the Capital, and that sullen
antipathy between town
and country which is bred of ignorance is being
ameliorated by the influence of
the daily press through the medium of the post-office.
It forms an arterial and
veinous system, ensuring an intellectual circulation
which is in marked
contrast with the previous stagnation. As a result of
this there has been
something approaching a volte face in
the attitude of the country people. Formerly they were
the most conservative
and the quickest to deprecate any change, but to-day
many of them are waiting
eagerly and expectantly for radical changes in the
central government. They are
learning to realize their own importance to the state
and tp push the
proposition that the central government has duties and
obligations to the
provinces that cannot be shifted or ignored. We say
this, such a change has
begun. It is yet in its infancy and will need years for
its complete development,
but anyone would be rash indeed to predict a limit to
its ultimate
transformation of social conditions.
Another
factor that has worked powerfully in the direction of
social fusion is the work
of Christian Missions. In a sense Christianity is a
disintegrating force and
leads to temporary social confusion. Under certain
circumstances, for instance
during the regime of the late Regent, the work of
Christian missionaries causes
a great social upheaval, but in another and far more
fundamental sense the Christian
propaganda is a welding force. This lies in the fact
that it forms a fraternity
of interest between the different sections of the
country’, brings typical
representatives of distant provinces into physical as
well as intellectual
touch with each other and affords in countless cases a
breadth of sympathy and
a catholicity of interest which transforms an ignorant
provincial into a
well-informed and sturdy patriot. One of the significant
signs of the times is
the fact that in [page 343]
hundreds of country villages the men who are
wellinformed and who take an
appreciative interest in the large affairs of the
country as distinguished from
petty local matters are the men who have come in contact
with the missionary
and have read the books which he supplies. The very
universality of the claims
of Christianity gives a flavor of cosmopolitanism which
tends to make men
seriously compare their social status and their civic
life with that ol other
peoples more or less favorably situated. It is the
common impression of those
who are hostile or indifferent to Christianity that it
is a narrowing cult.
This is of course the mistaken dictum of those who have
never tried it and are
incompetent to judge, but whatever may be said of
western lands it must be
confessed by every fairminded, though unsympathetic,
critic that it stings to
life the lethargic oriental and makes him do things. It
wakes him up. As to
whether the things he does are always commendable we do
not propose to discuss
but none will seriously deny that if there are things to
do it will take live
men to do them. The village of Sorai on the coast of
Whang-ha Province is a
case in point. This village is prevailingly Christian.
It has a school of a
grade as far advanced as any in Korea. It has good
sanitation, sidewalks,
bridges and other evidences of communal pride. The
people there raised a
considerable sum of money to send to India at the time
of the last famine
there, and in many other ways it has shown evidences not
only of civilization
but of Christian enlightenment. And all the work has
been done without the use
of foreign money. This village is an exceptional case.
We would not claim as
much for many, if any, other places in Korea, but it
shows what is easily
possible when the people wake up.
Another
factor in the fusion of Korean Society is the change
from barter to sale in the
commercial life of the people. From the most ancient
times barter formed almost
the sole method of exchange of commodities. It was only
recently that the
government ceased to receive rice as revenue. The
country markets are a relic
of days [page 344]
when if a man wanted a bolt of linen he must pay for it
with a bag of rice or a
bale of dried fish. This method still prevails to a
large extent in the country
but the great increase in amount of coin and the rapid
change in the ratio of
commodities to exchange medium will rapidly do away with
the local markets or
fairs and the merchant will purchase goods at the point
of production or
manufacture and transport them to distant parts of the
country. This will
cause, and is causing, an enormous increase in the
number of middle men. This
necessarily causes a rise in the cost of goods but it
relieves the country
farmer of the necessity of wasting his time going to
distant fairs every few days,
and the extra cost will not be felt. It is a salutary
division of labor which
will work in the direction of better conditions.
Such
are only a few of the factors which are welding the
Korean people into a
homogeneous whole. There is much still to be desired and
as yet only a
beginning has been made, but what has already been
accomplished refutes the
argument of those who claim that a foreign power should
seize Korea because she
does not advance.
The Fallow
Lands.
In the last
number of the Review we stated that the margin of
cultivation had lowered
during the last few decades; that is, the land now under
cultivation is less in
extent than it was at the beginning of the present
reign. This statement has
been challenged by certain of our friends, and we
propose to give a few of the
reasons why we believe that the statement was correct.
It is true that neither
we nor anyone else has made a personal inspection of
these lands, and all we
can go by is the statements of Koreans themselves, and
even these are worthless
unless they can supported by reasonable arguments. There
are several principal
reasons for believing that the ground now under
cultivation in Korea is smaller
in area than at the beginning of the present reign.
[page 345]
(1) It is conceded by all that there has been, during
these years, a constant
deterioration in administrative ethics in Korea. The
open sale of public
offices has increased to an alarming extent, the
breaking down of social
barriers has resulted in an influx of inferior material
into the personnel of
the government and this has resulted in a lowering of
the standard of official
conduct. As we show elsewhere, this is but a transition
stage and time will
remedy the evils of it, but we think no one will deny
that the ideals of the
country prefect have been seriously lowered during the
past two decades. The
farmers, who provide the great bulk of the revenue, have
been ground down more
and more by illegal exactions, with the result, as
everyone knows, that they
have no ambition to produce more than a bare
subsistence. The pressure has been
all in the direction of a curtailment rather than an
enlargement of the range
of agricultural industry. Now, the people know very well
that agriculture is
the most heavily-taxed industry in the land, and that
taxes have to be paid
whether the crops are a success or a failure; and just
as fast as the people in
the country come to realize that there may be a way out
of their uncomfortable
situation just so fast will they give up farming for
some other pursuit, which
will relieve them from constant and increasing official
spoliation. Who does
not know that the lot of the farmer who is poor and who
has no “pull” at the
magistracy is the most pitiable and hopeless of any in
the land; and if other
people know it the farmer himself will not be long in
finding it out. He is
finding it out and there is a constant stream of people
leaving the farm for
some other occupation. But it will naturally be asked
what these men all do
after giving up farming. The other occupations will soon
be overrun. The answer
to this lies in two facts, the opening of the country to
foreign trade and the
enormous change in the currency of the country. It is
needless for us to
attempt to show that the opening of the ports, the
influx of fereign goods and
the efflux of native goods has drawn away from other
pursuits an army of
laborers who are required at [page 346] the
ports and in the work of transporting goods to and from
these centers of
industry. This is one of the avenues by which the poor
farmer or the farmer’s
assistant escapes the cruel exactions of the officials.
Then again the
phenomenal increase in the amount of money in
circulation has begun to work a
revolution in business methods. Heretofore the farmer
carried his own goods to
the local market and bartered it for other things which
he required. There were
very few middle-men, comparatively; but now the farmer
in many instances finds
that it pays better to sell his goods for money,
especially since he no longer
pays taxes in grain but in money. For this reason an
army of middle-men has
sprung up. Where only two men were formerly necessary
for a bargain three are
now necessary. We do not say that this is universal or
even thiat it is the
rule but it is true that the increasing need of
middle-men has opened up an
avenue whereby thousands of farmers have left the plow
for the jiggy and the
abacus. This supposition is all the more reasonable when
we note that these
middlemen have no taxes to pay. They are quite
independent.
(2)
A second cause of the shrinkage in the area of land
under cultivation is the
deforestation of the country and its immediate
consequences. As to the general
fact of such deforestation we think no one has any
doubt. It has gone on to an
alarming extent under our very eyes. Population has
increased and consequently
more fuel must be consumed, more houses built, more
implements of all kinds
constructed. The character of the Korean soil is such
that the denudation of
the hills results in their being scoured each year by
the rains. To such an
extent is this carried that it is impossible for them to
be reforested. No tree
can gain a foothold strong enough to survive the annual
floods. The direct and
inevitable result of this is that the country prefects
annually report hundreds
of rice fields being covered from three inches to a foot
deep with gravel, that
is washed down from the bare hills upon which even grass
can find but an
occasional and insecure foothold. When this burden is
laid upon the farmer it
is nine to one that he [page 347]
gives up the struggle in despair. The cost of clearing
out such a field is
prohibitive in many cases and the possibility of the
recurrence of the calamity
is utterly discouraging. And then on top of this, if the
magistrate secures a remission
of the taxes on the ruined field, he (the magistrate) is
pretty sure to be
haled before a fake tribunal some years later and forced
to pay the amount
which he never collected from the farmer. Is it natural
to suppose that the
magistrate will wittingly take the chances of the
pecuniary loss and the
disgrace of such a proceeding?
(3)
A third reason for believing that agriculture is on the
wane in Korea is the
fact of the wholesale export or consumption of cattle.
Thousands of these
animals have been exported to Vladivostock and from
there to a score of other
places in Siberia. Most of them have come from the
northeast province. In
addition to this the increase in luxury in Seoul and the
provincial centers,
the demands of the foreign populations of the open
ports, and the supply of
steamships, has resulted in a steady drain upon the
cattle of Korea. It is well
known that agriculture here depends as much upon the
bullock as upon his
driver. The culture of rice cannot be carried on without
the bullock. If the
land under cultivation were increasing or even holding
its own we do not
believe the demands for beef for local consumption and
for export would be so
easily supplied and at such low figures. This goes on
uninterruptedly except
when, every few years, the cattle plague carries off
from ten to sixty per cent
of the cattle. It makes no difference whether the
curtailment of cultivated
land throws the cattle on the market or whether the sale
of cattle throws the
land out of cultivation. Both are true to some extent
probably, but the fact
remains that the large and steady and increasing sale of
cattle indicates a
falling off in the agricultural industry.
(4)
A fourth reason, and one which may seem farfetched,
though we believe it to be
genuine, is the increasing demand for grave space. When
we remember that in
Korea the graves are preserved and cared for with [page 348]
sedulous care by at least half the people for a period
of four generations or more, and that the space required
for the grave of even
a middle class person is three or four times as great as
in western countries
we will readily see that an increase in population will
steadily require an
increase in grave space. This argument will appeal most
strongly to those who
know Korea best. It will be no refutation of this
argument to say that the
graves are made on land that would not be cultivated in
any event, for every
one who has travelled at all in Korea knows that very
many of the graves of
middle class people are found so near the edges of the
fields that they
preclude the possibility of enlarging the cultivated
land, and prove an
efficient barrier to the advancement of the margin of
cultivation.
But
if we admit an increase in population we shall be
confronted with the argument
that this itself implies an increase in cultivated land,
for this surplus
population must be fed. The answer to this objection
lies in the fact that this
increase in population has resulted in a distinct
lowering of the grade of
living of the Korean people. Even two decades ago
professional mendicancy was
practically unknown. Korean history asserts that year
after year in times of
plenty people could travel anywhere without expense
because rice was so common
and cheap. It is probable that the lowering of the grade
of comfort of the
common people is quite commensurate with the increase in
population. But there
is another consideration. When the government received
taxes in kind it was
accustomed to store up enormous quantities of rice in
the different fortresses
and storehouses and keep it there until the following
season. Thus a
considerable amount of food was annually withdrawn from
consumption, but of
late years this has not been the case and this grain has
gone to feed the
surplus population. This argument is somewhat weakened
by the fact that when
the new grain was substituted for the old the latter was
distributed among the
officials or soldiers and was consumed; but even so the
loss by water, vermin
and other causes was very great, and in many cases,
through [page
349]
indirection, the old rice was left in store for six or
seven years until it was
wholly worthless. Such is no longer the case. For these
and other lesser
reasons we believe that the increase in population has
resulted in no increase
of cultivated land, at least during the past forty
years.
(5)
A fifth cause of the shrinkage of land under cultivation
has to do with the
Crown lands. Of these there are or were two recognized
varieties. The first was
called yuk-t’o
or “post-lands’’ and
the second was the tun-to or
“camp-lands.”
The former was land set aside for the support of the yung-ma or horse relay system which was
the forerunner of a postal
sytem. It was from the proceeds of this land that the
system was kept up and
the importance of the system made it quite certain that
the land would be
cultivated in approved style. The “camp lands” were set
aside for the support
of garrisons, guards and police in the country. The
exact extent of these lands
we do not know but there was some in each of the three
hundred and fifty
prefectures. The best land was not usually selected for
this purpose. A special
official was detailed to oversee the cultivation of
these lands in each
district and it was thoroughly done, if only for the
squeeze that was to be
derived from it. Ten years ago this system was abandoned
and these lands being
no longer under the eye of a responsible party were
cultivated by the men who
had formerly done so but without any oversight or
restrictions. For a time they
enjoyed immunity from taxation but after a few years the
Imperial Household
began to send men down to the country to collect money
in the interests of the
Imperial privy purse. The lands were exempt from the
regular government taxes
but their last state was worse than their first, for
there was not even a
semblance of order in the method of the imposition and
collection of the
private tax. The growing needs of the Household
increased the disabilities of
the farmers and the taxes were collected in such a
capricious and arbitrary way
that many of the men who had to stand the brunt of it
gradually’ moved off the
land while many others worked in a discouraged and half
[page
350]
hearted manner which shrunk the total to a fraction of
its former amount. Much
of this land is subsequently taken up by others still
more desperately situated
but all the time a certain amount of it is lying fallow.
(6)
The sixth and last cause that we shall mention is the
result of seditious
uprisings in various parts of the country. The country
has not yet recovered
from the tonghak uprising of ten years ago. The tonghak
were themselves farmers
and for the time being they deserted their own lands and
terrorized those who
did not join them, and looted and destroyed on a scale
which has never been
explained to the world at large. Hundreds of them were
killed and thousands of
their victims also fled or were cut down in large
sections of the south.
What Korea
Owes to Japan.
The statement
has been made in various places that Korea is under
obligations to Japan, but
no one seems to have thought it worth while to specify
the particulars of this
obligation. It is a private expression of the Japanese
that Korea owes them a
debt of gratitude and on this they base their claims to
extraordinary
consideratioil on the part of the Korean people. As
Japan is now seeking to
secure a payment of this debt in the shape of exclusive
privileges it may be
worth while to examine the claim and see wherein it is
true and wherein it is
imaginary.
From
the time Japan opened up her new national regime in 1868
it was her policy to
uphold by word and deed Korea’s independence of China.
The Japanese believed
that China had no more claim to suzeranity over the
peninsula than Japan had.
This belief had no true historical basis, for there
never was a time when Korea
recognized the suzerainty of Japan or paid her tribute.
The exchange of goods
between Korea and Japan through Fusan never assumed the
character of tribute [page
351]
and the rules which governed that interchange would
argue Korean suzeranity
over Japan as easily as it would prove the opposite.
Korea never was a vassal
of Japan in any sense. The reputed conquest of Korea by
the legendary Empress
Jingu is about as historical as “The Taking of
Lungtumkin.” The ancient
histories of Korea which are very complete make no
mention of such an invasion.
But
however that may be, Japan definitely recognized the
independence of the
country and concluded a treaty of peace with Korea in
1876 on terms of complete
equality. In 1884 occurred the serious emeute in which
the would-be reformers
were backed by the Japanese. Whatever may be said
against the methods adopted
by the reformers they were for the time being successful
and if the Japanese
troops had held firm, in spite of their small numbers,
the revolution would
have been accomplished and an enormous impetus would
have been given to the
progressive idea. As it was the Japanese weakened when
they found that the king
was eager to go over to the Chinese and so they gave up
the point and retired,
This may be said to terminate the first period. Several
other Powers, following
Japan’s example, had already signed treaties of equality
with Korea and it may
fairly be said that it was Japan that brought about this
definite opening of
the country, for had not the treaty of 1876 been signed
we doubt very much
whether the others would have been proposed. This Korea
may be said to owe to
Japan in a sense, but it created no obligation payable
in such coin as the
Japanese are asking now, for the opening of Korea
benefitted Japan far more
than it did Korea. Japan secured adequate reward in the
opening up of commence
with the peninsula, of which she enjoys to-day the
lion’s share. She has
profited largely by the export of food stuffs to Japan
and by the enlarged
market for her industrial products.
The
second period of Japanese influence extends from 1884
until 1896. During that
time she found herself thwarted at many points by the
strong proChinese
sentiments of the Korean Court and people [page 352]
and these sentiments at last resulted in the China-Japan
war whereby China was thrust out of her position in
Korea and the land was
declared independent and so recognized by China. In the
months following the
war Japan attempted to institute reforms. Many excellent
changes were made which
have remained until today and are now proving of benefit
to the country but the
virtue of these good reforms was totally eclipsed, in
the Korean mind, by the
mistakes which were made. The Japanese complained that
the Koreans were
unresponsive and did not want reform. It was the
business of the Japanese to
have carried out such reforms, and in such a way, that
the Koreans would have
responded. The events of 1895 brought the influence of
Japan in Korea to its
lowest ebb, and the flight of the king to the Russian
Legation in February 1896
closed the second period of Japan’s influence in Korea.
During that period she
had once and for all destroyed the very real but very
indefinite suzerainty of
China and had practically transfered it to Russia. The
country was very little
better off in any essential particular than she had been
before. But the
opportunity had been given her to work out her own
political salvation. There
can be no doubt that Korea missed a great opportunity
just after the
China-Japan war. If she had grasped the opportunity and
utilized it there would
have been great hopes for her, but she showed herself so
insensible to Her
priviliges that she exasperated the Japanese to acts of
extreme resentment,
injurious alike to herself and to Korea. It can scarcely
be said that Korea
owes Japan anything for the events of that second
period. She needed not only
the opportunity to reform but she needed the wisest
guidance in the matter. The
opportunity alone without the wise guidance can scarcely
be called a benefit.
The
third period of Japanese influence extends from 1896 to
the outbreak of the
present war. What has been done during these years is
known to all. Japanese
trade has increased by leaps and bounds and thousands of
Japanese have largely
profited by this trade. On the other hand the
predominance of Russian influence
negatived [page 353]
all proposals for reform. The Independence Club
movement, which must have been
favored by the Japanese, resulted in disastrous failure
except in so far as it
educated the people in the principles of intelligent
government. The currency
of the country rapidly deteriorated, largely through the
work of Japanese
counterfeiters in Osaka and elsewhere, who thereby
inflicted upon their own
countrymen in Korea a severe blow, for the consequent
fluctuation of exchange
was ruinous to trade. The Japanese authorities seem to
blame Korea for this but
while it is true that the government thwarted the
Japanese as much as possible
the real trouble lay in those Japanese felons who
flooded the country with
spurious coin. The Japanese authorities made laudable
and successful attempts
to stop this nefarious work but great harm was done
before the counterfeiters
were brought to book, and even yet we hear of an
occasional raid on them. During
all this time the influence of Russia was always in the
direction of national
ruin. It is impossible to point to a single measure
advocated by them which
will stand a moment’s scrutiny. Compared with them the
Japanese were altruism
itself, for the measures that the latter proposed would
have been as beneficial
to Korea as to themselves. At last matters got so bad
that Japan could endure
the strain no longer and war was the result. Just as the
king put himself in
Chinese hands in 1884 and remained there until the
encroachments of China
precipitated the war of 1894, so he remained in Russian
hands till the
situation became intolerable for the Japanese and it
became once more necessary
to take Korea out of Russian hands vi et
armis.
Thus
has been ushered in the fourth period of Japanese
influence in Korea. It must
be confessed that every one of these deliverances has
been distasteful to the
Korean court. They did not want to come out of their
seclusion in 1876; they
did not want to be taken out of Chinese hands in 1884 or
in 1894; they did not
want to be taken out of Russian hands in 1904. We speak
of the court, for it is
not known what the people wanted. They were divided and
every man wanted what
would [page 354]
bring him the most personal advantage irrespective of
the welfare of the state.
This
latest plucking of the brand from the burning presents
one entirely new
feature. Korea is in Japan’s hands just as she was in
1884 and in 1894 but this
time there is no one to whom she can appeal or into
whose arms she can throw
herself. Japan has come stay, if the present
expectations as to the war are
realized. The civilized world recognizes Japan’s right
to put a definite veto
upon a repetition of that policy in Korea which has
persistently played her
into the hands of Japan’s enemies. And at this point we
arrive at the first
thing that Korea really owes to Japan, namely
straight-forward friendliness—
not blind partisanship but an open and frank attitude of
genuine good will. In
spite of any mistakes of method which Japan may have
committed and in spite of
any seeming crudities of administration, her consistent
and steadfast
championship of Korea’s independence merits Korea’s
friendship. That it does
not receive it as yet should not astonish the Japanese
nor make them cry out
that Korea is without gratitude. Korea does not know
what independence means.
Gratitude for a gift is always proportioned to the
appreciation of it and what
Japan needs is patience to teach Korea the value of the
gift that has been
conferred. We repeat that the one and only thing that
Korea owes to Japan at
the present time is an atitude of friendly receptivity,
a willingness to be
taught. And she owes this to Japan not only because of
Japan’s long
championship of her independence but because of the more
selfish reason that in
it lies her own personal safety. Japan has declared the
independence of Korea
now for the third time. If Korea does not accept the
gift and use it she will
never be offered it again. As a mere matter of duty to
herself, her own
autonomy, Korea owes to Japan an attitude of
friendliness. She owes Japan
nothing else, neither waste lands, nor mines, nor
fisheries, nor coolies. These
are things which Japan will eventually enjoy the
products of without doubt when
the proper time comes, but as yet Japan has given Korea
nothing that we can
call an equivalent for these concessions.
[page 355]
We have heretofore said that Korea owes it to the world
at large to develop her
agricultural resources, but this gives Japan no right to
demand that these
resources be turned over to her. We deny the oft made
statement that Korea has
proved that she will not progress. She has never really
been given the chance,
for though all restrictions to such progress were
removed she never was given
the impulse to reform. It is a thing that must be
developed and brought out. It
can only be done by the wise and firm guidance of the
dominant power, Japan.
This brings us to the other side of the question. If
Korea owes something to
Japan, Japan also owes something to Korea. If Korea owes
to Japan an attitude
of friendly receptiveness which will make it possible to
bring out her latent
abilities, Japan owes to Korea a wise and temperate
policy which will
conciliate the people, lay at rest their immemorial
prejudice against Japan and
gradually evolve a genuinely enlightened government. The
ultimate fruits of
such a firm but temperate and patient policy will be all
and more than all that
Japan has lately demanded. If Japan wants these things
within five years she
can get them only by a policy of military force and in
the face of the intense
hostility of the Korean people, and even then she will
get but meager returns.
If on the other hand she will begin at the foundation
and build up a genuine
and mutual friendship between ‘herself and Korea, the
benefits which she will
reap in the long run will be a hundred times as great,
and instead of having in
the peninsula a dissatisfied people ever on the lookout
for an opportunity to
betray her to an enemy she will have a genuine ally and
an enormous field of
commercial and industrial exploitation.
One
thing that the Japanese must get rid of is the
contemptuousness with which they
look upon the Korean. If they make up their minds that
there is no possibility
of good in the Korean every plan for mutual benefit
which they can devise is
doomed from the start. Contempt for a nation of ten or
twelve million people,
however weak and ignorant they may be, is a sign of
weakness. The English had a
far better right to be [page 356]contemptuous
of the Indian but they were not, and in that
very fact lies the unique ability of the English to
colonize. On what basis do
the Japanese claim that the Korean people are incapable
of enlightened
government? Is it because officials are prone to mutual
jealousy? Time was when
Japan suffered from the same cause and in still greater
measure, yet she grew
out of it. Is it because of a lack of intellectual
ability? Such lack has yet
to be proved. The Korean is as good a mathematician as
the Japanese, given the
same opportunities; and this exact science forms a good
gauge of intellectual
capacity.
This
contemptuous attitude on the the part of the Japanese in
Korea lies at the
basis of the rough treatment that Koreans receive at
their hands. The Japanese
know that they can ill-treat Koreans with impunity. Do
they think it is because
the Koreans are a craven lot? If so they make a great
mistake. It is simply
because in case of retaliation the Korean has no court
to which to appeal. The
number of cases of assault upon entirely innocent
Koreans is so great that no
consul could begin to attend to them all even if he
wished, and of late there
have been several cases of assault upon foreigners,
quite unprovoked. The
contemptuous attitude of the Japanese has extended to
others besides Koreans.
We mention the matter not by way of complaint but only
to show wherein the
Japanese need instruction before they will be able to
make a success of their
policy in Korea.
It
is much to be regretted that a policy has been adopted
recently which tends to
alienate the good will of the Korean people. The
Japanese have no right to
demand the fallow lands of Korea; they have no right to
take Koreans by force
and compel them to go to Manchuria as coolies, and the
pity of it is all the
greater because the injury thus inflicted must all be
undone before Japan can
genuinely profit by her influence in Korea, She is
putting stumbling-blocks in
her own way.
England’s
colonial system was built up not so much by the sword as
by wise conciliation and
if Japan wants to emulate England’s example she must do
it by making friends
and not by alienating them.
[page
357] Review
La
Code Pénal de la Corée by
Laurent Cremazy, Ancien Avocat à la Cour d’Appel de
Paris, Premier Président de
Cour honoraire, Conseiller Légiste a Séoul; pp. XX and 182; 1904.
We
have received a copy of this work from the author and
have read it with extreme
interest. The work is published privately in Seoul and
each copy is issued
under the signature of the author. The form and get up
of the book are
deserving of great praise and does great credit to the
printers, Hodge &
Co., of the Seoul Press. The work contains (1) A
translation and an analysis of
the six hundred and seventytwo articles of the Korean
penal code, (2) A comparison
of the text of the code with that of the Chinese code
and the Annamite code,
(3) Notes upon the institutions, usages and customs of
Korea, (4) A resumé of
the penal reforms submitted to the grand Korean Council
of State, (5) A very
complete index. The book is addressed or dedicated by
the author “A Son
Excellence, Monsieur Collin de Plancy, Ministre
Plénipotentiaire de la
République Francaise in Corée. Hommage de reconnaissance
et témoignage de
respectueux dévouement.”
In
order to indicate the scope of this scholarly piece of
work it will be
necessary to give a short precis of the contents. The
first portion of the
book, which contains the Korean penal code, is divided
into five sections. The
first deals with the general rules for the application
of penal law, under
which we find the rules for the method of application of
the penal code,
judicial competence, arrest of suspects, taking of
evidence, privileges
accorded to arrested individuals, the limits of legal
delays, the general rules
governing places of burial, titles, the augmentation or
diminution of the
degree of punishment according to the rank of officials
inculpated or according
to degree of relationship. The second section deals with
“règles de droit
criminel,” namely concerning punishable acts and their
legal effects, several
infractions of the [page 358]
law by one individual, crimes committed while under
detention, repetition of a
crime, several individuals guilty of a single crime,
thieves, old men and
minors, attempted crime, exemption from punishment. The
third section deals
with the execution of sentences, under which are
explained the different kinds
of punishments, the instruments of punishment, the
execution of grave
penalties, instruments of corporal pimishments inflicted
for public or private
misdemeanors, parents or others who fail to denounce or
who conceal a criminal,
misdemeanors of men under detention, punishment
applicable to a man who has
committed several crimes, punishments for attempted
crime, royal clemency,
augmentation and diminution of punishments, the
execution of sentences, the
duration of punishment, restitution, commutation of
punishments, tentative
liberation under caution. The fourth section contains
eight chapters dealing
with rebellion, crimes committed by officials in the
performance of their
functions, suits and judgments, frauds and trickery, the
spirit cult and regard
for the dead, the degradation of autels, access to the
palace, mourning and
funerals. The fifth section on penal legislation
contains six chapters dealing
with homicide and assault, adultery, marriage and
succession, thieves, rules
concerning goods, various infractions of law.
This
gives but a very inadequate idea of the very interesting
nature of the work,
for it gives no details but it is remarkable how much
one can learn of Korean
society from a perusal of these laws and the punishments
inflicted for their
infraction.
Following
this we find a list of proposed reforms in this code,
presented to the Council
of State. They suggest the abolition of beating as a
punishment for officials
who have committed errors in the administration of the
government, and they
suggest the substitution of other penalties such as a
reprimand, a fine,
suspension or dismissal. The second is a recommendation
to do away with the
incarceration of a complainant and his witnesses until
the time of trial. The
third relates to the addition of a law dealing with
contempt of court. The [page
359]
fourth seeks to add a law granting a man damages for
unmerited punishment.
Another proposes to give a judge the right to refuse any
commutation of
sentence. The next recommends that the judge be ordered
to quote the law in
passing judgment on any case. The next seeks to abolish
general confiscation of
a criminal’s property. The last would suppress the 672nd
law of the code, which
says that a man who does anything that he ought not to
do shall be punished
with forty blows. The application of this is so broad
that “il est de nature à
rendre superflues toutes les autres dispositions
pénales” which seems quite
evident.
The
book ends with an index so complete that it fills
forty-five pages out of the
182.
This
work shows a perfect grasp of the conditions which
obtain in the legal field in
Korea, and the government is to be congratulated upon
having in its employ a
man who takes such pains to acquaint himself with the
actual status of the
service to which he is attached. No one who reads this
book will fail to learn
many interesting things about Korea that he never heard
or dreamed of before.
There is but one criticism that we would make. In the
“Bibliographie” which the
author gives, he includes among others the works of
Rockhill, Landis, von
Mollendorff, Allen and others but makes no mention of The Korean Repository or The
Korea Review in which have appeared numerous
articles bearing on social
customs and laws. We venture to say that a perusal of
the four volumes of the Korean Repository
will afford more
information about Korea than any other work, and while
we would not claim so
much for the Korea
Review we venture
to suggest that it merits at least a humble place in any
bibliographic of Korea
that pretends to give the sources of information about
the customs of this
country.
Impronte di
Bellezza. Erzerum, Acquerelli Umbri, Tlemsen, by A.
Monaco, Rome, 1904; pp 360.
We have
received from the author a copy of this beautifully
published work containing
extended dissertations on the four subjects enumerated
in the title. As these
essays have no bearing upon Korea we do not feel [page 360]
justified in using space in the Review to give them a
full notice, but we judge from the title and from the
general appearance of the
book that it must be well worth reading.
Editorial
Comment.
He was a very
sanguine man who telegraphed to one of the Tokyo papers
that there had been a
great change for the better in the attitude of the
Koreans toward the Japanese
claims and that the Waste Lands scheme would again be
pressed, implying that it
would now be easy of accomplishment; but, as we have
already intimated it is
one thing to obtain the consent of the Korean Government
and another and
different thing to gain the consent and co-operation of
the Korean people. Mr.
Nagamori’s aphorism “Treat a fool like a fool,” is not a
good augury of
success. It is likely to become as notorious as
Vanderbilt’s exclamation “The
Public be —”well,
anything but felicitated. The truth is
there are two ways of treating a fool. One is to take
advantage of his
foolishness, the other is to help him to get rid of it.
Mr. Nagamori evidently
considers the former method the proper one.
The
foreign press in Japan and a considerable portion of the
Japanese press
consider this scheme a mistake and have said so frankly,
but they say it must
be carried through at any cost in order to save the
prestige of the Japanese
Government. We believe this to be a very bad principle
of action. It is poor
statesmanship to urge that a bad measure must be carried
through simply to save
the face of the party that planned it. In the long run
such statesmanship will
inevitably be discredited. We would like to ask the
people who urge this
argument one simple question. Did it injure the prestige
of the United States
to pay back to Japan that Shimonoseki indemnity after it
was decided that it
was unjust? That act was an acknowledgment that the
United States had done
Japan a wrong in forcing her to pay the money. Is there
anything more lowering
to the dignity of a nation in making restitution for a
wrong than for an
individual to do so? We believe not; and while some
people may have thought the
United States Government was Quixotic and sentimental in
thus letting go of
that money it is a very well established fact that that
one act did more to
give Japan confidence in the integrity
[page 361]
and the friendship of the United States than decades of
diplomatic talk could have done. It did not lower the
prestige of the United
States by the fraction of a hair’s breadth, and the
Japanese woulcl be the
first to say so. Why then should it be beneath the
dignity of the Japanese
Government to withdraw this claim entirely, now that it
is generally
acknowledged to be a mistake? The history of the scheme
affords a strong
argument against it. Mr. Nagamori had tried to carry out
a similar plan in Siam
and had failed. It was transferred bodily to Korea
without, apparently, the
smallest consideration of the prejudices of this people.
It was looked upon as
a great industrial problem merely, whereas it is even
more a sociological
problem. One might as well say that all that stands m
the way of colonization
of Palestine by the Jews is the difficulty of raising
the money with which to
buy the land, while as everyone knows, that is the least
of the difficulties.
The
difficulties which have attended the securing of Korean
coolies to work with
the Japanese army in Manchuria are three-fold. In the
first place the ignorance
of the coolie has been played upon by certain parties
and the impression has
gone forth that the coolies will be put in the front
rank of the battle as food
for Russian powder, and after the ammunition has been
exhausted the Japanese
will advance to an easy victory. The government has done
what it could to
counteract such foolish rumors and with partial success.
The second reason is
that in spite of the large pay offered, the Koreans do
not consider it very
tempting. One dollar and a half is offered, but any
coolie can earn a dollar at
home, and the higher cost of living in the north, the
separation from their
families and especially the necessity of working every
day, all combine to make
the average coolie rather skeptical. In the third place
the way that common
Koreans are treated by the Japanese about Seoul and its
suburbs does not tend
to make the prospect of working under Japanese overseers
very appetizing. It is
well known to the Koreans that money easily earned is
easily lost and in such
work as that in the north the temptation to gamble and
to waste money in even
less commendable ways is very great indeed. It can be
confidently affirmed that
the wives of these coolies will be a unit in their
opposition to their going,
for not one in ten will bring any money home with him,
in all probability.
We
cannot forbear a word in regard to the attitude of the
missionaries towards the
gestions at issue as between Korea and Japan. The
missionaries (Protestant) [page
362]
have been besieged with Korean Christians who ask for
advice as to what
attitude they shall take and what they shall do. Shall
they join a society for
the protection of Korea’s rights? Shall they forcibly
resist impressment into
the ranks of coolies for the north? Shall they do this
or shall they do that?
So far we know the missionaries have handled these
questions in a very
conservative way. They have told the Christian Koreans
that if they mix in any
of these attempts it must be merely as individuals and
not as a church. It is
the fixed determination of the missionaries to prevent
the church as such from
becoming identified with any special political movement.
In every case the
Christians have been advised to refrain from violence
but rather to submit even
to injustice, unless a question of conscience is
involved. The Christian Church
is not in Korea to reform the government or society
except through the
propagation of the principles of Christianity. It is
quite apart from politics,
and we trust always will be.
News Calendar.
The Law
Department has asked the Supreme Court to deal with the
Korean miscreant who
dug open the grave of one of the kings of the last
dynasty at Song-do,
extracted some pottery and sold it to a Japanese for
four dollars.
The Home
Department has declined to give the Japanese 1,000 tsubo
of land at Chemulpo
for a meteorological observatory.
The prefect of
Chang-yun reports that he has arrested Kim Tak-po a
prominent Tong-hak leader
who is guilty of seven different offences; arson, theft,
robbery, sedition,
&c., &c., and he asks for instructions.
Some two
months or more ago a special irrigation bureau was
established, apparently for
the purpose of giving some officials fat positions and
exploiting the resources
of the country for selfish purposes It is believed that
it was through this
clique that the matter of waste land concession was
pushed. This bureau was
abolished about the end of July.
The Emperor of
Korea sent a message to Japan about the first of August
asking that Marquis Ito
come to Korea to act as general advisor to the
Government. The reports as to
whether he will come or not are conflicting. It is to be
hoped for Korea’s sake
as well as Japan’s that he will come.
It is reported
that the Emperor is very desirous that Yi Yong-ik should
return from Japan and
aid in the administration of the Government. Whether the
Japanese will comply
or not is as yet a vexed question.
A Japanese
Commission composed of twenty-four gendarmes under
command of a Major are going
to Kang-wun Province on a tour of inspection, and the
Korean Home Office has
sent to the various prefects ordering them to give every
facility to the
Commission.
[page
363]
On July 30 Sim Sang-han the Vice Prime Minister and Yi
Ha-yung the Foreign
Minister visited the Japanese Legation under insructions
from His Majesty to
secure a definite withdrawal of the waste lands demand.
The matter was
temporarily arranged but the Japanese authorities have
not withdrawn the claim
definitely.
The Japanese
desire to put up a telegraph line between Ch’ol-yung, in
Kang-wun Province, and
Wonsan. They ask that the Korean Government give the 570
telegraph poles that
will be required.
The Japanese
military authorities have seen fit to put up at the
street corners wooden guide
posts. There can be no possible harm in this but it
appears to have been done
without consulting the Korean authorities, and so the
Korean Chief of Police
sent to the Foreign Office asking that the Japanese be
told to remove the
posts.
The Governor
of Pyeng-yang reports that the people of Kasan are much
exercised over the
seizure of large tracts of land in that district by the
Japanese ostensibly for
railroad purposes. They describe the land thus taken as
forty li square. As
this involves the loss of the standing crops the people
are desperate and
desire relief.
On the nth
inst., a cave-in occurred in the tunnel which is being
driven under Namsan
outside the South Gate and one Japanese was killed and
one Korean was severely
injured.
About the 12th
inst. the apportionment of the number of coolies to be
drawn from each province
was made. Kyung-geui, South Ch’ungchung, North and South
Chulla, North and
South Kyung-sang each give 1,200 coolies and North
Ch’ung-ch’ung gives 800.
This makes 8,000 in all. It is hardly necessary to say
that these men are not
forthcoming as yet. The Japanese posted a communication
in Seoul giving the
terms on which coolies would be engaged, (1) Wages to be
one and a half Korean
dollars a day, (2) five dollars to be given in advance
for the coolie to leave
with his family, (3) the place of service to be north of
Pyeng-yang, (4) food
provided from day of contract but wages to begin when
actual work is begun. (5)
transportation to be provided free of cost, (6) each
coolie to provide his own
Jiggy. (7) fifty cents a day to be paid to anyone who
enrolls fifty coolies,
(8) overseer of fifty men to receive two dollars a day,
(9) If any coolie is
ill he is to receive medical care, (10) no violence will
be allowed in the
treatment of the coolies, (11) remittances to coolies’
families to be sent
faithfully by the Japanese, (12) the food will be
plentiful and of good
quality, (13) the final date of enlistment is August
20th, (14) limit of
enrollment is 10,000 men, (15) anyone who attempts to
interfere with the
enrollment of coolies to be severely punished
The Supt. of
Trade at Chinnampo reports that a Korean engaged on the
railway, having
committed some offence, was shot by the Japanese
The Home
Minister having ordered the various provincial governors
to acquaint the
prefects with the terms under which coolies are to be
secured by the Japanese,
the Governor of Kyung-geui sent to the prefects saying
that in accordance with
the order of the central government he has informed the
people of the terms
under which the coolies are to go but that erroneous
reports have been
circulated to the effect that the coolies would be
forced to fight the Russians
and that for this reason the people refuse to go. The
people must know that
these reports are false and that the coolies will not be
sent within a thousand
li of the actual fighting. They must know that the wages
are good, the food
excellent, medical care efficient and postal facilities
sufficient. He adds
that the offer of the Japanese is generous, that Koreans
have an opportunity to
earn splendid wages and that he trusts that the 6,000
men required will be soon
forthcoming.
[page
364]The
prefect of Yong-in reports that while he was
collecting the eighty men required from his district
some Japanese gendarmes
and the local ajuns went to the market place and seized
three Koreans and im
mediately all the inns were deserted and the people
fled. One other man was
seized. That night five or six thousand people came
armed with clubs and
demanded of him why he wanted to kill them and demanded
the release of the four
men. He complied and got the Japanese gendarmes out of
the place as best he
could, to save their lives. After this the excitement
subsided. Not a single
coolie was obtained there.
Early in
August the Belgian authorities applied to the Korean
Government for a gold
mining concession, basing the request upon the fact that
other nationalities
had been given concessions.
The governor
of South Ham-gy’ung Province announces that twenty-four
districts of the
province will be unable to pay the house tax owing to
great disturbances due to
war, whereby many houses have been deserted and the
peaceful avocations of the
people have been suspended.
Memorials
continued to pour in charging Kwon Chung-suk with being
a traitor in trying to
sell the country to the Japanese. This was because he
was understood to be one
of the instruments used by the Japanese in the waste
land propaganda. Kwon
denies that he is culpable and has singled out one of
his detractors to sue him
before the Supreme Court. The man selected is Yun
Si-yong and this gentleman so
far from shrinking from the ordeal is eager to engage
the doughty Kwon before
the bar of the Supreme Court. The court will shortly sit
and then we shall see
what we shall see.
Now that the
Electric Company is a joint American and Korean Company
a Korean joint manager
has been appointed in the person of Yi Keun-sang,
formerly vice Minister of
Agriculture; and two other overseers namely Hong U-gwan
and Nam Chung-gyu.
Some time ago
it was decided to send abroad a number of Korean young
men to be educated. At
first only sons of officials were offered the
opportunity but they unanimously
declined, so now it is being offered to men of lower
social standing.
On the seventh
inst. the prison doors were opened and some one hundred
and twenty men were set
at liberty. It is said that most of these were men who
had been imprisoned
through private spite or party animosity. It is with
great pleasure that we
note the final release of Mr. Yi Seung-man whose long
imprisonment of more than
five years has been a constant source of grief to his
foreign friends. They
have known all the time that he was no more guilty of
any crime than scores of
others who were long ago released. Many of these men
came out of prison without
other clothes than their prison uniform of blue. Some
wealthy merchants at
Chongno subscribed enough money to buy each of them a
suit of clothes. We call
attention to this as a striking example of the innate
kindness of the average
Korean. These prisoners had no claim on the merchants,
and the latter had
nothing to gain by giving this money except the
consciousness of having helped
strangers who were in desperate need.
On the 7th of
August began the Japanese demands upon the Korean
Government for coolies to go
to Manchuria. The prefects of Changyun, Mung-wha,
Sin-chun and Eul-yul were
asked to furnish 6,000 coolies. The prefects referred
the matter to the
governor and he in turn sent to Seoul where the
authorities ordered the request
to be honored.
The people
along the Yalu complain that the Korean soldiers are
useless as against the
Chinese raiders who have been active since the [page 365]
passage of the Japanese army. They ask that they be
allowed to organize the tiger hunters as a border guard.
The request has been
granted.
The southern
portion of the Seoul Fusan Railway has been opened for
traffic as far as the
town Ch’ong-do which is only about fifteen miles from
Taiku.
The native
press tells us that a boat loaded with 18,000 railroad
ties for the Seoul Fusan
R.R. was wrecked off Ulsan on the 29th of July.
A telegram
from Wonsan on the 6th inst. says that on the 2nd 400
Russian cavalry arrived
at Ham-heung at eight o’clock p. m. Thirteen of them
seized the telegraph
office. It is said that they travelled by night and
rested during the day. They
had three field guns and 400 extra horses and brought a
large amount of
ammunition and other supplies.
It is said
that the fishermen off the northeast coast lost $80,000
worth of fish at the
time of the Russian raid out of Vladivostock and the
bombardment of VVonsan.
The loss was caused by the hasty flight of the fishermen
who gave up everything
to secure their personal safety.
Cho Min-heui,
the Korean Minister to Japan, returned to Korea on
furlough on the 25th inst.
The Governor
of Pyeng-yang reported on the 9th that the attempt of
the Japanese military
authonties to secure coolies for Manchuria in Chinnampo
and Yong-gang would result
in a general uprising if persisted in and he urged that
the Japanese be asked
to discontinue the attempt.
The Emperor
donated yen 15,000 to the Japanese Relief Fund, to which
Min Pyung-suk added
yen 100 and Cho Chung-yun yen 500.
The Chief of
Police complained to the Foreign Office about the
stationing of Japanese guards
at the city gates and claimed that it is an insult to
Korea. He asks that the
Foreign Office take steps to have this discontinued.
On the 8th
inst at one o’clock in the afternoon the Japanese and
Russian outposts came in
touch with each other between Wonsan and Tuk-wun. A
sharp skirmish ensued, in
which the Japanese drove back the Russians but there
were no casualties. Two
horses fell into Japanese hands. The next morning at a
very early hour the
Russians appeared again at the mouth of the Tuk-wun
River just north of Wonsan,
perhaps two miles distant from the Custom-house, but the
Japanese were ready
for them there also and after a short sharp fight the
Russians again retired
leaving three dead in Japanese hands. It is said that
seven other Russians were
wounded but were carried away by their comrades.
The special
Northwest Railway Bureau has been done away or rather
has been merged in the
general Railway Bureau in Seoul.
Some time ago
a Korean Company was formed under the leadership of Su
O-sun to build branch
railways from Kunsan and Mokpo to the Seoul-Fusan line,
and it has lately taken
steps to get to work, but the Japanese Minister sent to
the Foreign Office
saying that this will be an injury to the Seoul-Fusan
line, that these Koreans
cannot raise the money to carry out the work properly,
and that these branch
roads should be included in the concession for the
Seoul-Fusan line.
The Minister
of Law has been compelled by the delinquencies of the
clerks of his office to
impose a list of fines and punishments for
nonattendance.
[page
366]
On the 27th ult. the Foreign Minister sent back to the
Japanese Legation all
the papers that had passed relative to the Land Scheme,
but the Minister sent
them back saying that the incident had not as yet been
closed and the Foreign
Office should keep the papers in hand.
A scheme was
gotten up by a few self-interested Korean officials to
pawn the resources of
Korea for ten million dollars, ostensibly for the
establishment of a Korean
Bank by the Household Department. Kwun Chung-hyun
memorialized the throne
saying that it was a foolish plan, that the Koreans who
were trying to put it
through were looking merely to the squeeze, that they
were a pack of thieves
and they deserved severe punishment. The loan was to
have been for thirty years
at five per cent. This protest took effect and the loan
was not made.
Some Japanese
fishermen at Yung-duk, Kyung Sang Do, seized the fish
which had been caught by
two Koreans, and in the quarrel which ensued killed the
two Koreans. The Home
Office asked the Foreign Office to communicate with the
Japanese Minister about
it.
The Governer
of Kang-Wun Province reports that a Japanese military
officer at Wonsan has
asked for information as to the various products of the
province, the places
where each is grown, the amount of rice raised, the
number of houses, and other
statistics As the matter is of national rather than
local import the Governor
refers the Japanese to the central Government for
enlightenment.
The governor
at Ha-ju, also, is asked to give the number of people,
pigs, chickens and other
commodities of his province and is asked to be in
readiness to give the
Japanese whatever they asked for. It is not anticipated
that the governor will
count the hens of his province in person.
Early in
August the Japanese authorities asked the Korean
government whether it was true
that Mons. Henry was to be made Adviser to the Household
Department. The answer
was a decided negative. A couple of weeks later the
gentleman named left Seoul
for China.
On the 13th
inst. the Japanese Minister in audience with His Majesty
urged the following
considerations. (1) The selection of good men for
official position, (2)
abolition of useless public offices, (3) reorganization
of the monetary system,
(4) payment of salaries in gold money, (3) appointment
of a Japanese adviser to
the Finance Department and of an American as adviser to
the Foreign Department.
It was
reported on the 14th that 1,200 Russians had arrived at
Mach’un Pass north of
Ham-heung.
The rumor
which circulated in Seoul about Aug. 20th that Yi Yongik
was to be brought back
to Korea seems to have been quite false.
About the
middle of the month the Japanese Minister suggested to
the Emperor that it
would be a good thing to recall all Korean Ministers
from foreign countries. No
definite reason seems to have been given for this rather
singular suggestion.
Mr. Kato, the
Adviser to the Department of Agriculture, etc., returned
from Japan about the
middle of August.
On the 16th
inst. Japanese gendarmes entered the palace grounds and
made a careful survey
of them. This caused some uneasiness among the Koreans
who surmise that it
means a Japanese body-guard for His Majesty.
The Governor
of Pyengyang reports that certain Koreans have come back
from Manchuria and
report that the Korean coolies are pressed into active
service and put into the
firing line and that many have been killed. These
reports have caused consternation
among the people especially among the relatives of those
who have gone as
coolies to the north. The report is of course absurd.
[page
367]
The Japanese military authorities caused notices to be
posted on the hills
along the river above Yongsan saying that as these were
needed for military
purposes no one must buy or sell any land there. One of
these was set up on Dr.
Underwood’s property at Hankang but when it was learned
that it was American
property the Japanese courteously expressed regrets and
promised to remove the
notice from that point.
Some Japanese
fishermen have been killing fish in the Han river with
explosives. This is a
thing that would not be permitted for a moment in Japan
and steps should be
taken to have it stopped here.
On the 22nd
inst. Sim Sang-hun, Acting Prime Minister and one of the
strongest men that the
present regime can boast, made a powerful appeal to the
Emperor to drive from
office four men namely Hyun Yung-un, Cho Pyung-p’il, Yi
Pong-na and Yi
Keun-tak. He gave various reasons for the necessity of
such action and asserted
that if this was not done he would throw up his
portfolio and retire from
public life. It is said that the Japanese Minister and
leading military men
have asked him to reconsider this decision and remain in
office. His withdrawal
from public life under these circumstances would
doubtless add very much to the
growing sentiment of the people against the Japanese.
The rumor is
aboat that the Korean government has been asked by the
Japanese authorities not
to employ any foreigner without first consulting them.
Mr. Yun Chi-ho
has been appointed Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In pursuance
of a new policy of the government in appointing men to
office, the Educational
Department called up all those who hold diplomas showing
their graduation from
the various schools and made a list of their names and
then sent to the
different government offices stating that if men were
needed the Educational
Department would nominate men from among these
graduates. This is the one and
only way by which the schools of Korea can be revived.
The knowledge that
graduation will put them in line for the civil service
will fill the schools as
nothing else could do.
On July 30 the
Governor of South Ham-gyung stated that 300 Russian
cavalry came from Yi-wun to
Puk-ch’ung and a Korean Major at the latter place
reported that 150 Russians
went from there to Ham-heung.
On Aug. 3rd
the Chief of Police reported to the Foreign Office that
he had received notice
from the police at the West Gate that ten Japanese
soldiers and seven gendarmes
passed the gate having in charge three Koreans, Sin
Hyung-gyun, Won Se-sung and
Yi Pomsak, leaders of the National Protective
Association. The hair of these
men had been cut and they were being taken to An-ju to
be held in durance
because of the agitations against the Japanese demands.
The Minister
of Agriculture, Commerce, etc. has sent to all the
thirteen provinces ordering
that no timber must be cut without permission being
obtained from the central
office.
The Governor
of Pyeng-yang reported on the 4th inst. that the
Japanese tried to get 1,000
coolies at Chung-ju but on account of the farm work not
a single man would go.
The Chief of
Police sent to the Foreign Office asking that an effort
be made to have the
Japanese turn over to the Korean authorities the persons
of Yi Chi-wha and Kil
Yong-su who had been leading members of the Peddlars
guild and are held in
durance by the Japanese at the barracks in front of the
palace.
[page
368]
Reports came from the north on the 5th inst that 135
houses had been burned by
the Russians at Ham-heung, fifty-nine houses at Kowun
and eight houses on
Mun-Ch’un and that one man was killed in Ko-wun and four
at Chang-jin.
Early in
August the chief of Japanese gendarmes sent to the Home
Department asking that
2,000 coolies be provided from the four provinces of
Kyung-geui, Ch’ung-Chung,
Chul-la and Kyung-Yang.
About the
middle of August Major Pereira D. S O. started on a trip
to Pak-tu San on the
northern border, not being quite sure whether he would
be stopped by Russians
en route.
The Koreans
who lost $8,000 worth of dried ling by the sinking of
the Goyo Maru have sent
to Seoul asking the government to collect this little
sum from the Russian
Government!
The Governor
of North Ham-gyung reports that many of the people have
run away owing to the
necessity of pressing them into the service on the roads
which the Russians
ordered built from the north to Sung-jin.
In the Seoul
tennis tournament the doubles have been finished. Messrs
Davidson and Porter
beating Messrs. Lapeyriere and Hulbert in the finals.
The score was 6-4, 11-9.
The second set was a severe contest as the score shows.
The singles have yet to
be finished as Messrs. Davidson. Porter and Hulbert have
tied for first place.
It is expected that these will be played off early in
September.
As an
illustration of our statement that the deforestation of
the country is causing
a shrinkage in arable land because of the scouring the
hills we note that the
prefect of Sam-ga in Kyungsang has reported that a
violent rain storm there
caused the covering with sand of fields which required
886 measures of seed
grain for sowing or about sixteen bags. This is no small
tract of land and it
is rendered quite useless. This sort of thing is going
on all over the country
every rainy season.
The number of
men engaged in repairing the road between Seoul and Wiju
is as follows, by
sections, between Wiju and Sun-chun 5,572; between
Sun-chun and Chong-ju 1,903;
between Chong-ju and Kasan 640; between Kasan and Anju
4,250; between Anju and
Seoul 11,500. This makes a total of 23,862 men. It is
said that when it is
finished there will be a fine smooth road all the way to
the northern border.
Yun Eung-yul
has resigned the portfolio of War and Min Yunggeui has
been appointed in his
place.
Kim Ka-jin
resigned the Ministry of agriculture etc. and Yi To-ji
has succeeded him.
On the 22nd a
new society was formed called the Il-jin or “Straight
Progressive” Society. It
met at Chong-no in the Cotton Guild. Yun Si-byung was
appointed President with
Yu Hak-chu as second. Outsiders were not admitted. The
place was guarded by
Japanese gendarmes. The Korean police came at first and
attempted to stop the
meeting but the Japanese interfered and protected the
meeting from disturbance.
This caused the report to spread that the society was
working in the interests
of the Japanese.
[page
369]
KOREAN HISTORY.
The body was
wrapped in some sort of blanket, saturated with
petroleum and burned at the
edge of a pine grove immediately to the east of the pond
which lies in front of
the royal quarters.
The
Royal family had been aware for two days of the danger
which threatened. The
guards at the palace had been reduced, the arms had been
taken away and the
movements of Japanese troops were very suspicious. The
King advised the Queen
to go to a place of safety and she said she would do so
if the Queen Dowager
would also go, but the latter refused. Chong Pyung-ha
who had been raised to
high office through the patronage of the Queen but who
had struck hands with
the Japanese urged with great insistence that there was
no danger to Her
Majesty’s person and it was the confidence expressed by
this traitor that did
the most to set at rest the apprehension of the King and
the Queen.
At
about the time when the Queen was being killed the
Ta-wun-gun came into the
presence of the King and took the direction of affairs
at the court. As might
be supposed, both the King and the Crown Prince were in
anything but an
enviable frame of mind. They had been pushed about and
insulted by low Japanese
and felt that their lives were momentarily in danger.
Col Yi Kyung-jik the
Minister of the Household Department had taken his stand
at the door of the
Queen’s apartments and had there been cut down by the
Japanese or Koreans but
succeeded in making his way, desperately wounded, into
the presence of the
King. He was there stabbed to death by the Japanese
before the eyes of His
Majesty. This did not tend to reassure the King and the
Crown Prince but the
coming of the Ta-wun-gun tended to quiet them somewhat.
Of course they had no
idea as yet that the Queen had been despatched.
Before
dawn began to break the King learned that Japanese
troops were pouring into the
barracks in front of the palace, and as some semblance
of order had been
restored in the immediate presence of His Majesty, a
note was sent in [page
370]
haste to the Japanese Minister asking what all this
meant. The messenger found
Miura and Sugimura already up and dressed and sedan
chairs at the door. Miura
told the messenger that he had heard that troops had
been marched to the
barracks but did not know why. The Minister and his
secretary thereupon
proceeded rapidly to the palace. Immediately upon their
arrival all the
disturbance suddenly quieted down and the soshi
dispersed and left the palace
grounds. The Japanese Minister and secretary immediately
sought an audience
with His Majesty, accompained only by an interpreter and
another Japanese who
had led the soshi. The Ta-wun-gun was also present.
Three
documents wee prepared by those present and placed
before His Majesty for
signature, one of them guaranteeing that the Cabinet
should thereafter manage
the affairs of the country, the second appointing Yi
Cha-myun, the King’s
brother, as Minister of the Household in place of Yi
Kyung-jik who had just
been killed, and the third appointing a vice-Minister of
the Household. These
documents the king perforce signed. Whereupon all
Japanese troops were removed
from the palace and only the Japanese-trained Korean
troops were left as a
palace-guard. Later in the day Ministers of War and
Police were appointed in
the persons of Cho Heui-yun and Kwun Yung-jin, both
strong partisans of the
Japanese and doubtless privy to the attack upon the
palace and the murder of
the Queen. In other words the King and court was
surrounded by men every one of
whom were in sympathy with the movement which had been
planned by Viscount
Miura.
Very
early in the morning, while it was still scarcely
daylight, Mr. Waeber the
Russian Chargé
d’Affaires and Dr.
Allen the American Chargé d’Affaires
ad
interim came to the palace and sought audience
with the King but were told
that the King was unwell and could not see them. They
insisted, however, and
succeeded in seeing His Majesty, who told them that he
still had hopes that the
Queen had escaped, and besought their friendly offices
to prevent further
trouble. Other foreign representatives were received
later in the day.
It
soon became evident that the Japanese authorities
intended to deny any
responsibility for the outrages committed.
[page 371]
Miura
stated in his dispatches to
his government that the origin of the emeute was a
conflict beween the
Japanese-drilled Korean troops, who desired to lay a
complaint before His
Majesty, and the palace guards who tried to prevent
their entrance into the
palace. Miura even sought to strengthen his disclaimer
by obtaining from the
newly appointed Minister of War a definite official
statement that the rumors
of his (Miura’s) complicity in the affair were without
foundation. The document
that the Minister of War sent in reply proved altogether
too much and defeated
its own purpose, for it stated baldly that there was not
a single Japanese in
the palace on the night of the eighth of October, when
the Queen was murdered.
As this Minister was a creature of the Japanese and as
the presence of Japanese
in the palace was clearly proved subsequently it is
evident that Miura, by this
sort of trickery, only succeeded in further implicating
himself.
On
the ninth, the day after the emeute, a full cabinet was
appointed composed
entirely of Japanese sympathisers, but with one or two
exceptions they were not
privy to the assasination of the Queen, though they were
willing to profit by that
crime in accepting office at the hands of the
perpetrators. The men appointed
were Yi Cha-myun, Kim Hong-jip, Kim Yun-sik, Pak
Chong-yang, Sim Sang-hun, Cho
Heui-yon, So Kwang-bom and Chong Pyung-ha.
One
would have supposed that the enemies of the Queen would
have been satisfied by
her death, but not so. On the eleventh, three days after
her assassination, an
edict purporting to have originated with His Majesty and
signed by the full
cabinet appeared in the Court Gazette. In it the Queen
is charged with having
interfered in public matters, disturbed the government
and put the dynasty in
peril. It is stated that she has disappeared and that
her guilt is excessive;
therefore she is deposed from her rank as Queen and
reduced to the level of the
lowest class.
There
can be no doubt that this edict is fraudulent. The King
never gave his consent
to it and several of the members of the Cabinet knew
nothing about it, notably
Sim Sang-hun who had already thrown up his position and
run away, and Pak
Chong-yang who denounced the nefarious business and
resigned. It was put
through by a few of the Cabinet who [page
372]
were thoroughly subfervient to the Japanese. The
Japanese Minister in reply to the announcement of the
Queen’s degradation,
affected to sympathize with the Korean Government but
thought it was done for
the good of the State. The United States Representative
refused to recognize
the decree as coming from His Majesty, and in this he
was seconded by all the
the other Foreign Representatives except one.
Meanwhile
the Japanese government began to learn something of the
truth in regard to the
Queen’s death and felt called upon to defend itself from
the charge of
complicity in the outrage through its accredited
Minister. Consequently it
recalled Miura and Sugimura and upon their arrival in
Japan they were arrested
and charged with complicity in the matter. The fact of
their arrest and trial
was a distinct disclaimer on the part of the Japanese
government that it was
accessory to the crime; and in spite of the utter
inadequacy of the trial and
its almost ludicrous termination we hold to the theory
that the Japanese
government was not a party to ihe crime excepting in so
far as the appointment
of such a man as Miura can be called complicity.
But the vigorous action of
Japan in arresting Miura and putting him on trial had a
strong influence upon
the course of events in Korea. The Korean public and all
the Foreign
Representatives were demanding that the occurrences of
the eighth of October
should be investigated and the responsibility for the
murder of the Queen
placed where it rightly belonged. This itself bore
strongly upon the Cabinet,
but when in addition to this the Japanese government
itself seemed to be
weakening and it appeared that Miura’s acts would prove
to have been
unauthorized things begun to look rather black for the
men who were enjoying
office solely through Miura’s influence, and although
the fiction was still
maintained that the Queen was not dead but in hiding
somewhere, the situation
became more and more strained until at last it became
evident even to the
Cabinet that something must be done to relieve the
situation. Accordingly on
the 26th of November the Foreign Representatives and
several other foreigners
were invited to the palace and it was announced in
the presence of His Majesty that Cho Heui-yon the
Minister of War aud Kwun
Yung-jin the Chief of Police were dismissed, [page 373] that the edict degrading
the Queen was rescinded and that the facts connected
with the attack on the
palace would be investigated by the Department of
Justice and all guilty
perssons tried and punished. At the same time the death
of Her Majesty was
formally announced.
The
popular feeling against the Japanese-trained troops was
so strong that they
were dismissed and another guard summoned but as a
matter of fact this new
guard was composed almost entirely of the very men who
had formerly composed
the Japanese-drilled corps.
The
position of His Majesty during the months succeeding the
attack was anything
but comfortable. He had no voice in the direction of
affairs, and he considered
himself practically a prisoner in the hands of the
Cabinet. He even feared for
his life, and for weeks ate no food except what was
brought to him in a locked
box from friends outside the palace. He had requested
that two or three
foreigners should come to the palace each night and be
at hand in case of
trouble, feeling that their presence would exert a
deterrent influence upon any
who might plot injury to his person.
The
half-way measures adopted on Nov. 26th by no means
satisfied those who wished
to see His Majesty freed from practical durance at the
hands of men thoroughly
obnoxious to him, and a scheme was evolved by a number
of Koreans to effect his
release by forcible means. The purpose of these men was
a laudable one but the
execution of it was ill-managed. On the night of the
28th upwards of a thousand
Koreans demanded entrance into the palace. They had
arranged with one of the
members of the palace guard, inside, to open the gate to
them, but at the last
moment he failed them and they found themselves balked.
The palace was in some
confusion, the King had called into his presence the
three foreigners who, at
his request, were on duty that night, but in spite of
their assurances that his
person would be protected it was only natural that
excitement should run high.
The crowd without were shouting wildly and attempting to
scale the high wall,
and the members of the cabinet, before the King, did not
know at what moment
the guard might betray them to the assailants, and they
knew that once betrayed
they would be torn to pieces without mercy. They [page 374]
tried therefore to induce the King to
remove to a distant part of the palace where he could
hide for a long time
before he could be found even though the crowd should
effect an entrance. The
night was bitterly cold and the King was but lightly
clad, and as the King’s
person was safe in any event, the foreigners who were
with him opposed the move
strongly and at last were compelled to use physical
force to prevent the
change, which would certainly have endangered the King’s
life. The purpose of
the cabinet was thus thwarted but as the hours passed it
become evident that
the men outside would not be able to effect an entrance.
The shouts gradually
died away and at last the crowd dispersed leaving in the
hands of the palace
guard three or four men who had scaled the wall but had
not been followed by
their confreres.
In
view of the attitude of the Tokyo Government the
Japanese in Seoul were now
entirely quiescent and the government was standing on
its own base. The cabinet
held its own by virtue of the palace guard which was
composed of the soldiers
trained by the Japanese. This cabinet and guard held
together from necessity,
for both knew that should their power fail they would be
denounced as traitors
and under the circumstances could expect little help
from the Japanese. The
cabinet had to make a show of investigating the attack
of Oct. 5th and someone
must be killed for having murdered the queen. At the
same time punishment was
to be meted out to the principals in the attempt on the
palace on November
28th.
Three
men were arrested and charged with being directly
implicated in the crime of
regicide. Of these one was certainly innocent and while
the second was probably
privy to the crime, being a lieutenant of the Japanese
trained troops, there
was no evidence adduced to prove his actual
participation in the act of
assassination. He had not been reinstated in his
position in the new guard and he
knew altogether too much about the existing cabinet.
Their choice fell upon him
as one of the scapegoats. The third was Yi Chu-hoe
formerly Vice Minister of
War. There was no evidence adduced against him at the
trial, though from other
considerations be seems to have been implicated in the
outrage. He was chosen
as the principal one to bear the [page
375]
obloquy of the crime, probably because ( 1 ) he was a
bitter enemy of the existing cabinet and (2) because it
was necessary for the
sake of appearances to convict and execute someone of
rank and reputation. As a
fact the court did not know and never discovered who the
actual perpetrators
were. The three men were executed before the end of the
year.
Though
only three men were arrested in connection with the
assassination of the queen
thirty-three men were arrested in connection with the
comparatively trivial
affair of November 28th. Their trial proceeded
simultaneously with that of the
other three. Two of them were condemned to death, four
to exile for life and
four to three years imprisonment. To show the kind of
evidence on which these
convictions were based we will cite the case of Prince
Yi Cha-sun who was
proved to have gotten hold of some compromising
documents and to have shown
them to the King only, instead of to the proper
authorities, namely, of course,
the cabinet. On these grounds he was sentenced to three
years imprisonment!
December
and January saw matters move to an inevitable climax.
The cabinet forced upon
the people the edict ordering the cutting off of the
top-knot, the distinctive
mark of Korean citizenship. The whole country was in a
ferment and the people,
almost to a man, were gnashing their teeth at the
cabinet. The finding of the
Hiroshima court claimed to have freed Miura and his
fellows from blame and it
was rumored that several of them were to return to Korea
to take office under
the government. Chong Pyung-ha, a proved traitor, had
been reinstated in the
cabinet as Minister of Agriculture and Cho Heui-yun as
Minister of War. and it
was reported that Kwun Yong-jin who had fled to Japan
would be made again Chief
of Police. It was perfectly evident, therefore, that the
grip of the Japanese
upon the king through the Goaler Cabinet was tightening
and that there was no
escape from it except through heroic measures. These
measures the king was
prepared to adopt rather than longer endure the
humiliating position to which
he seemed condemned. At that time the principal men in
the cabinet were Kim
Hong-jip, Chong Pyong-ha, O Yun-jung, Yu Kiljun. Of
these O Yun-jung seems to
have been far less [page 376]culpable
than the rest. The king had great confidence in him
and had he not met his fate at the hands of the people
he would probably have
been called back to office.
But
now we come to the important step taken by His Majesty
to free himself from his
unpleasant position. He determined to find asylum in the
Russian Legation. C.
Waeber was the Russian Minister, a pronounced friend of
the dead Queen, and a
man of great ability. Just how he was approached and his
consent gained to the
king’s scheme is not generally known but in view of
subsequent events and the
part that Russia intended to play in Korea it is easy to
see how the Russian
Representative would welcome an opportunity to do the
King such a signal
service and one which was of such a personal character
as to render it certain
that it would never be forgotten.
The
plan was carried out successfully in every detail.
Women’s chairs were caused
to be sent in and out the palace gates at frequent
intervals by day and night
until the guards had become quite accustomed to them.
Then on the night of the
eleventh of February the King and the Crown Prince
without escort slipped by
the guards in common women’s chairs and were taken
directly to the Russian
Legation where they were courteously received and given
the best portion of the
Legation building. This act was of course a grievous
lapse from the dignity
that befits a king but under the circumstances there is
much to say by way of
excuse. On the whole it must be considered a mistake so
far as the country at
large is concerned, for it set in motion a new set of
factors which probably
did more harm than the temporary enforced seclusion of
the King could have
done. It acted as a potent factor in embittering the
Japanese against Russia
and opened the door for Russian intrigue which finally
hastened if it did not
actually cause the war at present waging. Had Japan been
able to preserve the
predominance which she held in Korea just after the
China-Japan war she might
have looked with more or less complaisancy upon the
Russian aggression in
Manchuria, but when Korea itself became disputed ground
the war was inevitable.
At
seven o’clock on the morning of February 11th the King
and the Crown Prince
entered the Russian Legation. [page 377]
Several hours elapsed before the Cabinet in the palace
became aware of the
fact. During that interval active operations were going
on at the Russian
Legation. The organization of a new cabinet was hastened
by summoning from various
parts of the city such officials as the King could
trust. Pak Chong-yang was
made Prime Minister. No time was lost in putting out a
Royal Edict deprecating
the necessity of taking refuge in a foreign legation,
promising to punish the
real authors of the Queen’s assassination, rescinding
the order for cutting the
top-knots. This was posted on the gates of the Legation
and at various points
throughout the city.
Chapter XXIL
The King at
the Russian Legation . . . . A Royal edict . . .
Massacre or flight of cabinet
miuisters.
. . . an excited city . . .
. Japanese consternation . . . provincial uprisings . .
. party reorganization
. . . The Independence Club . . . trial of Queen’s
murderers . . . Appointment
of Dr. Brown as adiviser to Finance Department . . .The
Independent . . . . The
Waeber-Komura Convention . . . . material reforms . . .
reaction . . . The
Independence Arch . . . . Seoul-Chemulpo railway
concession . . . . The new
palace planned . . . . retrogressive signs . . .postal
and other administrative
reforms.
When the
public awoke to the momentous fact, a thrill of
excitement and, generally, of
approval went through the whole population of Seoul. The
city hummed with
excited humanity. The streets swarmed with the crowds
bent upon watching the
course of such stirring events.
Later
in the day the King put forth an edict calling upon the
soldiers to rally to
his support and urging them to bring the heads of the
traitors Cho Heui-yun, U
Pom-sun, Yi Tuwhang, Yi Pom-na, Yi Chin-ho and Kon
Yong-jin. But later still
this was toned down to read that these individuals
should be seized and turned
over to the proper authorities for trial.
The
reason why the names of Kim Hong-jip, Chong Pyong-Ha and
others of the former
cabinet were not included was because they had already
met their fate. As soon
as it became known in the palace that the King had fled,
these [page
378]
men saw that their lives were forfeited. O Yun-jung
managed to escape to the
country but was set upon and killed by the people, Cho
Heui-Yun escaped, Yu
Kil-jun was spirited away to Japan by the Japanese; but
Kim Hong-jip aud Chong
Pyong-ha found no way of escape. Being seized by the
Korean soldiers, were
immediately rushed by the crowd and killed. Their bodies
were hauled to
Chong-no where they were stamped upon, kicked, bitten
and stoned by a
halfcrazed rabble for hours. A Japanese who happened to
be passing was set upon
by the crowd and killed and several foreigners drawn to
the spot by curiosity
were threatened.
The
King was shocked when he heard of the summary execution
of the two ministers,
whom he intended to give a fair trial. Two days later an
edict was promulgated
by the King deploring the impoverished state of the
country and laying the
blame upon himself; and concluded by remitting all
arrears of taxes due up to
July 1894. The new cabinet consisted of the following
men Pak Chong-yang, Yi
Yun-yong, An Kyung-su, Ko Yong-heui, Yun Chi-ha. Yun
Yong-gu, Yi Wan-yong and
Cho Pyung-jik.
To
say that the Japanese were nonplussed by this coup on
the part of the King
would be to put it very mildly. All their efforts to
consolidate their power in
Korea and to secure there some fruit of the victory in
the war just finished,
had been worse than thrown away. The King had thrown
himself into the arms of
Russia and the whole Korean people were worked up to a
white heat against
Japan, comparable only with the feelings elicited by the
invasion of 1592. It
was a very great pity, for Japan was in a position to do
for Korea infinitely
more than Russia would do. The interests of Korea and
Japan were identical or
at least complementary and the mistake which Japan made
in the latter half of
1895 was one whose effects will require decades to
efface.
When
the King thus wrenched himself out of Japanese hands the
Japanese papers in
Seoul bewailed the fact that the country was without a
ruler, and almost
directly advised the people to put someone else on the
throne, and this without
censure from the Japanese authorities. And it is well
known among Koreans that
there was a strong faction among the Koreans who were
willing to attempt to put
Yi Chun –yong,
[page 379] the
grandson of the Ta-wun-gun on the throne, had that
ambitious young man been
possessed of the requisite amount of assurance.
Fortunately such was not the
case and the country was saved from further upheaval.
But
the Japanese authorities though thrown into
consternation by this radical
movement of His Majesty did not give up hope of mending
matters. The Japanese
Minister saw the King at the Russian Legation and urged
upon him every possible
argument for returning to the palace. His Majesty,
however, being now wholly
relieved from anxiety as to his personal safety, enjoyed
the respite too
thorougly to cut it short, and so politely refused to
change his place of
residence. A large number of Japanese in Seoul became
convinced that Japan had
hopelessly compromised herself, and left the country,
but the Japanese
Government itself by no act or word granted that her
paramount influence in the
peninsula was impaired and with admirable sangfroid took
up the new line of
work imposed upon her by the King*s peculiar action,
meanwhile putting down one
more score against Russia, to be reckoned with later.
The country was suffering
from the excitement caused by the news of the Japanese
diplomatic reverses, and
the people in many districts rose in revolt and declared
that they would drive
all the Japanese out of the country. These efforts were
however scattered and
sporadic in their nature and were successfully quelled
by Korean Government
troops sent down to the various disaffected districts
for this purpose.
Now
that it was possible the King hastened to order a new
investigation of the
circumstances attending the death of the Queen. It was
feared that this would
result in a very sweeping arrest of Koreans and the
punishment of many people
on mere suspicion, but these fears were ill-founded. The
trials were carried
through under the eye of Mr. Greathouse the adviser to
the Law Department and a
man of great legal ability. Thirteen men were arrested
and tried in open court
without torture and with every privilege of a fair
trial. One man Yi Whi-wha
was condemned to death, four banished for life and five
for lesser periods.
This dispassionate trial was not the least of the signs
which pointed toward a
new and enlightened era in Korean political history.
[page 380]
Not only in the country but in Seoul as well tbe
prestige of Japan had suffered
greatly by the events of the winter of 1895-96. After
the Japan-China war the Koreans
were divided into two distinct factions, one holding
strongly with the Japanese
and the other advocating a more conservative policy, but
gradually as the
political situation began to crystalize these two split
into four, namely the
Japanese faction, the King’s faction, the Queen’s
faction, and the Tawon-gun’s
faction. This is merely another way of saying that every
strong political
possibility will have its own faction in such a land as
this, according as each
man fancies that his champion will get supreme power and
reward those who have
followed in his train. The number of men who follow the
standard of this or
that party because of any altruistic or purely patriotic
consideration is so
small as to be a negligeable quantity. When, therefore,
it appeared that Japan’s
star was setting in Korea there was a hasty shifting of
political platforms and
soon it appeared that there were only two, one of which
favored Russian
influence and the other conservative and very quiet, for
the time being, until
the extreme pro-Russian enthusiasm should subside
somewhat. Of course the
Ta-won-gun’s had disappeared with the waning fortunes of
the Japanese and the
Queen’s faction had gone over to the Russians. It was
the conservatives alone
that held to their former position and desired no
foreign interferance
whatever. But many of those who had favored the Japanese
joined the
conservative party but unlike the “mossback”
conservatives wanted to do
something actively to counteract Russian influence. They
therefore worked to bring
English and American influence into greater prominence.
In the heart of this
movement was born the “Independence Club.” It will be
remembered that ever
since the previous year Dr. Philip Jaisohn had been
acting as adviser to the
Privy Council. This council enjoyed considerable power
at first but gradually
fell to a secondary place, but now that new conditions
had sprung up the
element combatting the Russian influence took advantage
of the presence of Dr.
Jaisohn and other Koreans who had been educated abroad.
The Russians seemed to
look with complaisance upon this movement and in the
Spring of this year, seem
to have made no [page 381]
effort to prevent the appointment of J. McLeavy Brown,
L.L.D., as Adviser to
the Finance Department, with large powers; which seemed
to bear out the belief
that the Russian Minister was sincere in his statement
that Russia wished the
King to be quite untrammelled in the administration of
his government. It is
this generous policy of Mr. Waeber that is believed to
have caused his transfer
later to another post, to be replaced by A. de Speyer
who adopted a very
different policy. However this may have been, things
began to take on a very
hopeful aspect in Seoul. Needed reforms were carried
through : torture was
abolished in the Seoul courts, a concession was given to
an American company to
construct a railway between Seoul and Chemulpo, Min
Yong-whan was appointed
special envoy to the coronation of the Czar, work was
begun on the American
mining concession granted the year before, various
schools were founded, and
the outlook on the whole was very bright indeed. It
looked as if a solution had
been found for the difficulties that afflicted the state
and that an era of
comparatively enlightened government was opening.
For
some time there had existed a more or less secret
organization among the
Koreans, the single article of whose political creed was
Independence both from
China and Japan, or in other words Korea for Koreans.
Now that the King had
been relieved of Chinese suzerainty by the Japanese and
of Japanese restraint
by himself, this little society under the leadership of
Dr. Philip Jaisohn
blossomed out into what was called The Independence
Club. The name but
partially described the society, for while it advocated
the complete
independence of Korea it still more insistently
advocated a liberal government,
in the shape of a genuine constitutional monarchy in
which the royal
prerogative should be largely curtailed and the element
of paternalism
eliminated. At first the greater stress was laid upon
the general principle of
Korean Independence and to this the King in the joy of
his newly found freedom
heartily agreed. The royal sanction was given to the
Independence Club and it
was launched upon a voyage which had no haven, but ended
in total shipwreck.
This club, society was composed of young men many of
whom were doubtless
aroused for the time being to something like patriotic [page 382]
fervor but who had had no practical experience of the
rocky road of Korean politics or of the obstacles which
would be encountered.
The cordiality of the King’s recognition blinded them to
the fact that the real
object of their organization, namely the definition of
the royal prerogative,
was one that must eventually arouse first the suspicion
and then the open
hostility of His Majesty and would become the slogan of
all that army of
self-seekers who saw no chance for selfaggrandisement
except in the immemorial
spoils system. These young men were armed with nothing
but a laudable
enthusiasm. They could command neither the aid of the
Korean army nor the
advocacy of the older statesmen, all of whom were either
directly hostile to
the movement or had learned caution through connection
with previous abortive
attempts to stem the tide of official corruption. The
purpose of this club. so
far as it knew its own mind, was a laudable one in
theory but the amount of
persistency, courage, tact and self-restraint necessary
to carry the plan to a
successful issue was so immensely greater than they
could possibly guess, that,
considering the youth and inexperience of the personnel
of the society, the
attempt was doomed to failure. They never clearly
formulated a constructive
plan by which to build upon the ruins of that system
which they were bent upon
destroying. Even had they cleared the way to such
construction they could not
have found a statesman in Korea of recognized standing
and prestige, to act as
master-builder, whose previous record would have made
him acceptable to
themselves or a fit exponent of their principles.
On
April 7th the first foreign newspaper was founded by Dr.
Philip Jaisohn. It was
called The
Independent and was partly
in the native character. From the first it exerted a
powerful influence among
the Koreans and was one of the main factors which led to
the formation of the
Independence Club.
Both Japan and Russia were
desirous of coming to an understanding as to Korea and
on May 14th there was
published the Waeber-Komura Agreement which was modified
and ratified later
under the name of the Lobanoff-Yamata Agreement.
According to the terms of this
convention both Powers guaranteed to respect the
independence of Korea and not
to send soldiers into the conn try except by common
consent.
[page 383]
The summer of 1896 saw great material improvements in
Seoul. The work of
clearing out and widening the streets was vigorously
pushed and although much
of the work was done superficially some permanent
improvement was effected, and
the “squatters”
along the main streets were cleaned out, it is
hoped for all time. In July the concession for building
a railway between Seoul
and Wiju was given to a French syndicate. From
subsequent events it appears
that there was no fixed determination on the part of the
French to push this
great engineering work to a finish but merely to preempt
the ground and prevent
others from doing it. Russian influence doubtless
accomplished this, and from
that time there began to spring up the idea that Korea
would be divided into
two spheres of influence, the Japanese predominant in
the south and the
Russians in the north.
In
spite of the favorable signs that appeared during the
early months of 1896 and
the hopes which were entertained that an era of genuine
reform had been entered
upon, the coming of summer began to reveal the
hollowness of such hopes. The
King himself was strongly conservative and never looked
with favor upon
administrative changes which tended to weaken his
personal hold upon the
finances of the country and he chafed under the new
order of things. In this he
was encouraged by many of the leading officials, who saw
in the establishment
of liberal institutions the end of their opportunities
for personal power and
aggrandisement. The old order of things appealed to them
too strongly and it
became evident that the government was rapidly lapsing
into its former
condition of arbitrary and partisan control. Open and
violent opposition to
such harmless innovations as the wearing of foreign
uniforms by the students of
Foreign Language Schools indicated too plainly the
tendency of the time and the
Russian authorities did nothing to influence His Majesty
in the right
direction. Judging from subsequent events it was not
Russia’s policy to see an
enlightened administration in Seoul. The political plans
of that Power could be
better advanced by a return to the status ante quo. The
act of the government
in substituting an Independence Arch in place of the
former gate, outside the
West Gate, which. commemorated Chinese suzerainty, was
looked upon, [page
384]
and rightly, by the more thoughtful as being merely a
superficial demonstration
which was based upon no deeper desire than that of being
free from all control
or restraint except such as personal inclination should
dictate. The current
was setting toward a concentration of power rather than
toward a healthful
distribution of it, and thus those who had hailed the
vision of a new and
rejuvenated state were compelled to confess that it was
but a mirage.
Pressure
was brought to bear upon the court to remove from the
Russian Legation, and it
was high time that such a move be made. As a matter of
urgent necessity it was
considered a not too great sacrifice of dignity to go to
the Legation but to
make it a permanent residence was out of the question.
The King was determined
however, not to go back to the palace from which he had
fled. It held too many
gruesome memories. It was decided to build the Myung-ye
Palace in the midst of
the Foreign Quarter with Legations on three sides of it.
The site selected was
the same as that which King Sun-jo used in 1593 when he
returned from his
flight to the north before the armies of Hideyoshi. He
had lived here for some
fourteen years while the Chang-dok Palace was building.
The present King
however intended it as a permanent residence, and
building operations were
begun on a large scale, but it was not until February of
the following year
that His Majesty finally removed from the Russian
Legation to his new palace.
All
during the latter half of 1896 the gulf between the
Independence party and the
conservatives kept widening. The latter grew more and
more confident and the
former more and more determined. Dr. Jaisohn in his
capacity of adviser to the
Council of State was blunt and outspoken in his advice
to His Majesty and it
was apparent that the latter listened with growing
impatience to suggestions
which, however excellent in themselves, found no
response in his own
inclinations. The Minister of Education voiced the
growing sentiment of the
retrogressive faction in a book called “The Warp and
Woof of Confucianism” in
which such extreme statements were made that several of
the Foreign
Representatives felt obliged to interfere and call him
to account. A Chief of
Police was appointed who was violently anti-reform.
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
SEPTEMBER,
1904.
Spelling
Reform.
The following
is not an attempt to give the views of any one person on
this very important
topic but to bring together all the arguments pro and con which have,
up to the present time, been adduced.
It
is generally known that about the middle of the
fifteenth century King Se-jong
appointed a commission to reduce Korean speech to
phonetic writing. Their
choice lay between a syllabary like that of Japan and a
genuine alphabet. They
chose the latter course and after many months of work,
during which thirteen
journeys were made to Manchuria to consult a famous
Chinese scholar there in
exile, an alphabet was completed. A careful distinction
was made between vowels
and consonants, the former being called the “mother” of
the syllable and the latter
the “child.”
Before
approaching the main subject we must inquire to what
degree the inventors of
this alphabet approximated to a perfect phonetic
standard. Only two of the
letters originally determined upon have been dropped.
One of these represented
the break in the throat when one pronounces a vowel in a
slightly emphatic or
explosive manner and the other was a still more obscure
sound. It is found that
almost all the letters in use today have but a single
sound each. Each of the
vowels [page 386]
has its long and short quantity twin that does not
affect the quality of the
sound except in the case of a single vowel. Each of the
surds k, p, t and cb
are pronounced as sonants g, b, d and j when euphony
demands, and so the same
letters are used both for surd and sonant. There is one
weak letter that
represents the sounds of l and r, and is also pronounced
n in some cases. This
is one serious defect in the phonetic structure of the
Korean alphabet. The
English alphabet will stand no comparison with the
Korean for simplicity and
consistency. There are a few exceptional uses of letters
in Korean but these
are nothing compared with what we find in English. And
the reasons for these
seeming lapses are the same in Korea as in English. The
present spelling of English
words represents a pronunciation that formerly existed
but is now lost. Take
the word “right.” Today the gh is silent but in older
times it was sounded. So
in Korean we have two ways of indicating the sound of a
as in father,
but time was when these two
methods represented two distinct sounds. In like manner
all the inconsistencies
now found are the result of phonetic change in the use
of the language during
the lapse of centuries, and do not prove a charge of
carelessness against the
authors of the alphabet.
The
proposition, now formulated, is that we should revise
the Korean alphabet and
eliminate useless elements, and it is to the arguments
for and against this
course that we wish to direct the notice of the reader.
The
proposed changes are as follows: (a) to dropone of the
two methods of
expressing the sound of a as in father.
There is no difference in sound between the two and some
think it would be well
to simplify spelling by dropping one of them; (b) to
discontinue the use of the
letter t in those places where it is pronounced ch or y,
and use the letter
which ordinarily represents these sounds; (c) to
discontinue the use of the
double point in vowels preceded by the letters s, t and
ch, because in these
cases the y sound which the double point represents is
never heard after these
consonants.
Every
one agrees that in these three particulars at [page 387]
least
the writing of Korean falls below a perfect
phonetic standard, and it is generally felt that it
would have been well if the
originators of the alphabet and its use could have
avoided thcee
inconsistencies and infelicities. But the question that
we have to face is
whether at the present time, it would be well to adopt
in all our Christian and
other educational literature this more perfect phonetic
standard that has been
proposed, or whether it would be well to attempt to
compromise and introduce at
least a part of the suggestions, or whether in the third
place it would lie
well to leave Korean spelling as it is.
Even
the most enthusiastic advocates of these changes
acknowledge that the burden of
proof lies with them, for the law of inertia is not
confined to physical nature
and the present status of things must be considered the
best until someone is
ready to show another as good or better.
The
first argument advanced is that there exists today no
genuine standard of
Korean spelling. The conservatives deny this and assert
that there exists today
at least the basis of a standard of spelling. As no
native lexicographer has
ever given us a complete vocabulary of the Korean and as
the contempt in which
the native script is professedly held by Koreans who
read Chinese makes them
quite careless as to the spelling of words in pure
Korean, we can confidently
affirm that Korean spelling is in a very backward state;
yet those who claim
the existence of a partial standard show the Ok-pyun as
evidence. This book
gives us the spelling of all the Chinese characters, and
since there is as much
Chinese in Korean as there is Latin in English they
claim that so far as it
goes the Ok-pyun forms a standard. As for native words
there is more doubt. As
a rule the ordinary verbal and substantive endings are
stereotyped and can be
said te have attained a fixed standard, but the ordinary
nouns and verbs are
spelled variously. The advocates of the change argue
that even though there is
something of a standard there runs through it no law of
spelling. It all seems
very arbitrary. This is true. If [page
388]
we knew the ancient pronunciation of these words we
should doubtless see why they are spelled as they are,
but as phonetic changes
have come in the vernacular we can find in the spelling
of the words no fixed
law. The same thing obtains in every language. Centuries
ago every letter of
the word thorough
was sounded, as was
every letter of the words know, psalm, etc. As the
phonetic changes in the
vernacular follow no fixed law necessarily the spelling
must be gradually
thrown into confusion if it is retained in its original
form. It gets out of
alignment, so to speak. The question is whether we shall
draw the spelling back
into alignment with the pronunciation or not. It seems
to us that it depends
very much upon the degree to which the present spelling
has fixed itself in the
Korean mind. We call a man a crank if he tries to tamper
extensively with
English spelling. It is a fixed quantity and people will
not allow it to be
violently wrenched out of the old grooves. The question
as to how much the same
conservatism exists in Korea is answered variously by
various individuals. Some
say that no one would care if the change were made. Some
say every body would
object, others still say that a few scholars would find
fault and still others
that few if any would detect the change. The one thing
which works strongly in
favor of the conservative contention is that the whole
matter has not been
threshed out. There are so many matters of fact that are
yet in dispute. The
two sides have not been able to find any common ground
from which to argue.
Some say there is a standard, others that there is none.
Some believe that the
change is distasteful to the great majority, others that
it is welcome. Some
say everyone would know the difference and others that
no one would. As to the
question of standard, which is a leading one, who has
gone through that
commonest of all native books and found whether the.
spelling is consistent and
whether it follows any fixed law? It is usage which
makes a standard but far
too little work has been done in hunting up the usage.
Instead of this we hear
the wild assertion that no Korean writes the native
alphabet consistently. The
question is [page 389]
not whether any single Korean writes immaculate Korean
but whether all
reputable writers give a large majority of common words
a common spelling. Some
say they do and some that they do not. The matter ought
to be proved one way or
the other before we can assert that Korea has no
standard of spelling. A
standard does not necessarily mean a codified standard
crystalized in a
dictionary. It means the concensus of opinion as
expressed in men’s writings.
We doubt whether any one knows whether there is any such
concensus among
Korrean writers of the native script.
It
is the desire of the advocates of the reform to give the
people a system which
will make the spelling of words absolutely phonetic so
that the very sound of
the word will indicate the spelling and there will be no
chance of mistake. The
advantages of such a system are mainfest. Children will
be able to learn to
read more readily and writing will be a very simple
matter. According to the
old system the spelling of each word had to be learned
separately as in
English, a labor which mainfestly has its disadvantages.
The opponents of the
change affirm that there is much more in language than
mere spelling. They think
that the meaning of the word should be suggested by the
sight of the word
itself. One gentleman made the argument that while, as a
rule, each Chinese
character goes to one extreme by suggesting
independently its whole meaning the
pure phonetic systerm would go to the other extreme and
leave almost every
thing to the context. As if the English words write,
rite and wright were all
spelled alike, or the words sight, site and cite. If
these were spelled alike
no one could understand them except through the context.
The gentleman argued
that the uniform spelling of all words that are
pronounced alike would be to
impoverish the language, and that a golden mean,some
Arhere between an extreme
phonetic simplicity which leaves everything to the
context and complete verbal
independence which leaves nothing to the context should
be sought for. As the
system now in use is such a mean, he argues that there
is no call for a change;
that the effort required to [page 390]
memorize the spelling of words is not too high a price
to pay for the added
richness of the language. It should be borne in mind
that the vagaries of
Korean spelling are nothing so wild as those of English.
The Korean has almost
no silent letters. In Korean the whole matter lies in
two methods of writing
the letters a, t and ch, and the use of a silent y.
These complications are
enough to cause difficulty but they are simplicity
itself compared with our own
language. Of course it is a question of fact whether the
simplifying of the
spelling would impoverish the language, but it was
evident in the meeting at
which the matter was discussed that the advocates of the
change had not given
this question sufficient thought. It is just at this
point that the
conservative stick, for they say the question has not
been thought out
sufficiently for us to come to a definite conclusion
that will warrant such
drastic changes as those which are proposed. They might
have suggested many
other phases of the question that have never been
brought up. For instance,
what of the fact that the phonetics of every language
are undergoing constant
change and that even if we should force Korean spelling
into its present
phonetic form it would all be
awry again in a few decades, more or less? Spelling is a
stereotyped thing, a
dead thing, while language itself is living and growing,
it is probable that
there are many phases of this question that have not as
yet been so much as
thought of much less digested. What the ccmservatives
want is that we should
wait until we are sure of ourselves and sure of what we
want.
It
may be that the scheme of reform spelling might be
improved by adding to it. To
our mind one of the most glaring imperfections of the
Korean alphabet is the
lack of distinction betwen the long and short sound of
the vowels; 눈may be either eye or snow, 산 may be either mountain or
mathematics, 길 may
be steam or a gentleman’s name. This is particularly
true of the vowel 어 which has two separate and
distinct sounds. If we are to take from the alphabet
with one hand for the sake
of simplicity why should we not [page
391]
add to it with the other for the sake of precision? But
the defenders of the reform scheme disavow any intention
of making a prefect
system, they want simply to eliminate a few unnecessary
factors. But if we are
to manipulate the alphabet in favor of the coming
generations, why not make a
thorough job of it and give them something that will be
approximately perfect?
The conviction forces itself upon our minds that we are
not ready for action
yet. Neither the advocates for the scheme nor its
opponents nor the men on the
fence are prepared to vote on this very important and
far-reaching question.
The
difficulty that has been raised because of dialectic
differences of
pronunciation has never been properly answered. In a
large section of the
country the y is not silent in the vowels with the
double spot and the t and ch
are not interchangeable. We have never been told what
these people will do if
books are put in their hands in which the y is dropped
and in which the t and
the ch are arranged according to Seoul pronunciation.
Those people could not be
induced to change their pronunciation to accord with the
new spelling. On the
other hand all Koreans except those mentioned know that
the letter t,
with any double-spot vowel or with i is pronounced
as ch. They have no
difficulty about it. It is a fact that can be learned in
ten minutes by any
child. So far as reading is concerned the old system
works well enough. When,
it comes to spelling, however, the new method would be
simpler, but how the
revisionists would conrmend it to that portion of the
Korean people who
pronounce according to the present
spelling it is very hard to see.
There
are some who hold that the lower a
could be dropped, while they object to the other
changes. In this point
dialectic diflFerences cause no trouble, for the two
letters for a
are pronounced alike the whole country
over. The only argument against this change is the
general one that was
adduced, namely that we need to have words of the same
sound spelled
differently because they thus engage the eye
independently and. do not leave,
every [page 392]
thing to the context. Imagine a few sentences, in
English. The last rain
was an important one, characterized
by unusual severity, but on the whole salutary to the
people. If he hasn’t the
cents to come on thyme he can’t expect a daze wage. Is
led oar mind hear? He
nose awl about the matter. These are exaggerations to be
sure but they
illustrate how a mere phonetic method will demand far
closer attention on the
part of the reader in order to seize the meaning of a
sentence than our present
method does. To learn to spell means a little extra work
in the beginning but
it confers a lifelong benefit, in the ability it
develops to grasp the writtin
idea rapidly and accurately. One of the staunchest
advocates of the reform
spelling says that the great difficulty with a Korean
text is its lack of
visual perspicuity; in other words the difficulty of
grasping the meaning at a
glance of the eye. Surely the similar spelling of all
words that are sounded
the same will add to this difficulty and require a still
more careful eye.After
all is said, does it not come down to this, that the
reform spelling will make
it easier to write Korean and harder to read it? There
are thousands of people
in America who can read the newspapers with perfect
comprehension but who could
not write a letter without a dozen mistakes in spelling
on each page. Which is
the more important, to read or to write? Manifestly the
former. The conservatives
contend that though the proposed changes would make it a
little easier to learn
to read, the difficulty would only be transferred, for
the reader would always
be under the necessity of a greater mental effort in
reading than he would be
under the present system. The difference between the two
systems is something
like that between a steel engraving and a painting. In
the one case every
effect is produced in black and white by simply shading
while in the other
there is the added element of color. Of course the
painting is the more
difficult to produce but it is more satisfactory in the
end. So, there is some
difficulty in learning to spell, but the visual element
thus added gives a
richness to the text and does for it something of what
color [page
393]
does to the picture. At least there are those that think
so, and until the
whole question is studied into much more extensively,
they think definite and
binding action would be premature.
Such a change, too, is in
the nature of radical amendment to a constitution and
should require an
overwhelming vote in its favor. A nearly unanimous vote
would probably convince
the minority that they were presumably wrong and the
change could be made, but
anything like an even division would preclude the
possibility of it.
There
is no one who will not sympathize with the desire to
benefit the Korean people
along this or any other line and the staunchest
conservative would hasten to
assent to any change however radical if he was once
convinced of its
usefulness. This question bears heavily upon the whole
matter of education in
Korea, and every one will hail the presentation of any
plan which will secure
the general consent of those who know Korea and Koreans
and which will really
lighten the labor either for the teacher or the taught
or both.
Northeast
Korea and the War
The conundrum
that is puzzling the public just at present is: What are
the Russians proposing
to do in Northeast Korea? The only guess that we can
make is that they expect
to hold their own in Harbin, keep the railroad intact
all the way to the
Pacific coast, defend Vladivostock against the Japanese
and use the road
southward from that port as a line of military
operations, hoping perhaps that,
when peace is discussed, they may receive in lieu of
Manchuria whatever
territory they may be in actual military possession of
on the east coast; and
thus secure an ice-free port on the Pacific. Of course
this is a wild scheme,
for if they win they will not be content with so little
and if they lose they
will be given much less.
[page 394]
At any rate the presence of Russians in northeast Korea
makes that region of
special interest to the readers of the Review, and we
are very fortunate to
have secured a long and interesting statement of
conditions in that part of the
country from Rev Robt. Grierson, M.D., who has lived for
some years in
Sung-jin, the newly opened port on the northeast coast
and who has travelled
extensively not only in Ham-gyung and Pyengan Provinces
but across the Tuman
into Russian territory as well. The following is what he
has to say about
conditions, in that part of the peninsula.
Those
who live in southern and central Korea often have an
erroneous conception of
the physical characteristics and the social conditions
of the north. Most
foreigners think of it as a sparsely inhabited, heavily
wooded and largely
uncultivated wilderness where the scattered population
is poor, rude, ignorant
and unmannered. The climate is thought to be bleak and
inhospitable and
agriculture of a very primitive character.
It
is with the idea of removing some of these
misconceptions and giving a more
correct view of these northern regions that the
following considerations are
submitted.
It
is an error to suppose that the north is but sparsely
inhabited. The coast
regions all the way from Wonsan to the Tuman River
abound in rice plains, some
of which are of wide extent and capable of supporting a
large population.
Besides this, a considerable part of the people obtain a
livelihood from the
sea, catching the ling in enormous numbers and curing
them for transport to all
parts of Korea. They form, under the appropriate name puk-u, “North fish,’’ a staple article of
food throughout the
peninsula. Throughout this region the prefectural
centers, or county-seats, are
large walled towns where much business is done and the
country is dotted with
villages in every direction, no further apart than in
other sections of Korea.
But
it will be said by some that the mountainous regions
inland must be
comparatively thinly inhabited, or [page
395]
at best that there are less people than tigers. Here
again we find the facts quite at variance with such
preconception. It is true
that in the mountain regions the population is more
scattered and that the
county-seats have fewer houses, but here the ordinary
distaste for hill-side
farming, so conspicuous in some other parts of the
country, is quite lacking,
perhaps because there is little but hill-side there, and
farm houses dot the
landscape in every direction, sometimes even to the tops
of the mountains. This
makes the appearance of the face of the land very
different from that of other
portions of the country, where the houses are all
clustered into villages and
isolated houses are unknown. The landscape has more the
appearance of an
American rural scene, especially at night when the
twinkling lights from scores
of country houses scattered over the hill-sides make a
brave show.
If
road travel is a fair index of population, northeastern
Korea must be heavily
populated; for in spite of the large passenger and
freight traffic on the
numerous coasting steamers, one will meet as many people
coming and going on
the great coast road as on any other great highway in
the land. The traffic on
roads running from the coast into the interior is often
surprising. Take for
instance the road from the port of Sinch’ang via
Puk-ch’ung to Kap-san. It is
very probable that no other road in Korea can show a
heavier traffic than this
one. What with loads of copper ore and of oats coming
out and rice, cotton
goods, fish and other commodities going in, the road
carries a constant stream
of merchandise. A railroad that would attract this heavy
passenger and freight
traffic ought to be a paying investment.
One
reason for the dense population in this region is
because it forms a sort of “wild
west” which attracts hosts of adventurous, disappointed,
oppressed or indigent
people who, while quite willing to work, find that in
parts nearer the capital
they are not able to enjoy without molestation the
fruits of their own labor.
This centrifugal force helps to offset the attraction
(largely [page
396]
imaginary) which the metropolis exerts, in Korea as
elsewhere, upon the bucolic
imagination.
While
the margin of cultivation in other parts of Korea may
have been lowering, it is
undeniable that in the Kap-san and Sam-su districts it
is on the rapid increase
This may be accounted for in part by the fact that at
the time of the
China-Japan war ten years ago thousands of people from
the districts
particularly affected by the military operations fled
from the scene of war,
all of them yearning for a lodge in some vast wilderness
Some contiguity of
shade where rumors Of oppression and of war might never
Reach me more.
In
addition to this the copper mines and the gold mines
attract a large number of
people, for here as elsewhere every scheme for getting
rich quickly has its
devotees.
It
must be admitted that in the most mountainous parts
there are districts without
population but it is doubtful whether such regions form
a larger proportion of
the area then in certain parts of Kang-wun or Whang-ha
Provinces.
One
would naturally suppose that on the northeastern
outskirts of the Kingdom there
would be an abundance of timber, and concessions made to
Russians some years
ago for cutting timber near the Tuman tend to strengthen
this idea, but the
truth of the case is that such extensive timber tracts
do not exist. The Korean
is the same in every latitude. The splendid timber that
must have once clothed
the hills has now almost vanished, having been
squandered by past generations.
One can travel all the way from Wonsan to the Tuman
without seeing any timber
that will excite more admiration than certain groves
within ten miles of Seoul,
always excepting the famous and beautiful sea-side
grove, three miles in
length, in the town of I-wun; and this remains only
because it is preserved
under heavy penalties. New settlers have been accustomed
to burn down the
forests for the double purpose of clearing the land and
[page
397]
of fertilizing it with the ashes. This naturally ensures
good crops at first,
which are so essential to the pioneer. They reason,
quite logically, that the
timber is useless. There is no local demand for it and
the cost of getting it
to the codst is prohibitive. One could hardly expect
them to exhibit enough
altruism to be willing to wait until railroads tap the
region and make
transportation possible, even if they knew the
difference between a railroad
and a bicycle — which is not the case. It must be
remembered that on the east
coast there are no rivers on which timber can be rafted
to the sea.
In
the Kap-san, Sam-su and Ma-san regions there is plenty
of timber, of a sort,
among the hills. Most common are a
kind of evergreen black fir called ku-mun-pi and a
deciduous fir called ik-kal.
Both of these are good, shapely trees but the wood does
not appear to be of a
very durable nature. There are few or none of the hard
woods, especially maple,
which make the landscape on the western side of the
peninsula so gorgeous in
Fall. And yet the ik-kal tree is very pretty. The groves
of these turn golden
yellow, as the needles die before falling; and they give
a brilliant touch of
color to the landscape. Those that grow near houses give
scope for the exercise
of the peoples’ aesthetic tastes, for they are
frequently trimmed into quaint
pagoda or other shapes and are sure to attract the eye
of the wayfarer. Besides
these trees there is a sprinkling of spruce and of the
common scrubby oak. It
will probably surprise the readers of the Review
to know that the ordinary pine which is so common
throughout other parts of
Korea is entirely absent from these northern mountain
districts.
In
regard to the cultivation of the soil, it is as general
as anywhere else in the
peninsula. Along the coast we find the same crops as are
grown elsewhere;
millet, rice, beans, barley, sorghum, hemp, etc. Am»ng
the mountains immense
quantities of oats, wheat and potatoes are raised. Near
the Chinese border
genuine cabbages and yellow tumips are largely grown.
The mountainous nature of
the country affords a much larger area for cultivation
than the flat surface of
a map would [page 398]
indicate. The people “turn the land up on edge and farm
both sides.” It is a
glorious picture which you may see in mid-Autumn from
any considerable
elevation. The enormous area sown to oats and wheat is
then revealed by its
golden yellow, and one can form some conception of the
thrift and energy of
these northern farmers and can estimate where the margin
of cultivation is. In
many a case it lies right on the sky line. The steepest
hillsides wave with
grain and often it climbs to the very mountain tops. One
simply wonders where
the people are who can till and consume such crops.
The
staple food of these people is oats, boiled whole, and
eaten as rice is in
other parts of the country. The kernel is harder than
that of rice and is more
difficult to digest. New comers are always troubled for
months with indigestion
and diarrhoea before they can get accustomed to this
hardy food.
Considered
socially these northern people are by no means the
ignorant boors that they
have sometimes been painted. So far as book learning
goes they average very
well with Koreans in other parts, and as for manners
they are no whit behind
the dwellers in the districts near the capital. Nor will
it do to think of them
as poor. There is some evidence, indeed, that they are
better off on the
average than the people in the south. For instance, in
the town of Tan-ch’un
tiled houses are much more numerous than thatched
houses. This refers not to
the county seat merely but to the houses of the
country-side. We doubt if the
same could be said of many districts in Korea.
In
the mountain regions of the north the houses are larger
and more commodious
than in most parts of Korea. Timber is locally cheap and
is used lavishly. The
houses are not built about a court and but one kan deep
but are built solid,
two kan deep and five or six kan long. A typical house
would be arranged as
follows. It is, say, two kan (sixteen feet) wide, and
five kan (forty feet)
long. At one end are found the an-pang or “inner room”
and the sarang or “parlor”
each two kan long and one wide, running the long way of
the house. Doors [page
399]
open from each of these into the next compartment which
is two kan running right
across the house. It has a kang floor and in this floor
on one edge are set the
kettles with fire-places underneath. The fire passes
under the floor and then
under the an-pang and sarang. It is this floor where the
pots and kettles are
that forms the ordinary living room of the family. The
next compartment is of
two kan and has a dirt floor only. It is the kitchen,
and is not separated from
the living room by any partition. Between this and the
next, and final,
compartment are the troughs from which the cattle eat.
The cooked food for the
cattle can therefore be easily transferred directly from
the kettles to the
troughs. In the last compartment are the cattle,
separated from the house
proper by no partition, but only by the eating troughs
to which they are tied.
The whole establishment is therefore under a single roof
and the odors are
almost stifling. The reason for keeping the animals in
the house is two-fold,
one being the need of keeping them warm in the severe
winter and the other,
which is less to the point than formerly, is the
necessity for protecting them
from wild beasts. These houses are always kept
inordinately warm because hard
wood is used for fuel and the fires are kept going at
full blast. The flues
beneath the floor carry off the smoke ordinarily but
some dishes are cooked by
simply building a fire beneath a skillet, the smoke
escaping into the room.
This would cause serious inconvenience were it not that
there is a hole through
the roof directly over the place where this cooking is
done. In the winter time
or during heavy rains a mat is drawn over this aperture
to keep in the heat or
keep out the rain. The whole establishment seems to be a
development from the
aboriginal tepee, wigwam or yourta and forms in itself
an interesting object for
ethnological comparison.
The
floor of the sarang or “parlor” is ordinarily used as a
place to dry oats and
if a chance guest arrives he hits to wait until many
bushels of grain have been
cleared away before he can settle down for the night.
The
character of the people in these distant regions is
stronger and more virile
than that of Koreans in the [page 400]
south. They have more pluck, more independence of
character and a greater
readiness to resent insult or injury. They have little
patience with dishonest
officials and the readiness and unanimity with which
they resort to mob law to
defeat the machinations of local squeezers is truly
engaging. Many interesting
stories might be told of how such schemes have been
checked in the bud. Even
government troops are held up or put to flight by these
determined people, as
was illustrated in 1900 when the people of Kil-ju
disarmed and locked up a body
of troops that had been sent to work the Imperial will
in opposition to the
wishes of the populace.
Northeastern
Korea has two climates: (1) The coast climate, which, on
account of the
proximity to the sea, differs very little from that of
central Korea, and (2)
the inland climate on the water-shed plateau which has a
very long and severe
winter. In certain sheltered places, near dwellings, ice
has been seen as late
as June. Snow begins to fall early in November.
Fifteen
or twenty years ago tigers were very common throughout
this section but now
there are comparatively few. The people explain this on
the ground that the
tigers have been frightened away by the whistle of the
coasting steamers. The
older houses have the windows provided with cleats so
that heavy wooden
shutters could be put up at night to keep tigers out.
This
territory in the north cannot be an easy one in which to
carry on military
operations. At last accounts the Japanese forces had
reached Ham-hung. The
Russians meanwhile are making Sung-jin their
headquarters and keeping
detatchments out to the south to keep in touch with the
enemy. The road between
these two places is a difficult one to fight over. The
people have done a good
deal of work on it during the past year but the passes
are still very hard to
cross and impassable even now for guns of any
considerable weight. There are
four passes of considerable altitude between Hamhung and
Sung-jin. They are
found where the road crosses bold spurs that are thrown
out from the great
central range and come right down to the sea. The [page 401]
names of these four are Ham-gwan Pass, Tu-deul Pass
(“Slow
Pass”) Tung-geul Pass (“Twistey-wise Pass”) and Ma-chun
Pass (“Heaven-toucher”).
The road crosses none of these at an altitude of less
than a thousand feet
above sea-level.
The
Russian forces are all cavalry, so that should the
Japanese land in their rear
they could not be cut off, but might retire by any of
the numerous roads
running inland and regain their line of communication by
a circuitous route.
The Russians have established telegraphic communication
between Sung-jin and
Vladivostock and have made good military roads all the
way from the north,
blasting out the worst places in the mountains, so that
they can probably bring
fairly heavy artillery as far south as Sung-jin. Between
Sung-jin and Possiet
Bay, beyond the Tuman, the passes are not nearly so high
as those south of
Sung-jin, and they present comparatively few
difficulties to the transportation
of artillery. The best road out of Kyung-sung, near the
Tuman, is an interior
one leading up to the large river towns on the Tuman and
this would make it difficult
for the Japanese to cut communications by landing north
of Kyung-sung.
The
Koreans in the northeast are inclined to be proRussian
in their sympathies.
Very many of them have been to Vladivostock and have
seen some of the material
evidences of Western power, while they judge Japan only
by the small
settlements in Korea. Many of them speak a little
Russian and in the border
districts many people have relatives who are naturalized
Russians. When the
people saw the Japanese retire from Sung-jin, the port
burned, and the Russians
passing on toward Wonsan with impunity, they were
confirmed in their opinion.
That opinion may soon be materially modified.
Koreans
claim that the boundary of north-eastern Korea formerly
extended far beyond the
Tuman River, by virtue of the conquests of a certain
General Im; so that in
selling the Ussuri district to Russia China actually
sold a part of Korea. A
better Korean claim is that a certain island in the
Tuman belongs to Korea. At
present the southern branch of the river forms the
boundary [page
402]
but Koreans claim that the old pillars are still there
as land-marks to show
where the boundary is. An international commission went
up there to investigate
the matter in 1903 and we believe they reported in
Korea’s favor. But the
transfer has not been yet made.
What
will be the effect on northeast Korea if Japan wrests
Vladivostock from Russia
and holds the whole stretch of coast from Saghalien to
Fusan? Take out the
Russians and you will find that this whole territory is
inhabited only by
Koreans. The boundaries of Korea may be shifted to the
Arctic regions,
especially as there would most likely be a large
emigration of Koreans to the
Primorsk. Shall we look forward to an eastern
Austria-Hungary or United States
of the Orient inclosing the Sea of Japan as an imperial
lake — a
Japanese-Korean Empire? Such seems more likely than an
Egypt-like protectorate.
The present guaranteed independence of Korea under the
patronage of Japan, a
dual monarchy under a single empire! Such an empire
could become one of the
strongest ever seen. All products of river, sea,
mountain, forest and plain,
from arctic through temperate to sub-tropical climes,
would be her’s. She would
be completely self-contained and her heart would be
protected from a vital
blow, in her island stronghold.
The
beginning of a railway to Wonsan is prophetic and
indicates that Japan has not
left north-eastern Korea and its future out of her
calculations.
Robert
Grierson.
Editorial
Comment.
The Kobe
Chronicle, in a resent issue,
agreed substantially with our remarks about Japanese
projects in Korea but
stated incidentally that the moral principles laid down
as guides in
international relations are open to a good deal of
question. The Chronicle
says that we excused Japan’s
forcing this scheme upon Korea on the ground that
whereas a country might be
justified in [page 403]
delaying the development of her mineral resources under
the plea that they are
definitely limited in extent, such an argument cannot be
urged in excuse for
allowing arable land to lie permanently fallow, for by
so doing she deprives
the world of a permanent source of food supply without
benefitting herself. It
is just here that we find fault with the method of
criticism adopted by the
Editor of the Chronicle.
We never
justified Japan’s aggressive action on this or any other
ground. We laid down
the general principle that every country included in the
family of treaty
powers owes it to the family to develop its resources,
and we added that this
applies more fittingly to agricultural than to mineral
resources because the
former are perennial while the latter are strictly
limited. We also said that,
sentimental consideration apart, the law of the survival
of the fittest would
work inexorably to the extinction of Korean autonomy.
Much may be said for the
North American Indian but he could not permanently block
the way for progress.
If a nation persistently refuses to develop its
agricultural and other
resources, we say that someone else will do it for her,
moral or any other
considerations to the contrary notwithstanding. We never
condoned the manner in
which Japan approached the question. We very clearly
opposed the methods
adopted and showed their futility. We repeat
emphatically that there has come
to be such a thing as InternationalEminent Domain and
when a majority or any
considerable number of powers unite to say a thing shall
be done, it is done
irrespective of the private rights of individual powers,
since it is for the
good of the greatest number. To say that a power does
not surrender any of its
individual rights in joining the federation of the world
is as foolish as to
say a man does not surrender any individual rights when
he becomes the member
of a firm or the party to a contract.
The
method of criticism which quotes a writer’s words and
then states that they
were intended to prove something quite different from
the writer’s express
intention hardly commends itself to our sense of
fairness. The reason why a
thing is done does not by any means form [page 404]
its justification. We would ask the Chronicle whether wc did not state, in the
very article from which
it quotes, that Korea owes Japan nothing but an attitude
of friendly
receptivity. Of course the Chronicle
will not answer this question, but we commend it to
those who, out of a very
praise-worthy sympathy for Korea, have accused us of
being too strongly
pro-Japanese. On general principles we do believe in
people who have energy,
enterprise, courage, thrift and perseverance, and we
believe that Japan has a
moral right to see established in the Peninsula an
administration which shall
be friendly to her and shall secure her from all fear
that any other power
shall ever use Korea as a hostile point d’appui
against her. We may, and we do, criticize some of the
methods employed in
effecting this, as being injurious to Korea and
detrimental to the best
interests of Japan but we deliberately and expressly
refuse to take a position
sweepingly condemnatory of Japan’s attitude toward this
country. Japan is not
the first nation that has had to learn by experiment how
to do things, and it
is greatly to her credit that in spite of an intense
national pride, which for
the time being has been naturally exaggerated by
remarkable military and naval
achievements she has been willing to modify very
materially plans to which she
was publicly committed but which proved to be somewhat
premature.
We
join with all other friends of Korea in urging that the
Japanese authorities
place in the fore-front of their Korean policy the
scrupulous preservation of
the rights of individual Koreans as against private
Japanese. It would pay
Japan enormously to make it strikingly evident to the
Korean people that if a
single dollar’s worth of property is wrongfy
appropriated or if a single blow
is wantonly struck by any Japanese the Korean shall have
swift and exemplary
justice. At present Koreans complain that the Japanese
authorities are very
slow to do them justice. The lowest coolie in the land
ought to be able to
bring before a Japanese official any Japanese who offers
him the slightest
injury and the Japanese authorities should see to it
that the [page
405]
Koreans be encouraged to bring every such case up for
trial. What does
civilization mean if it be not the preservation of
individual rights and how
can the Japanese commend themselves more highly to the
Korean people as a whole
than by showing them that Japanese influence in this
country will mean equal
justice to all? Oh, if we could only find words to prove
to the Japanese that
they could weld to themselves the affection of the
Korean people as by bands of
steel, if they would only demonstrate that their
influence here will do away
with the fear of man. A Korean gets in your way and you
cuff him out of your
path; a moment later you meet a Japanese coolie and you
give him his half of
the road. Why is it? It is because you know that that
coolie has the ability to
uphold his right to half the road. Let the Japanese give
and guarantee to every
Korean his right to half the road and access to swiit
redress in case it is not
granted and this country would be transformed. What
Koreans need is
self-respect and they can never gain it unless they are
given immunity from
gratuitous insult. This applies to high and low alike.
There is no Korean official
who is sure that a turn of fortune’s wheel might not see
him publicly whipped
or see him tramping the streets in a chain-gang. There
is no merchant who is
sure that his capital or stock may not be wantonly
confiscated. There is no
common Korean in the land who would dream of walking up
single-handed to a
court of justice and demanding judgment against a
wealthy and influential man
who has cheated or maltreated him. The curse of Korea is
the fear of man and
until the Japanese do war with that, there will be
nothing but treachery and
suspicion. What if this does require a heavy
reinforcement of the Japanese
Consular body? A few months of such procedure would show
the Koreans what they
might count upon in the way of justice and it would show
the Japanese residents
of Korea that they cannot cuff and kick the Koreans
about at pleasure. The cure
once effected, there would be less need of extra courts.
In no way could Japan
expend money in the peninsinsula with surer prospect of
[page
406]
heavy returns. Hardly a day passes but we are approached
by Koreans asking us
to help them to get a hearing so that injustice that has
been done them may be
righted. We tell them to take their cases directly to
the Japanese authorities,
but they shrug their shoulders and go sadly away. Why is
it? Because if all
Koreans who have been wronged were to apply for redress
the Japanese have no
legal machinery sufficient in extent to cope with even a
fraction of them. But
the greater the number of cases the more absolute is the
necessity that they
should he handled, for every case works two evils, it
confirms the Korean in
the hoplessness of his case and it confirms the Japanese
in his contempt of the
Korean; and so the breach will widen and widen until
Japan will find that the
only practical solution of the problem is the ex-,
tinction of the Korean
people and the peninsula will become a second Finnland.
But we believe better
things of Japan and we have high hopes that such
counsels will prevail that the
Japanese will strike at fundamental evils in Korea and
establish their
influence on the firm basis of equity and justice. This
may not come until
after the fever of war has subsided but it will come in
time.
Our
statement that the margin of cultivation in Korea is
lowering has met with a
certain degree of contradication on the part of
foreigners living in the
interior. It is so seldom that the Review
is favored with an expression of opinion on the part of
any foreigner in regard
to any matter whatever, that we are pleased to obtain
even this adverse
criticism. The evidence of those who have “been there”
is of course better than
that of those who have merely “heard about it” and we
accept without reserve
the statement that in the regions where these foreigners
have been the margin
of cultivation has been going up rather than down. If
the reader sees fit to
accept these regions as typical of the whole country he
will conclude that more
land is under cultivation than was the case ten years
ago, but we have heard
nothing from the foreigners about the land in Chul-la
Province where the
greatest falling off is claimed and where rice is
supposed to grow to the
broadest extent. We should be glad indeed [page 407]
to believe that Koreans are developing their latent
agricultural resources and shall welcome any evidence
that goes to prove it.
We feel sure
that our readers will be deeply interested in Dr.
Grierson’s article on
north-east Korea in this issue of the Review,
We confess that the facts here given were, many of them,
a surprise. It appears
that northern Korea contains a large population of hardy
and independent
people, that the soil is well cultivated, that the
stories of swarming tigers
are a myth, that the country is not an almost unbroken
forest, that wealth and
intelligence and courtesy are not the exception. We
commend this article to our
readers as showing how much more valuable a source of
information this magazine
might become if those who know things would communicate
that knowledge, not for
the sake of the magazine but for the sake of the public.
The military
executions which recently took place have caused
considerable comment among
foreigners in Korea. It is well understood by the
foreign population that the
Japanese have declared military law for the time being,
and that the culprits
were legally executed, but we doubt whether the Koreans
are fully aware of the
danger of committing acts which in times of peace would
receive comparatively
light punishment. In our opinion the Japanese ought to
be careful to see that
the common people are fully informed as to the meaning
of martial law in order
that such painful incidents may be averted in the
future. It is true that one
striking example like that which has occurred will do
more to teach the people
than anything else, but it is a great pity that it was
deemed necessary to
teach the lesson in such a drastic way.
[page
408]
News Calendar.
On Aug. 31 Yun
Chi-ho, Min Sang-ho and Mr.
Hagiwara met to determine upon a site for a pleasure
ground or a sort of Club
for Japanese and Koreans. The Ta-gwan-jung opposite the
Imperial Alter was
selected and has been arranged for this purpose.
A committee of
twelve generals was appointed on Aug. 31 to take charge
of the reorganization
of the Korean Army along lines suggested by the
Japanese. The Seoul guard will
probably be lowered from 10,000 to some 2,000 men.
Reports from
Kang-neung on the eastern coast about opposite Seoul,
indicate that the recent
typhoon caused a good deal of damage. Fifty fishing
boats were wrecked. The
waves were so high that the Koreans were astounded. Many
houses along the coast
were unroofed or entirely demolished.
The town of
Kyo-ha near the mouth of the Han River was the scene of
some excitement about
the end of August. The Japanese agents arrived and
proceeded to search for
coolies to take north. About twenty were enrolled but an
enormous crowd
assembled and began to act in a threatening manner. When
armed Japanese
appeared the people fled but eight ring leaders of the
mob were arrested.
The
Superintendent of Masampo reports that the typhoon was
very destructive, 376
houses being destroyed, seven men killed, fourteen boats
swept away and
enormous damage of other kinds done. He asks that help
be rendered, taxes
remitted and the destitute cared for. In Chulla Province
the damage done was
without precedent. Rice fields, hemp fields and cotton
lands were destroyed
wholesale. Along the coast it is estimated that the
destruction of fields
totalled three-tenths of the whole area.
Cho Min-heui
the Minister to Japan asks that the Yen 6,000 to cover
the running expenses of
the legation for the year be paid out of Customs
receipts.
Sin Keui-son
has taken the place of Sim Sang-bun as vice-Prime
Minister.
Min Pyung-han
has been made Judge of the Supreme Court in place of Yun
Tok-yung.
A fire broke
out on the 13th of September in a building in the palace
that is being rebuilt
but it was put out before it became serious.
The month of
September saw several conventions and meetings in Seoul.
In the first place
there was a week of Bible Study which was attended by a
large number of
missionaries from various parts of the country, and this
innovation was voted
such a success that it is to be repeated next year. Next
came the celebration
of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of
Protestant missions in Korea.
Thursday the 22nd of September was devoted to this
purpose and several meetings
[page
409]
were held. Addresses were made by Rev. W. B. Scranton,
M. D., Rev. S. A.
Moffett, D. D., Rev. Robt. Grierson, M. D., Rev. G.
Engel, Rev. H. G.
Underwood, D. D., and others.
A third
meeting of some interest was one that was called for the
purpose of discussing
publicly the matter of spelling reform in Korea. A
lively discussion took place
and it was found that there was no great unanimity of
opinion in regard to the
matter.
A fourth event
was the meeting of the Council of the Presbyterian
Churches in Korea at which
the question of reform spelling was further discussed.
The Annual
Meetings of the Presbyterian Missions North and South
and of the Methodist
Mission South took place almost simultaneously. We note
with pleasure that both
the Presbyterian missions have been handsomely
reinforced since their last
annual meetings. Dr. Hirst has come to work in the new
Severance Memorial
Hospital, and Rev. Mr. Pieters has returned with his
wife from America. The
Southern Mission has three new medical workers, Dr.
Nolan, Dr. Forsythe and Dr.
Daniel. An important step was taken by the Northern
Mission in deciding to open
a new station in Ch’ang-ju in Ch’ung-ch’ong Province.
At the same
time came the annual meeting of the Korean Religious
Tract Society. At the end
of the meeting subscriptions were called for in order to
start a fund for
building a suitable edifice in Seoul for the use of this
important organization
. The sum of Yen 5,000 was pledged by the people in the
audience and this
together with what will be given from the home country
will secure the object
sought.
One important
and happy event of the month which we must not fail to
mention was the wedding
of Mr. Hugh Miller and Miss Nellie Pierce which took
place in the Mead Memorial
Church on the 21st, the Autumnal Equinox. The ceremony
was performed by Rev. S.
A. Beck assisted by Mr. J. S. Gale, D.D. It was followed
by a delightful
reception at the I-wha School.
On Sept. 13th
300 Pyeng-Yang soldiers were sent from Pyeng-Yang to
Sam-deung to disperse the
tonghaks that had congregated there.
Owing to the
establishment of the Il-chin Society many people came up
from the country to
see what was going on and perhaps to participate in any
fun that might be on
the tapis. When the police saw such people at the inns
in Seoul they advised
them strongly to go back to their country homes.
A curious
story comes from Chi-nan in Chulla Province. Many people
there were reduced by
famine to eating the bark of trees and pine leaf soup
but, wonderful to relate,
they found a kind of food growing on bamboo trees on
Sun-gak and Tuk-ti
mountains and they subsisted upon it till the crops had
ripened. The people
believe that the prefect sent up several measures of
this “manna” to the
Emperor.
Kim Ka-jin has
been appointed Minister of Law in place of Pak Che-sun,
resigned.
[page
410]
On September 15th the people of Si-heung, ten miles
south of Seoul, arose in
revolt against the prefect, Pak U-yang, because he had
witheld six million
cash, about Yen 1,200, which should have been
distributed among the people. It
was a very determined crowd and it attacked the
prefect’s quarters about eleven
o’clock in the morning. The accounts of how the crime
was committed differ
but so far as evidence that we can gather goes the
prefect was not burned to death but was beaten and
trampled upon until he
expired. His son, nineteen years old, tried to protect
his father and so was
also struck down and killed. Meanwhilmany of the
people of the town had run away leaving their houses
noprotected; the excited
crowd scattered and broke into many of the houses and
took what they wanted.
Several of the houses were burned. Word had been carried
to the Japanese who
were working on the railroad in the vicinity. A small
body of these soon
arrived upon the scene and tried to stop the riot but
they in turn were
attacked and two of them were killed. No one could
possibly condone the action
of the mob but it must be confessed they had a serious
grievance and no way to
obtain redress except by violence. It is much to be
regretted that the prefect
and his son and the two Japanese were killed and we hope
the leaders of the mob
will be punished, but this ought to be an object lesson
to the Japanese as
showing what a Korean crowd is capable of when once
aroused
The Foreign
Office requested the Japanese authorities to punish a
Japanese soldier who
while under the influence of liquor attacked and injured
a Korean gendarme near
the Su-gak Bridge on the 15th of September.
The governor
of North Ch’ung-chong Province sent a report to the Home
Office on the 19th of
September saying that thousands of Tongkaks were in his
jurisdiction and were
demanding that they be given a part of the power of
government and were
declaring that the central goverment bad lost its hold
upon the people. He asks
what he shall do under such conditions. In many
districts they claim that they
now have power to pay back unrighteous prefects and
other men of influence who
have oppressed them.
The foreigners
in Seoul have established an Educational Association
with Rev. H. G. Underwood,
D. D., as President, with a view to preparing text-books
and doing whatever
else may forward the cause of education in Korea. Many
committees have been
appointed to prepare glossaries of the terms used in the
different sciences.
When this is done an important obstacle to the making of
uniform text-books
will be removed.
About the
first of September the new Society called Il-chin-whe or
“Single Advance
Society” began to propagate its principles, the main one
of which seems to have
been the education and enlightenment of the people and
the advocacy of a
national spirit. This they said would mean more for
Korea’s advancement and
success than many gun boats. They advocated (1) the
stability of the Imperial
House, [page 411]
(2) the security of life and property, (3) the carrying
out of Korea’s promises
to Japan to reform the administration of the Government
and correct existing
abuses, (4) to reorganise the army and the currency. On
September 1st a great
meeting was held at Chong-no and speeches were made.
Japanese Gendarmes lent
their protection and allowed no one but members of the
organization to enter
the building. For this reason the people believed that
the society was a
pro-Japanese one and consequently its influence was very
small. It tried to
exert influence by persuading Sin Keui-son to accept the
vice Prime-Minister’s
portfolio, which the Emperor had offered him but which
he had declined. He did
so and for a time he helped the new society but he soon
gave it up.
On September
2nd a Mudang near the “Water Gate” was seized dressed in
her professional
clothes, taken all about the city with her face daubed
with red and white paint
and with her professional instruments carried by a
servant. This was a deadly
disgrace and all the Mudang class were in consternation.
At last she was
stripped of her Mudang garments and driven away in her
under garments alone,
and all the clothes, instruments, etc. were burned on
the big street.
Om Chun-wun
has been made the head of a monopoly which is to handle
all the cow-hide
business in Korea. Just what this means it is hard to
say, but we may be sure
that it will not work to the detriment of Mr. Om’s
private purse.
Mr. Megata,
the new adviser to the Finance Department arrived in
Seoul at the end of
September. We understand he intends to make a close
study of financial
conditions in Korea before beginning active work. This
is a good augury of
success and it helps to disprove the statements of those
who claim that the
Japanese think they know it all.
It is reported
that the ginseng crop in Songdo is a failure this year,
and that only four per
cent will be harvested. Now ginseng is a plant that is
grown by hand and the
weather has little or nothing to do with the weather. We
make the guess that
interested parties have already pulled the crop and put
it in a safe place.
Yi Pom-jin,
the very pertinacious Minister to Russia, was notified
several times that his
removal from the Russian Court was desired, but he
refused to comply. He has
therefore been dismissed .
On September
5th forty-five men out of 146 candidates were selected
to go to Japan to study.
Many of these were very undesirable men, some of whom
were being forced to go
and others were running away without the knowledge of
their families. The
Minister of Education refused to send them and
determined to make a new
selection but the Japanese papers attacked the Minister
on the ground that he
wanted to send only yangbans, so the men already
selected were retained.
The Foreign
Office asked the Japanese to remove the signs that they
set up all about
between the city and the river to the effect that this
was land required for
military purposes and must not be sold. The [page 412]
Japanese replied that the land would eventually be
required and refused to comply.
A drunken
Japanese wantonly attacked a Korean policeman outside
the South Gate. The Mayor
of Seoul asked the Japanese authorities to punish the
man but they replied that
he had run away and could not be found.
The Governor
at Pyeng Yang announced to the Foreign Office that the
Japanese have demanded a
part of the land set apart for the Imperial Palace in
Pyeng Yang for the
Railway station and asks that a. strong protest be made.
The new Mayor
of Seoul, Kim Chung-geun, has made a pretty clean sweep
of the sorceresses and
fortune tellers. A large quantity of their books,
pictures, instruments, garments,
knives, spears, drum» etc., etc., were burned in front
of the Mayor’s office
early in September.
It is reported
that the receipts of the Seoul-Chemulpo Railway for the
half year were yen
258,598.74.
Yi Yong-t’a
has been appointed Miirister of the Household in the
place of Min Pyung-suk.
About the
tenth of September a serious affray occurred in Kong-ju
where the people rose
in revolt against the magistrate, stoned the yamen,
attacked and wounded the
magistrate with knives but did not kill him. Soldiers
were sent there and the
people quieted down but the leaders of the attack were
not arrested. It is said
that Japanese troops will be sent there to preserve
order.
The Minister
of Education and other officials went to Chemulpo to
attend the graduation
exerises in a large Japanese school for Koreans about
the 10th of September.
Chang
Seung-wun has been appointed Governor of North Kyungsang
Province, and in North
Ham-gyong Province a Military Governor, Chong Keui-t’ak,
has taken the place of
the civil Governor Yi Yun-ji because of the military
operations in that section
of the country.
His Majesty
suffered for some days from a throat trouble during
September but is now nearly
well.
A new club has
been formed called the Ti-tong-ku-ak-pu or “The Great
Eastern club.’’ It is for
the purpose of bringing Koreans and Japanese into social
relations with each
other. The opening of the club took place on September
25 at the Ta-gwon-jong,
which will be used as a club-house.
It is with
great regret that we have to record the death of the
infant son of Rev. and
Mrs. Preston, of Mokpo. It took place in Seoul on the
20th of September.
On September
21st a Japanese Captain, eight gendarmes and forty
soldiers took three Koreans
who had tampered with the railway and shot them near
Mapo. One of the Koreans
was from A-o-gi near Seoul, one from Yang-ju and one
from near Mapo. The charge
was that they had pulled up some of the track on a
military railway in Korea.
The charge was doubtless true. The Koreans claimed that
the [page
413]
road ran across their fields which had not been paid for
and they tore up the
track in retaliation. No foreigners witnessed the
execution but thousands of
Koreans saw it and it will probably prevent any more
acts of the kind. One of
the Koreans was shot eight times before he finally
expired.
A Japanese who
kept a Korean school in Chang-heung, Chulla Province,
disappeared and after
four days one of the scholars found his body hanging
from a tree. He is
supposed to have committed suicide. A special prefect
was appointed to
investigate the trouble in Siheung where the prefect was
killed by the mob.
Japanese troops went there and seized seven mob leaders
and brought them to
Seoul.
The Koreans
have discovered a new way of getting even with an enemy.
They simply denounce
him to the Japanese as a Russian spy. This is sure to
land him in durance vile,
for a few weeks at least, until the matter is
investigated. A special case has
been brought to our notice lately. A man of some means
but entirely ignorant of
letters was employed in connection with the culinary
department in the palace.
An enemy of his told the Japanese that he was a Russian
spy and was in
communication with the Russians. He was seized, all his
papers including
valuable deeds and promissory notes were taken, but
nothing of an incriminating
nature was discovered. Still he is in confinement and no
one knows when he will
be liberated. Meanwhile all his interests are suffering,
including his
reputation. If he is discharged, who will make good
these losses which he has
suffered, on the merest suspicion?
On account of
the fall of Liaoyang the Japanese in Korea held a mighty
celebration. The
triumphal arches, the waving flags, the processions, the
lanterns, the
vociferous “banzais’’ all gave evidence of the national
enthusiasm.
A Korean
company has been organized with a capital of $30,000 to
establish a great
national newspaper called the Kuk-min-Sin-mun or “The
National People’s
Newspaper.” It is said that the government favors the
undertaking and so far
the Japanese have made no objection. Many students have
been selected for the
new School of Industry, Agriculture and Commerce, which
bids fair to take an
important place in the educational field in Korea.
Won U-sang,
one of the strongest men in government circles, finding
that his advice was
neglected and that of political adventurers was being
listened to, has left the
capital and gone to the country. This is one of the
worst signs of the time.
The government
has ordered the students who were sent to Russia to
remove to Berlin. From
there they will probably return to Korea.
Many Tonghaks
gathered in Sam-deung about 420 li northwest of Seoul
and threatened to move on
the capital but later they heard that Japanese troops
were facing in their
direction and so they “folded their tents like the Arabs
and as silently stole
away.”
The Japanese
commanding ofificer at An-ju announced to the governor
of North Pyeng-an that
five men (names appended) in Heui-ch’un [page 414]
had helped the Russians at the time of their late raid
and had given information about Japanese movements. He
therefore said that
these men would be taken to An-ju and shot. This was
done.
Four thousand
six hundred yen are to be expended upon the roads in and
near Song-do.
Four Koreans
who graduated from a military school in Japan were taken
to the front by the
Japanese military authorities and they there exhibited
such a disposition to
fight that they were given small commands and fought all
the way from the Yalu
to Liao-yang, but were not in the great battle which
delivered that city into
the hands of the Japanese. They were highly complimented
by the Japanese
commanders.
His Excellency
A. Monaco, the Italian Minister, left Seoul for Peking
early in October for a
month’s stay. Before going he was given a first-class
decoration by the Korean
Emperor.
The government
has asked the Japanese to designate particularly the
exact portions of land
which they need for military purposes between Seoul and
the Han River.
It is said
that the Japanese will take prompt steps to survey for a
railway between Seoul
and Wonsan and that the work will be begun as soon as
possible.
Yi Yong-tai
has been appointed Minister of the Home Office in place
of Cho Pyung-p’il.
The members of
the Il-chin Society once and for all proved their
greatness by cutting off
their hair but it turned out that, like Samson, the loss
of their hair got them
into trouble, for they fell under the contempt of the
people and the
authorities turned against them. Many were imprisoned,
but they were again
released and at the present time are finding fault with
the government on
several scores. The whole thing is quite contemptible
and the great mass of the
Korean public knows it.
On Sept. 24th
a new society was launched upon the stormy sea of Korean
politics. It is called
the Kuk-min or National Peoples Society. This
organization probably has the
sanction of the highest Korean authorities and was
designed to act as an offset
to the Il-chin Society. It has five principles (1) to
uphold the Imperial
House, (2) to cause a better state of feeling between
the upper and lower
classes, (3) the fostering of friendly relations with
foreign Powers, (4) to
uphold domestic and international law, (5) to watch
against men who have fled
the country, tonghaks any others who threaten the State.
A number of
detectives have been chosen to go to the country and
discover how things stand
in the disaffected districts.
Now that the
army is being reorganised the Board of Generals will be
abolished and the power
centralized in the War Department.
The committee
appointed to effect reforms in the army has recommended
among other things the
establishment of an arsenal. We trust the Japanese will
see to it that better
advice than this will be followed. Enough money has been
wasted on new
ventures. It had better be spent on making some of the
old ones a success.
[page
415]
It has been brought to our notice that the Japan
Gazette has quoted once or twice from the Korea Daily News and credited it to the The Korea Review. We are sure that this
must be merely an oversight
on the part of the Gazette but we
hope that the editor of that paper will be careful to
give the Daily
News the credit of any matter
quoted from that journal.
Mr. Oura the
Japanese Minister of Communication is making a visit to
Seoul. Much good will
evidently be done if leading Japanese officials visit
Korea and see the
conditions existing here. We wish more of them would
come.
The Emperor
ordered the liberation of all prisoners younger than 15
years and older than
70. This occurred on September 3rd.
The Emperor’s
birthday fell on September 4th but on account of the
Court being in mourning
for the Empress Dowager there were no considerable
festivities. The foreign
representatives and employees were received at a quiet
audience in the Ton-dock
Hall.
The general
opinion among Koreans is that the rice crop this year
will be somewhat below a
medium point. This, together with the unusually good
crop in Japan, may affect
the export figures to some extent. At any rate the price
of old rice has not
fallen, as is customary at this season .
The Home
Office has announced to every prefecture that the
selection of Korean coolies
for work in Manchuria has been discontinued and he
orders that all agitation on
that score should cease.
The
Superintendent of Trade at Pyeng Yang has sent to Seoul
strongly protesting
against the absorption of government ground by Korean
Catholics for the purpose
of building a church near the Imperial palace. He asks
that the French
authorities be appealed to stop this work. The charge is
that to certain land
which the Roman Catholics have bought they have added a
certain tract belonging
to the government and to which they have no claim. We
have not heard the other
side of the story, which might put a very different
complexion upon the affair.
On September
5th the Japanese Minister said to the government that if
Korea was not be
prepared to establish a consulate in Hawaii she should
put the matter into the
hands of the Japanese Consulate there. The matter has
not been settled.
Forty-five men
have at last been found who will go to Japan to study.
It is said the Minister
of Education will go to Japan to look into the matter of
education there.
All these things
crowded so thick and fast upon each other that there was
scarcely breathing
space between them, but the rare intervals were improved
by several games of
base ball, all of which were rather ragged but great fun
nevertheless. In the
first one the Seoul nine was defeated by the
“Countrymen” by a score of twelve
to ten, though it must be confessed that there is some
uncertainty about the
exact score . In the second game the American soldiers
beat a team chosen from
among the foreign residents by a score of seventeen to
fourteen, and [page
416]
a second game resulted in a win for the residents
against the soldiers by
thirteen to six.
It is with
great pleasure that we note the return to Seoul of Rev.
W. B. Scranton, M.D. and
family. Mrs. M. F. Scranton also returns to resume work
among the women. We
congratulate the foreign community and especially the
Korean church upon this
happy event.
The foreign
children’s school has resumed work, under the
superintendence of Miss Scranton,
and bids fair to be an even more flourishing concern
than ever. There are
twenty-one children enrolled.
The Governor
of South Ham-gyung telegraphed on the 26th of September
that the Japanese and
Russians had fought a small engagement near Tuk-wun and
that the Russians had
retired.
On September
26th an Imperial Edict put an end to the Il-chin
Society. The reason for this
is said to be as follows. The Governor of South Pyeng An
Province sent an
urgent message saying that the tonghaks in Pun-ch’un.
Mang-san, Yong-duk and
Yong-yu were making Il-chin Society flags and claiming
that they were members
of that society and that many of them had gone up to
Seoul to take part in the
proceedings. It began to look as if the society were
assuming too large
proportions.
Hong Seung-nok
of Yong-byun has been shot by the Japanese for stealing
one of the electric
batteries connected with the teleraph office in that
place.
News from
Kok-san seems to indicate that serious trouble has
arisen. In the riots which
have occurred both Koreans and Japanese have been
killed. Japanese troops have
been despatched to that town. If the Japanese have to
send troops to every town
where there are local disturbances it is likely to
require a considerable army.
[page
417]
KOREAN HISTORY.
The Summer and
Autumn of this year 1896 saw the pro mulgation of a
large number of edicts of a
salutary nature, relating to the more systematic
collection of the national
revenues, the reorganization of gubernatorial and
prefectural systems, the
definition of the powers and privileges of provincial
officials, the further
regulation of the postal system, the definition of the
powers of the
superintendents of trade in the open ports, the
abolition of illegal taxation
and the establishment of courts of law in the various
provinces and in the open
ports. As many of these reforms survived the collapse of
the liberal party they
must be set down as definite results which justify the
existence of that party
and make its overthrow a matter of keen regret to those
who have at heart the
best interests of the country.
All
this time Russian interests had been cared for
sedulously. The king remained in
close touch with the Legation and Col. Potiata and three
other Russian officers
were put in charge of the Palace Guard, while Kim
Hongnyuk, the erstwhile
water-carrier, continued to absorb the good things in
the gift of His Majesty.
And yet the Russians with all their power did not
attempt to obstruct the plans
of the subjects of other Powers in Korea. Mr. Stripling,
a British subject, was
made adviser to the Police Department, a mining
concession was granted to a
German syndicate; an American was put in charge of a
Normal School, Dr. Brown
continued to direct the work of the Finance Department
and the work on the
Seoul Chemulpo Railway was pushed vigorously by an
American syndicate. The
Russians held in their hands the power to put a stop to
much of this, but they
appeared to be satisfied with holding the power without
exercising it.
[page
418]
Chapter XXlll.
Material
reforms . . . . growth of conservative feeling. . .
.Russian influence . . . .
. Mr. de Speyer. . . .his activity . . . attack on Dr.
Brown . . . . England
interposes. . . .establishment of the Empire. . . .the
Queen’s funeral. . . .
opening of 1898. . . .Russians over-reach themselves . .
. .the death of Prince
Ta-won . . . . a paradox . . . . withdrawal of the
Russian employees . . .
.Independence Club beyond control . . . .abdication
conspiracy . . . . Yun
Chi-ho before the Emperor . . . .fall of Kim Hong-nyuk .
. . .attempted regicide.
. . .foreign body-guard . . . .Independent program . . .
.popular meetings . .
. .peddlars’ guild . . . . Independents ask to be
arrested. . . .more
government concessions . . . .Independents arrested. . .
.final overthrow of
the Independence party.
The first half
of 1897 was characterized by three special features in
Korea. The first was a
continuance of socalled reforms, all of which were of a
utilitarian character.
A gold mine concession was given to a German syndicate,
a Chinese Language
School and other schools were founded and the difficult
work of cleaning out
the Peking Pass was completed. It was announced that
Chinuampo and Mokpo would
be opened to trade in the Autumn. The second feature was
the steady growth of
the conservative element which was eventually to resume
complete control of the
government. As early as May of this year the editor of
the Korean Repository said with truth “The
collapse is as complete as
it is pathetic. After the King came to the Russian
Legation the rush of the
reform movement could not be stayed at once nor even
deflected. But soon there
came the inevitable reaction. Reforms came to be spoken
of less and less
frequently. There was a decided movement backwards
toward the old, well-beaten
paths. But it was impossible to reestablish the old
order of things entirely.
We come then to the period of the revision of laws.
Shortly after the King
removed to the new palace an edict was put forth
ordering the appointment of a
Commission for the Revision of the Laws. This was
received with satisfaction by
the friends of progress. This commission contained the
names of many prominent
men such as Kim Pyung-si, Pak Chong-yang and Yi Wan-yong
as well as the names
of Dr. Brown, General Greathouse, Mr. Legendre and Dr.
Jaisohn.” But by the [page
419]
twelfth of April the whole thing was dropped and the
strong hopes of the
friends of Korea were again dashed to the ground. The
third feature of this
period is the growing importance of Russian influence in
Seoul. The training o(
the Korean army had already been taken out of Japanese
hands and given to
Russians and in August thirteen more Russian military
instructors were
imported. It was plain that Russia meant to carry out an
active policy in
Korea. Russian admirals, including, Admiral Alexeieff,
made frequent visits to
Seoul, and at last Russia made public avowal of her
purposes, when she removed
Mr. Waeber, who had served her so long and faithfully
here and sent Mr. A. de
Speyer to take his place. There was an immediate and
ominous change in the tone
which Russia assumed. From the very first de Speyer
showed plainly that he was
sent here to impart a new vigor to Russo-Korean
relations; that things had been
going too slow. It is probable that complaints had been
made because in spite
of Russians’ predominating influence at the Korean Court
concessions were being
given to Americans, Germans and others outside. De
Speyer soon showed the color
of his instructions and began a course of brow-beating,
the futility of which
must have surprised him. It was on September 7th that he
arrived, and within a
month he had began operations so actively that he
attracted the attention of
the world. In the first place he demanded a coaling
station at Fusan on Deer
Island which commands the entrance to the harbor. This
was a blow aimed
directly at Japan and sure to be resented. It came to
nothing. Then Mr. Kir
Alexeieff arrived from Russia, an agent of the Finance
Department in St.
Petersburg. In the face of the fact that Dr. Brown was
Chief Commissioner of
Custom and Adviser to the Finance Department, Mr.
Alexeieff was appointed by
the Foreign Office as director of the Finance
Department. But the policy of
bluff which de Speyer had inaugurated was not a success;
he carried it so far
that he aroused the strong opposition of other Powers,
notably England, and
before the end of the year, after only three months of
incumbency, de Speyer
was called away from Seoul. As we shall see, the whole
of his work was
overthrown in the following Spring.[page 420]
But we must retrace our steps a little and record some
other interesting events that happened during the
closing months of 1897. It
was on October 17th that the King went to the Imperial
Altar and there was
crowned Emperor of Taihan. This had been some time in
contemplation and as
Korea was free from foreign suzerainty she hastened,
while it was time, to
declare herself an empire. This step was recognized by
the treaty powers within
a short period and so Korea took her place on an
equality with China and Japan.
On
November 21st the funeral ceremony of the late Queen was
held. It was a most
imposing pageant. The funeral procession passed at night
out of the city to the
tomb where elaborate preparations had been made, and a
large number of
foreigners assembled there to witness the obsequies.
The
situation in Korea as the year 1898 opened was something
as follows. The
conservatives had things well in hand and the
Independence Club was passing on
to its final effort and its final defeat. The work of
such men as Dr. Jaisohn
was still tolerated but the King and the most in-*
fluential officials chafed
under the wholesome advice that they received and it was
evident that the first
pretext would be eagerly seized for terminating a
situation that was getting
very awkward for both sides. The reaction was
illustrated in an attack on the Independent by
which the Korean postal
department refused to carry it in the mails. The
Russians had taken the bull by
the horns and were finding that they had undertaken more
than they could carry
through without danger of serious complications. The
Russian government saw
this and recalled de Speyer in time to preserve much of
their influence in
Seoul. The Emperor, being now in his own palace but with
easy access to the
Russian Legation, seems to have lent his voice to the
checking of the reform
propaganda and in this he was heartily seconded by his
leading officials. The
most promising aspect of the situation was the
determined attitude of the
British government relative to the enforced retirement
of Dr. Brown. When it
became evident that a scarcely concealed plan was on
foot to oust British, and
other foreigners in Korea,. Great Britain by a single
word and by a
concentration of war vessels at Chemulpo changed [page 421]
the whole program of the Russians; but as it appeared
later the Russian plans were only changed, not
abandoned. So the year opened
with things political in a very unsettled state.
Everything was in transition.
The Independents and the Russians had some idea of what
they wanted but seemed to
be at sea as to the means for accomplishing it. The
conservatives alone sat
still and held on, sure that in the long run they would
triumph even if they
could not stop the march of material progress in the
cleaning of the streets
and the building of railways.
February
of 1898 saw the taking off of the most commanding figure
in Korean public life
during the nineteenth century, in the person of Prince
Ta-won the father of the
Emperor, formerly Regent. For almost forty years he had
been more or less
intimately connected with the stirring events which have
marked the present
reign. The things which specially marked his
career are (1), the Roman Catholic persecution of 1866,
(2) the determined
oppostion to the opening of the country to foreign
intercourse. (3) the
building of the Kyongbok Palace. (4) the debasing of
Korean currency, (5) the
feud with the Queen’s party, (6) the temporary exile in
China, (7) the
assassination of the Queen. Whatever may be said for or
against the Prince
because of his policy he remains in the minds of the
people a strong,
independent character, and they cannot fail to admire
the man even though they
have to condemn his policy. His adherents stood by him
with splendid loyalty
even in the hours of his disgrace, because be was in
some sense really great.
This
time was characterized by curious inconsistencies. At
the same time that an
edict was promulgated stating that no more concessions
would be granted to
foreigners, the Seoul Electric Company was organized to
construct a tramway and
a lighting plant in Seoul. Material improvements
continued parallel with but in
the opposite direction from, the policy of the
Government. An agreement was
even entered into with an American firm for the
constructlon of a system of
water works for Seoul at a cost of some seven million
yen.
The
failing hopes of the Independence Club drove it to its
final place, that of
protest. Memorials began to pour in protesting against
this and that. In
February it complained [page 422]
of foreign control in Korea, directing the attack
apparently upon the Russian
pretentions: but if so it was unnecessary, for by the
first of March the
Russians decided that their position was untenable or
that a temporary
withdrawal of pressure from Seoul would facilitate
operations in other
directions, and so, under cover of a complaint as to the
vacillating policy of
the Korean Government they proposed to remove Mr. Alex-|
eieff from his
uncomfortable position vis-a-vis Dr. Brown and also take
away all the military
instructors. Perhaps they were under the impression that
this startling
proposal would frighten the Government into making
protestations that would
increase Russian influence here, but if so they were
disappointed for the
Government promptly accepted their proposition and
dispensed with the services
of these men. No doubt the Government had come to look
with some anxiety upon
the growing influence of Russia here and with the same
oscillatory motion as of
yore made a strong move in the opposite direction when
the opportunity came.
The Korean Government has been nearly as astute as
Turkey in playing off her “friends”
against each other.
Just
one month later April 12th N. Matuoine relieved Mr. de
Speyer, the Russo-Korean
bank closed its doors, the Russian military and other
officers took their
departure and a very strained situation was relieved for
the time being. At
about the same time Dr. Jaisohn was paid off and left
the country, the
management of the Independent
falling
into other hands. This event was important as showing
the hopeless state into
which the Independence Club and all other friends of
progress had fallen. From
this time on the tone of the club grew steadily more
petulant. The older men in
it who saw that the time was not ripe for reform
withdrew and left the management
of the club and the determination of its policy in the
hands of younger men who
had not the experience necessary for the handling of
such affairs; and although
in YunChi-ho, the president of the Club, it had a
clear-headed and devoted man
he was not able to control the young blood that had
begun to run with something
too feverish a course in the veins of the society. The
excited state of the
public mind is proved by the fact that several other
daily and weekly
periodicals sprang up, debating societies flourished aud
people [page
425]
began to talk about things. The conservations laid all
these things up against
the Independence Club and awaited their time.
The
summer of this year furnished Seoul with some excitement
in the shape of a
discovered conspiracy to force the King to abdicate,
place the Crown Prince on
the throne and institute a new era in Korean history.
The plot, if such it may
be called, was badly planned and deservedly fell
through. It was one of the
foolish moves called out by the excttemeut engendered in
the Independence
movement. An Kyung su, ex-president of the Independence
Club, was the party
mainly implicated and he saved himself only by promptly
decamping and putting
himself into the hands of the Japanese.
About
the same time the Independence Club came into direct
opposition to the
Government in its strong protest against the appointment
of the conservative
Cho Pyung-sik to the vice-presidency of the Council of
State. The commotion,
engendered by this, resulted in Mr. Yun Chi-ho being
called before the Emperor,
where he made a strong appeal in favor of the
Independence Club and asserted
the continued loyalty of the club toward His Majesty.
Unfortunalely he asserted
that the Emperor having sanctioned the founding of the
club could disband it
merely by Imperial decree. For the time, this appeal
sufficed and the immediate
object of the society was secured, but the Emperor did
not forget that he had
it in his power to dissolve the club by a single word.
As a fact, the mere
sanction of the founding of the Club gave no more power
to dissolve it than the
wedding ceremony which a clergyman performs gives the
right in future to
dissolve that union. There can be no doubt that from
this time on the Emperor
was determined to eliminate this disturbing element at
the first opportunity.
He had no sympathy with its platform, one plank of which
was the curtailment of
the Imperial prerogative.
August
saw the fall of Kim Hong-nyuk, the former Russian
interpreter, who ruffled it
so proudly at Court on account of his connection with
the Russian Legation. For
a year he had a good time of it and amassed great
wealth, but when the Russians
withdrew their influence in March of this year Kim lost
all his backing and
thenceforward his doom was as [page 424]
sure as fate itself. The genuine noblemen whose honors
he had filched were on
his track and in August he was accused, deposed and
banished. This did not
satisfy his enemies however, but an opportunity came
when on September tenth an
attempt was made to posion the Emperor and the Crown
Prince. The attempt came
near succeeding and in the investigation which followed
one of the scullions
deposed that he had been instructed by a friend of Kim
Hong-nyuk to put
something into the coffee. How Kim, away in banishment,
could have had anything
to do with it would be hard to tell. He may have
conceived the plan but the
verdict of a calm and dispassionate mind must be that he
probably knew nothing
about it at all. However, in such a case, someone must
suffer. The criminal must
be found; and it is more than probable that those who
hated Kim Hong-nyuk
thought he would make an excellent scape-goat. He was
tried, condemned and
executed.
About
the same time the Emperor came to the conclusion that he
would like to have a
foreign body-guard. C. R. Greathouse was sent to
Shanghai to find the material
for this guard. Thirty men were picked up, of various
nationalities, and they
arrived in Seoul on September fifteenth. This move
caused intense excitement
and opposition. The Independence Club was in the
forefront of the protest that
was made. A dozen good arguments were adduced showing
why this should not be be
done, and so unaminous was the sentiment that the
Emperor yielded to popular
clamor and dismissed the men, but this, again, cannot
but have set the Emperor
against the Independence Club, inasmuch as they had been
principally
instrumental in thwarting a pet scheme of his own.
The month of September
witnessed better things than these, however. The
Japanese obtained their
concession for the Seoul-Fusan Railway, an event of
great importance every way
and one that will mean much to Korea.
In
September the Independence Club determined that it would
be well to put forward
a program of work in place of the merely destructive
criticism which had for
some time characterized its policy. An appeal was made
to the general public to
assemble, in order to suggest reforms. Whether [page 425]
this was wise or not is a question. A popular assembly
in Korea is hardly capable of coming to wise conclusions
or to participate in
plans for constructive statesmanship. In addition to
this an appeal to the
people was inevitably construed by the conservatives as
a desperate measure
which invited revolution. In a sense they were justfied
in so thinking, for the
general populace of Korea never has risen in protest
unless the evils under
which they are suffering have driven them to the last
court of appeal, mob law.
The move was in the direction of democracy and no one
can judge that the people
of Korea are ready for any such thing.
However
this may be, a mass meeting was held at Chongno, to
which representatives of
all classes were called. The following articles were
formulated and presented
to the cabinet for imperial sanction.
(1)
Neither officials nor people shall depend upon foreign
aid. but shall do their best to strengthen and uphold
the Imperial power.
(2) All
documents pertaining to foreign loans, the hiring of
foreign soldiers, the
granting of concessions, &c., in fact every document
drawn up between the
Korean government and a foreign party or firm, shall be
signed and sealed by
all the Ministers of State and the President of the
Privy Council.
(3) Important
offenders shall be punished only after they have been
given a public trial and
ample opportunity to defend themselves.
(4) To His
Majesty shall belong the power to appoint Ministers, but
in case a majority of
the cabinet disapproves of the Emperor’s nominee he
shall not be appointed.
(5) All
sources of revenue and methods of raising taxes shall be
placed under the
control of the Finance Department, no other department
or officer or
corporation being allowed to interfere therewith; and
the annual estimates and
balances shall be made public.
(6) The
existing laws and regulations shall be enforced without
fear or favor.
It will be
seen that several of these measures strike directly at
powers which have been
held for centuries by the King himself and it cannot be
supposed that His
Majesty would listen willingly to the voice of the
common people when they [page
426]
demanded such far-reaching innovations. The whole thing
was utterly distasteful
to him,but the united voice of the
people is a serious matter. In such a country as Korea
the clearly announced
statement of the common people as to their wishes
carries with it the
implication that they have come to the point where they
are ready to make
trouble if their demands are not complied with. The
intensity of the popular
feeling was shown in the general closing of shops and in
the attendance even of
women upon the mass meeting. The reactionists were
seriously startled by these
demonstrations, and it became necessary to temporize.
These demands were not
such as would involve any immediate changes; they all
looked to the future. So
it was an easy matter simply to comply with the demands
and wait for the public
feeling to subside. On the last day of September His
Majesty ordered the
carrying out of these six propositions.
The
trouble was that the conservatives felt that they had
not sufficient physical
power to oppose a popular uprising. The temporary
concession was made with no
idea of real compliance, and was immediately followed by
measures for secure
ing a counter demonstration. The instrument selected for
this purpose was the
old-time Peddlar’s Guild. This was a defunct
institution, but the name
survived, and the conservatives used it to bring
together a large number of men
who were ready for any sort of work that would mean pay.
These were organized
into a company whose duty it was to run counter to all
popular demonstrations
like those which had just been made. No sooner was this
hireling band organized
than His Majesty, in pursuance of the hint dropped some
months before by the
President of the Independence Club, ordered the
disbanding of the Club. From
this time on the Independence Club was no longer
recognized by the Government
and was an illegal institution, by the very terms of the
unfortunate admission
of its President that the Emperor could at any time
disband it by Imperial
decree. Mr. Yun Chi-ho had by this time come to see that
the Club was running
to dangerous extremes and was likely to cause serious
harm; and he and others
worked with all their power to curb the excitement and
secure rational action
on the part of the members of the Club. But the time
when such counsels [page
427]
could prevail had already passed. The Club knew that the
principles it
advocated were correct and it was angry at the stubborn
opposition that it met.
It was ready to go to any lengths to secure its ends.
Passion took the place of
judgment and the overthrow of the opposition loomed
larger in its view than the
accomplishment of its rational ambitions.
Instead
of dispersing in compliance with the Imperial order the
assembled Independents
went in a body to the Police Headquarters and asked to
be arrested. This is a
peculiarly Korean mode of procedure, the idea being that
if put on trial they
would be able to shame their adversaries; and
incidentally it embarrassed the
adminstration, for the prisons would not suffice to hold
the multitude that
clamored for incarceration. The crowd was altogether too
large and too
determined for the Peddlers to attack and another
concession had to be made.
The Independents, for it can no longer be called the
Independent Club, offered
to disperse on condition that they be guaranteed freedom
of speech. The demand
was immediately complied with; anything to disperse that
angry crowd which
under proper leadership might at any moment do more than
make verbal demands.
So on the next day an Imperial decree granted the right
of free speech. This
concession, likewise, was followed by a hurried muster
of all the peddlars and
their more complete organization. Backed by official aid
and Imperial sanction
they were prepared to come to blows with the people who
should assemble for the
purpose of making further demands upon the Emperor,
Shortly
before this the Emperor had consented to the proposition
that the Independence
Club should choose by ballot from their own number
twenty-five men who should sit
in the Privy Council, This council had for a time
exercised some influence
during the earlier months of Dr. Jaisohn’s residence in
Seoul but it had lost
all power and had become a limbo to which were politely
relegated those whom
the government did not care to use and yet was unwilling
to dismiss. The edict
of the Emperor disbanding the Club would be supposed to
countermand this order
for election, but the Independents themselves did not so
view it. and the day
set for the election was November 5th, The conservatives
now deemed themselves
strong enough to try conclusions [page
428]
with the outlawed Club and before daylight of November
5th seventeen of the leading men of the Independence
Club were arrested and
lodged in jail. Mr. Yun, the president, narrowly escaped
arrest. It was
afterwards ascertained that the plan of the captors was
to kill the president
of the Club before he could receive aid from the enraged
people.
When
morning came and the arrest became known the city hummed
like a bee-hive. A
surging crowd was massed in front of the Supreme Court
demanding loudly the
release of the prisoners who had been accused, so the
anonymous placards
announced, of conspiring to establish a republic! Again
the popular feeling was
too strong for the courage of the peddlar thugs and they
remained in the
back-ground. The agitation continued all that day and
the next, and the next,
until the authorities were either frightened into
submission or, deeming that
they had shown the Independents a glimpse of what they
might expect, released
the arrested men. Bui the Independents, so far from
being cowed, hailed this as
a vindication of their policy and attempted to follow up
the defeat of the
conservatives by demanding the arrest and punishment of
the people who had played
the trick upon tke Club. As these men were very
prominent officials and had the
ear of the Emperor it was not possible to obtain the
redress demanded. So the
month of November wore away in a ferment of excitement.
Popular meetings were
frequent but the crowd had not the determination to come
to conclusions with
the government. The conservatives saw this and with
utmost nicety gauged the
resisting power of the malcontents. The offensive
tactics of the latter were
confined merely to free speech and the conservatives
determined to see what
they would do when on the defensive. Accordingly on tbe
morning of November
21st a band of ruffians, the so-called peddlars,
attacked the people who had
gathered as usual to discuss the stirring questions of
the times. Weapons were
used and a number of people were injured. The
Indepndents had never
contemplated the use of force, and this brutal assault
aroused the ire of the
whole people, most of whom had not as yet taken sides.
Serious hand to hand
fights occurred in various parts of the city and the
peddlars, conscious that
even their most murderous attacks would be [page 429]
condoned in high places, attempted to whip the people
into something like quietude.
On
the 26th of November in the midst of this chaotic state
of things the Emperor
granted a great general audience outside the great gate
of the palace. The
Independence Club was there in force, and foreign
representatives and a large
number of other foreign residents. It was a little
Runnymede but with a
different ending. Yun Chi-ho was naturally the spokesman
of the Independence
party. He made a manly and temperate statement of the
position of his
constituents. He denounced the armed attacks of the
peddlars upon people who
intended no violence but only desired the fulfillment of
solemnly made pledges.
He called to account those who imputed to the
Independence Club traitorous
designs. He urged that the legal existence of the Club
should be again
established by Imperial decree and that the six measures
so definitely and distinctly
promised by His Majesty should be carried out. There was
no possible argument
to oppose to these requests and the Emperor promised to
shape the policy of the
government in line with these suggestions. Again it was
mere promise, made to
tide over an actual and present difficulty. The
Independence people should have
recognized this. The Emperor was surrounded by men
inimical to the reform
program, they had the police and the army back of them
as well as the peddlars.
The Independence party had not a single prominent
representative in any really
responsible and influential government office. They
simply had right and the
precarious voice of Korean popular feeling behind them.
What was necessary was
a campaign of education. The program advocated was one
that could be carried
out only under a government whose personnel was at least
approximately up to
the standard of that program. This could be claimed of
only two or three
members of the Independence Club. Having secured thi»
public promise of His
Majesty the club should have waited patiently to see
what would happen and if
the promises were not kept they should have waited and
worked for a time when
public sentiment among the leading men would compel
reform. But as Mr. Yun
himself confesses, “The popular meetings had gone beyond
the control of the
Independence [page 430]
Club and in the face of strong advice to the contrary
they were resumed on
December 6th and their language became careless and
impudent. On the sixteenth
of December the Privy Council recommended the recall of
Pak Yonghyo from Japan.
The popular meeting had the imprudence to endorse this
action. The more
conservative portion of the people revolted against the
very mention of the
name. Suspicion was excited that the popular agitations
had been started in the
interests of Pak Yong-hyo and they instantly lost the
sympathy of the people.
The enemies of the liberal party had probably used this
argument to its fullest
extent, and when it was seen that the Independence
movement had at last been deprived
of its strongest support, the popular voice, its enemies
came down upon it with
cruel force. In spite of voluble promises to the
contrary large numbers of the
reform party were arrested and thrown into prison; not,
to be sure, on the
charge of being members of this party, but on trumped-up
charges of various
kinds, especially, that of being accessory to the plan
of bringing back Pak
Yong-hyo. And thus came to an end a political party
whose aims were of the
highest character, whose methods were entirely peaceable
but whose principles
were so far in advance of the times that from the very
first there was no human
probability of success. But, as Mr. Yun Chi-ho said,
though the party dies the
principles which it held will live and eventually
succeed.
The
year 1899 opened with political matters in a more quiet
state than for some
years past, owing to the violent repression of the
Independence Club and the
liberal movement. The judgment of the future will be
that at this point Japan
made a serious mistake of omission. The aims and
purposes of the Independence
party were directly in line with Japanese interests here
and if that powerful
government had actively interested itself in the success
of the movement and
had taken it for granted that the plan was to be
definitely carried out the
succeeding years would have made very different his.
tory than they did. But
during all this time Japan seems to have retired into
comparative quietude,
perhaps because she saw the coming of her inevitable
struggle with Russia and
was not willing to hasten matters by coming into
premature [page
431]
conflict with the northern power in Korea, pending the
completion of her
preparations for the supreme struggle.
Through
all this period Russian influence was quietly at work
securing its hold upon
the Korean Court and upon such members of the government
as it could win over.
The general populace was always suspicious of her,
however, and al ways
preferred the rougher hand of Japan to the soft but
heavy hand of Russia. The
progress of the Russian plans was illustrated when in
January of 1899 a mission
of the Greek Church was established in Seoul. This
suggests some remarks upon
the general subject of mission work in Korea. The
Presbyterian Church of
America had established work here in 1884: the Methodist
Episcopal Church of
America began work in 1885; the Australian Presbyterian
Church in 1889; The
English Church Mission in 1890; the Southern
Presbyterian Church of America in
1892; the Southern Methodist Church of America in 1896;
the Canadian
Presbyterian Mission in 1898. Besides these there was
independent work under
some smaller bodies including one Baptist organization
and one college mission.
When the last year of the 19th century opened these
missions had all become
firmly established, and important centres of mission
work were found all over
the country, especially in Seoul, Chemulpo, Pyeng-yang,
Fusan, Wonsan, Chon-ju,
Kunsan. Mokpo, Tagu and Song-do. From the very first the
Protestant Missions
adopted the principle of non-interferance with political
affairs and with the
ordinary course of justice in Korean courts. It has not
always been possible to
follow this principle implicitly but the people have
come to learn that
connection with a Protestant Christian Church will not
absolve them from their
duties and obligations toward their own government nor
shield them from the
results of misconduct. It has been found that the Korean
temperament makes him
easily accessible to the rational idealism of
Christianity. From the very first
the form of Christianity presented by the Protestant
missionaries took hold of
the Koreans with great power and by the end of the first
fifteen years of work
the various missions had some twenty thousand adherents.
The northern station
of the Presbyterian Mission in Korea attained world-wide
notice as being, so
far [page
432]
as human estimate can go, the most successful mission
station in the world; and
this not merely because of the number of people received
into Church connection
but because of the striking results obtained along the
line of self support and
independent Christian work. Hospitals were established
in Seoul, Fusan, Wonsan,
Pyeng-yang, Ta-gu and Chemulpo, and. schools of various
grades both for boys
and girls were established in almost every mission
station. The work of Bible
translation was carried on steadily until by the end of
1899 the whole of the
New Testament was put in the hands of the people at
least in tentative form.
The Korean Religious Tract Society, established early in
the last decade of the
century, did heroic work in putting forth Christian
literature of all kinds.
Literary work was represented in various grammars and
manuals of Korean,
several hymnals, an unabridged dictionary and the
publication of a monthly
magazine in English called The Korean
Repository.
Before
going forward into the new century we should note some
of the more important
material advances that Korea had made. Railway
concessions for some 600 miles
of track had been granted, half to Japanese and half to
a French syndicate;
several new and important ports had been opened,
bringing the total number up
to ten, inclusive of Seoul and Pyeng-yang; mining
concessions had been given to
Americans, English, Germans, French and Japanese, two of
which had proved at
least reasonably successful; timber and whaling
concessions had been given to
Russians on the east side of the peninsula and important
fishing rights had
been given to the Japanese; an attempt at a general
system of education had
been made throughout the country and the work of
publishing text books was
being pushed; students were sent abroad to acquire a
finished education and
legations at all the most important political centers
were established; an
attempt at a better currency had been made, though it
was vitiated by official
corruption and the operations of counterfeiters; trade
had steadily increased
and the imports and exports of Korea passed beyond the
negligeable stage; an
excellent postal system had been inaugurated under
foreign supervision, and
Korea had en tered the Postal Union.
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
OCTOBER, 1904.
Koreans in
Manchuria.
Seven or eight
years ago a number of Koreans were sent to Japan to
study in a Military School
in Tokyo. Among the whole number eight graduated with
honor m 1903. Four of
these had become thoroughly attached to Japan and were
looked upon by the
Japanese as fellow-countrymen. When the present war
broke out the military
authorities decided to send these four men to the front
to watch the course of
events and gain some experience in actual military
manoeuvres. When this was
announced to the men they said with one accord that they
would rather go as
actual fighting men than as mere on-lookers. If they
were to learn war it must
be by actual service. The Japanese were rather pleased
at this show of spirit
and consented to give the men the rank of captain and
actual commands in the
army.
When
therefore the Japanese armies moved to the front there
were four Koreans
embarked in the enterprise. Their first experience of
actual fighting was
before Anju on the occasion of the first fight there. We
shall follow the
fortunes of only one of these men. He commanded a
company of something under
one hundred men. The army had landed at Chinnampo before
the first of March and
it was well into that month before they were ready to
drive the Russians from
Anju.
When
the attack was made upon that town our Korean captain
was well to the front
with his company. [page 434]
They succeeded in getting up close to the wall before
any considerable harm was
done but there they found that the Russian bullets were
singing over their
heads while they themselves could not do any execution
at all. They were
enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke and could see
nothing. In this curious
situation they remained for half an hour until the gates
of the place were
forced by other Japanese troops and they all went in
together.
After
that the army swept on toward the north. Not
infrequently Russian stragglers
were captured, and at first they were treated very well
but later there was a
change in their treatment owing to the following
circumstance which was
witnessed by Korean coolies in Russian employ who
afterward told it to the
Japanese. The Russians succeeded in capturing a Japanese
and the Russian
officer in charge ordered him bound. The Japanese
objected to this and showed
fight. The Russian officer came near to enforce the
command when the Japanese
seized his hand and bit it severely. Thereupon the
Russian had all the Japanese
soldier’s teeth extracted and perforated his hand and
had him dragged along by
a rope through this wound. At last they killed the
prisoner, or he expired, and
they threw his body by the road-side and covered it
roughly. When the Japanese
troops came on the Koreans who had witnessed the
entertaining scene, pointed to
the mound and said a Japanese was buried there. The
listeners were incredulous
but the story was so plainly told and so circumstantial
that the grave was
opened and the body was found mutilated as had been
described. The dead man was
given burial honors and re-interred but the rage of the
Japanese at his
treatment had a definite effect upon their mode of
handling prisoners
thereafter, for though no such inhumanity was shown, the
prisoners were treated
with much less consideration.
When they reached the Yalu
they found that the actual business of war was about to
commence. They had to
cross that stream by frail pontoon bridges in the face
of thoroughly entrenched
forces and severe artillery fire. There were three
bridges thrown across the
stream on that [page 435]
eventful day and it was by the most southerly of these
that one Korean captain
crossed with his company. There was a new moon in the
sky and it was just
setting as the first troops attempted the crossing. The
moon shining in their
faces made the shore before them densely black. The
Russians however had their
backs to the moon and when the right moment arrived they
poured in a
destructive fire which destroyed the Manchurian end of
the bridge and
precipitated a large number of Japanese into the stream.
The Japanese leaders
saw the mistake at once and called a halt until the moon
had disappeared and
then the advance was resumed. The Korean captain crossed
with the rest and went
into battle with enthusiasm. He was no exception to the
rank and file of
Koreans, who have always shown commendable bravery
whenever they had confidence
in their commanding officers. It is when they feel sure
that the man at the
head is a coward and is willing to sacrifice them
wantonly that soldiers think
first of their own safety. He gives no details of the
battle except that for
four hours and a half they went at it tooth and nail,
and were at last rewarded
by seeing the Russians in full flight. It was after the
main battle was over
and the Japanese were pressing on in pursuit that he
gives a little incident
that throws some light upon the discipline of the
Japanese.
The
troops were under orders to drink no water from wayside
wells or streams, and
consequently they suffered severely at times. As the
troops were in full
pursuit of the Russians many of them found that the
water in their canteens was
exhausted. With powder blackened faces and lips that
were parched with thirst
they were pushing on in pursuit. One Korean captain in
passing a spot where
there was a little pool of filthy water saw one of the
soldiers surreptitiously
lower his canteen into this water and allow it to fill.
The captain waited
until the fellow had gone on and resumed his position in
the ranks then he
called him aside and asked what he had been taking that
filthy water for. The
poor soldier looked startled at being detected but
explained that he was so
thirsty that the temptation had been too great [page 436]
for him. The captain could have had him disciplined but
he did not have the heart to do so under the
circumstances, so instead of that
he took out of his pocket some disinfecting powders
which Japanese officers
always carry for this purpose and put one of them into
the fellow’s canteen,
thus rendering the water presumably innocuous. The
gratitude of the soldier was
very genuine.
As
they were approaching Feng-whang-cheng an interesting
episode occurred which
came under the notice of the Korean captain. There had
been a Chinaman hanging
about all one day and he had been rather lavish with his
money among the
camp-followers until at last a Japanese official’s
notice was attracted by
something peculiar in the man’s face, some feature that
was incongruous, and he
forthwith had the fellow seized and brought before him.
Instead of attempting
to brave it out the Russian spy, for he was just that,
exclaimed that all was
lost. He explained that he had been at work some time in
that district
completing an accurate map and that he had risked all in
order to gain
information as to the numbers and equipment of the
Japanese so that his
superiors could determine whether to attempt to hold the
approaches to
Feng-whang-cheng or not. On his person were found maps
and notes and a large
amount of Japanese paper money. So far as the Korean
knows this man was well
treated, and held more as a prisoner of war than as a
spy and was not executed
as the rules of war would allow. Of course he may have
been shot later, without
the knowledge of the Korean captain. He believes however
that the failure to
offer any serious resistance in the rough country lying
between
Feng-whang-cheng and Antung was due in part to the
failure of this spy to
report to his superior.
The
next and final incident related by this participant in
the actual fighting took
place at the time of the severe fight at Pun-sui-ling
where the Russians were
strongly intrenched on the hills and the fight raged
from seven o’clock in the
morning until dark before the Russians were finally
dislcxlged. At one point in
this severe [page 437]engagement
the Korean captain found himself with his small
command creeping along at the base of a great precipice.
There they had to
remain for a time while the artillery opened a way for
their further advance.
They were completely protected from the fire of the
enemy and could sit down
for a few moments and rest. The captain looked around
upon his men. Their faces
were blackened with powder, their lips had cracked with
the heat and thirst and
they certainly looked as if they had already done a full
day’s work. The
captain proceeded a few rods to take a look around the
projecting rocks but as
he put out his hand to steady himself he suddenly drew
back for he had almost
placed his hand on the head of a wounded Russian who had
crawled among the
rocks, out of the track of the storm of battle. The poor
chap was not yet gone
and he raised a hand as if asking for water. The captain
could not refuse and
gave him the few remaining drops that he carried and
also a biscuit or two that
were in his pocket.
That
night as the exhausted troops climbed the hill just
evacuated by the Russians
and the order was given to sleep on their arms they
simply fell where they were
and slept the sleep of utter fatigue. All about them was
dark and the captain
sunk to the ground and laid his head on what seemed to
be a hummock of earth.
He was asleep almost before he had reached a recumbent
position. When he woke
in the early morning he found that he had been using a
dead Russian for a
pillow.
Before
the battle of Liao-yang was ready to be fought all the
Koreans were sent back
to their own country. They would have been willing to
continue but the Japanese
said they should remember their duty to their own
country and refused to take
the responsibility of further exposing them to the
chances of war. So they came
back to Seoul. There should be good material here for
Korean leadership, if the
time ever comes when merit alone makes a man eligible to
responsible position.
[page
438]
Russians in Northeast Korea.
Following upon
the interesting account that we gave last month of
physical and social
conditions in the Northeast province we are able to add
the following items,
received from most reliable sources. Our informant
writes that one of the
Christian Koreans in Sung-jin left that place on Sept.
22nd and when he arrived
in Wonsan he reported that when he left the northern
port there were 2,600
Russian cavalry encamped there in tents They were
situated a little to the
north of the settlement, directly in front of the
Canadian Presbyterian Mission
property. At that point there was a large official
Korean building but
partially constructed. This the Russians finished and
used as commissariat
headquarters, with a bake-oven for bread; and all
rations were issued there. As
there was no other water there except that in the well
on the mission compound,
the Russians used it freely. Of course, all the
missionaries had left the place
and were in Wonsan and the two mission houses were in
charge of native keepers,
though the customs officials have general oversight of
them. A number of
Russians were also encamped on the peninsula which forms
the protection for the
anchorage harbor and here they had established a bath
which is used by all the
soldiers in rotation.
All
these troops were from westem Russia and only came out
across the continent a
couple of months ago. They are very well behaved, are
not allowed out at night
and are kept in good order by military police who see to
it that Koreans are
not oppressed. The officers have been very kind to the
Norwegian gentleman who
is in charge of the Customs property and have provided
him with many needed
supplies which his long isolation had prevented him from
obtaining. The
officers repeatedly visited the two mission houses and
went through them, and
they enquired often of the Customs if they might not
occupy them. They also
bought and paid for vegetables out of the gardens of the
missionaries.
[page 439]
The most interesting information that our correspondent
gives is about the
roads in the north of which he says: The Russians have
made fine roads all
through the north as far as Puk-ch’ung. Contrary to the
expectations of some,
they have not used the interior route north of
Kyung-sung by way of Whe-ryung
and the Upper Tuman but have made a good road from
Kyong-heung directly along
the coast. North of Sung-jin where the road traversed a
rice plain, and was
therefore very wet in rainy weather, they made a new
road on a better surveyed
route, and south of Sung-jin they have even made the
almost impassable “Heaven-toucher”
easy of ascent by blasting out a new zig-zag route. They
have also done the
same at the Tung-geul Pass so that as far as Puk-ch’ung
they have a road that
is excellent for the transportation of almost any kind
of military impedimenta.
The sound of the blasting on the “Heaven Touching Pass”
was heard ten miles
away in Sung-jin. At the time this Korean came south
there were at least 1,000
Russians at Puk-ch’ung and advance pickets as far as
Ham-gwan Pass seventy li
north of Ham-heung. The advance posts of the Japanese
were on the south slope
of the same pass, and here the two belligerents have
been looking at each other
for many days without firing a shot.
Since
writing the above our correspendent learns that several
thousand more Russians
arrived at Sung-jin and came south to swell the force at
Puk-ch’ung. In spite
of the work they have put on the roads the Russians do
not seem to have any
heavy artillery. Guncarriages drawn by two horses were
the heaviest they had at
Sung-jin.
On
September 13th news reached Wonsan that the Russians had
all left Sung-jin and
were assembled at Puk-ch’ung.
If
we may be allowed to comment upon the above information,
it seems very strange
that the Russians should go to the extreme pains of
blasting out roads over
high passes and making them passable for heavy artillery
unless they intended
to hold them stiffly against all comers, and it looks
very much as if [page
440]
they would try hard to hold the Japanese in check. If
they do not they have
built substantial roads for the Japanese to pass over,
for they could not
destroy these permanent works behind them. War is truly
a curious game. It is
an ill wind that blows nobody good, for these new roads
will remain and be of
lasting benefit to Korean travelers.
The Reform
Spelling.
Editor Korea
Review. Dear Sir :—
Some rather
amazing reflections occur to the mind in considering the
movement toward
spelling reform which has been agitating the
missionaries for the last two
years. Is it possible that a considerable proportion of
our missionary body,
while warmly pressing this proposed reform, have made so
little study of the
subject, that they have apparently, almost no conception
of the sweeping
changes involved by such a step? Or is it only an
illustration of the well
known presence of sheep-nature in man? All we want is a
leader, and if someone
throws up his hat and shouts, “Come on, boy’s!” up we
all get and away we all
scamper, helter-skelter, pell-mell, until we land with
our leader in the bottom
of the ditch. Fortunately, in the present instance, some
of us have come to
ourselves, albeit on the very brink of the final plunge,
and are disposed to
draw back and chew the cud of careful consideration for
a while before we risk
our precious mutton.
What
some of us want to get at before we commit ourselves to
the proposed reform, is
as to what the actual effect will be upon the written
language. What, for
instance, does such a sentence as the following, in the
new spelling, mean? 천문을보다고하는학도를서도갓소
[page 441]
Does it mean that the students who wish to see the
astronomy are like each
other, or, the students who wish to see the Thousand
Gates have gone west, or,
the studtents who wish to see the Heavenly Gate have
gone together, or which of
the possible combinations of these seven things does it
mean? This no
exaggerated instance, but only one of many which might
be adduced to show that
the new spelling will make it impossible, often within
the limits of a
considerable sentence, to determine which of several
meanings may be the one
intended. “But the context!” someone cries, “You can
tell from the context!”
Perhaps we can, if there is enough of it, but we protest
that this is a
pitiable condition to which to reduce any written
language.
To
look at the matter from the standpoint of the Koreans,
it is doubtless true,
which is often averred by those favoring the reform,
that the mass of the
Koreans, men, women and children would know or care
little about the change if
we should make it, and if we were building on
illiteracy, or if it could be
proved to the satisfaction of a large majority of those
best qualified to know,
that the advantages to be gained by the proposed reform
are greater than any
loss that it may entail, then this would be a strong
argument. But since
neither of these two things are as yet true, the
argument seems to me little
better than that which influences a Flathead Indian
mother when she straps a
board across the brow of her child and deforms him for
life. He is helpless; he
neither knows or cares. Why should she not?
And
it is equally true that there are those among the
Koreans who do care very
greatly, to whom this is a very vital matter. This unmoon is their written mother tongue.
They learned it years ago
when they were little boys, sitting on the floor beside
father or mother. They
never learned it very well, and are likely to spell it
any kind of way. They
may affect to despise it, yet they know and love every
character. It is
connected in their minds with childhood, home, mother
and everything which they
have a right to hold sacred and dear, and which no men
may presume to lightly
tamper with or [page 442]
take away. And yet what is it that we propose to do? We
say to them in effect, ‘‘See
here, my good fellow, we’ve been looking over this
language of yours, and it
seems to us that there is a good deal that’s superfluous
about it. There are a
number of characters that are not really necessary, and
it will be a great deal
easier for you and us too, if we just cut them out. It
will necessitate
dropping out whole sections of your written language,
and it may seem awkward
at first, but you’ll get used to it in time.”
There
are Koreans who resent this. They cannot defend their
position very well. They
know little of such technical terms as sound values and
sight values, of pure
phonetics, of silent letters, but they do know that this
language is their own,
which they have a right to as it is. It is easy for us
to cry, “How obstinate!
Absurd!” but the fact remains that to such a Korean the
attempt on the part of
a body of foreigners to reduce his written mother tongue
to a dead level of
phonetic sameness is not only unnecessary, but
unwarrantable and unjustifiable
from any standpoint of right and fairness. Some of the
Koreans who feel in this
way are deeply attached to us as missionaries, but there
is no question that to
press this proposed reform will endanger their
affectionate regard for us,
their confidence in our judgment and in our Christian
humility. Brethren, there
are some things of more importance to us as missionaries
than mere ease in
spelling.
O. W. W. K.
Editor Korea
Review :—
Apropos of
your excellent article on Spelling Reform, let me append
two scraps of
conversation picked up during the fall gatherings in
Seoul. Anxious Inquirer. “But
don’t you find that books printed in the new spelling
are a great deal harder
to read?’’
Enthusiastic Advocate of spelling
reform. “Yes, I do.”
Anxious Enquirer. “Then why do you
want it?”
Enthusiastic Advocate. “Because I
think it will be easier for the Korean.”
[page
443] Keulsyei!
Anxious
Enquirer again, to another Enthusiastic Advocate. “I’ve
been trying to read a
tract printed in this reformed spelling, and I can’t
make anything out of it.”
Enthusiastic
Advocate, cheerfully, “That’s what Dr. Blank says, but
if you just read it out
loud and listen to it you won’t have a bit of trouble!”
Further
comment seems unnecessary.
Yours for slow
motion, Axis,
The
Educational Needs of Korea
The work of
revolutionizing not only the entire method but the
entire subject matter of the
education of the young in any country must always be one
of enormous
difficulty. It would take too much space even to
enumerate these obstacles but
a statement of a few of them will help to elucidate the
question of the
educational needs of Korea.
In
the first place what was the need of such a revolution?
This question can be
dismissed with brief mention. Education has always been,
in Korea, merely
literary and historical and there has been vastly more
of the study of China
than of Korea. It included no practical grasp of the
facts of today’s life,
gave no introduction to the secrets of nature, it never
looked to the future.
It never tended to show that today is the best time, so
far as living men are
concerned, but the whole tone of it was a lament over
the departure of past
glories. The Korean youth always walked into the battle
of life backwards,
waving a tearful adieu to the phantoms of past glories
rather than resolutely
facing the enemies to his present advancement and
hailing the advent of better
things than the past had to offer. The same thing is
true in China, and we can
explain it only on the ground that the whole system of
society has tended to
belittle the individual and magnify the clan. No Korean
can look at a mountain
and individualize it. He has [page 444]
to think of it as simply a link in the great chain of
mountains stretching from
“0ld White-head” down through the peninsula. Otherwise
he would mentally be
commiting sacrilege in breaking the “Dragon’s Back.’’
His desire for offspring
is mainly to keep the line of ancestral graves intact,
and the death of a
daughter, for instance, would be considered a slight
calamity compared with the
desecration of a great-grand-father’s tomb.
If
then, as we believe, education has for its legitimate
purpose the developing of
the individual mind and heart and the arming of it for a
fight with the
degenerating influences of a corrupt environment, the
only way to make the
crusade of education something more than an empty
protest is to bring about a volte-face in
the attitude of society
itself; otherwise all our attempts, however strenuous
and however well
intended, will prove but a “forlom hope” and we shall
see only a sporadic and
fragmentary result. If this is true the seriousness ot
work will be at once
apparent. We are open to the charge here of arguing in a
circle, for education
is the only thing that will bring about such a
revolution in popular sentiment,
but that change can be accelerated in various ways. One
of the most powerful
agencies at work in this direction is the work of
Christian Missions especially
Protestant Missions. Christian evangelization has always
claimed general
education as her hand maiden and all over the country
schools have been and are
being opened by Christian Missionaries. But we are
dealing now with the general
education of the people as a whole, of whatever creed,
and while the mission
schools are powerful object-lessons they are but one of
the several avenues of
approach. The newspapers form another important argument
in favor of education.
They have opened up to the Korean a long vista of new
and untried knowledge
down which many Koreans are peering and to travel that
trying to make up their
minds whether it is worth while to travel that way.
When
we come right down to facts the Koreans are fairly
clear-headed and know what
they want. No incentive to education can possibly move
them that does [page
445]
not offer substantial material advantages. They do not
want and we cannot
expect them to want education for its own sake.
Education, like virtue, is its
own reward but there are few people in Korea or anywhere
else who do not demand
that several other more material rewards should follow
the expenditure of time and
money in the acquisition of an education. This is only
another way of saying
that unless a modem education will give a Korean a
better salary or a better
social position, or both, he will have none of it. This
is equally true of
ninety-nine out of every hundred men in Europe or
America; and it is not to be
regretted, for the securing of those advantages cannot
rob them of that more
subtle and genuine enjoyment that follows upon the
enlargement of the
intellectual horizon.
For
this reason the action of the Educational Department in
Seoul in urging upon
the heads of the different offices the employment of the
graduates of the
various schools of the capital is to be applauded. This
is a distinct move in
the right direction, and all foreigners in Korea could
help in this line by
emphasizing the fact that a good education will in
itself be a good
recommendation for a man to any responsible position.
Unfortunately the notion
has prevailed to some extent that an educated man, or a
partly educated man,
should be looked upon with a certain degree of
suspicion. It is quite true that
a little knowledge has proved a dangerous thing to some
Koreans in that it has
given them an undue opinion of their own attainments,
but we must remember that
every people has had to pass through that stage. Japan
is only now beginning to
emerge from it. But if we do not make allowances for
them, if we expect them to
enlarge their brains without enlarging their heads a
little in the process we
shall fail to give them the encouragement which they
deserve. The only way to
cure a man suffering from the educational swelled head
is to adopt the
homoeopathic plan and give a lot more of the very thing
that caused the swelled
head. I wish that about ten millions of this people were
suffering from that
same complaint. It is probable that about that number
are [page
446]
priding themselves that they have kept their skirts
clear of the whole foreign
education business and can placidly sit and drone over
the Chinese classics
while all the time the bright and energetic Japanese are
preparing to absorb
all the material benefits of the situation. In the end
these self-satisfied
intellectual mummies will awake to find themselves in
outer darkness, where
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
A
man comes to me and after ascertaining all the
accessible facts as to my
personal health and other allied subjects he says :
“Please
get me a position.”
I reply in an
interested tone “Would’nt you rather have a job?” He
inclines his head
sideways, looks up to the comer of the room and murmurs
anxiously
“Job—
job? I do not know that word.” Nor does he.
I
ask him what he is most capable of doing and he promptly
answers:
“Anything”
which means of course “nothing.”
I
suggest digging gold out of the mines or cutting
sugar-cane in Hawaii. He
spreads out deprecating hands and begs me not to joke as
it is a serious
matter; as indeed it is, much more serious than he
imagines.
I
suddenly remember (or invent) a position somewhere far
down in the country in
some obscure provincial capital where even yangbans
wear straw shoes and saturi lies
thick upon the local tongue. He assumes a contemplative,
judicial attitude, but
at last confides to me the fact that his filial
obligations will not allow him
to leave the paternal roof to accept even so flattering
a position as I offer.
I
next probe him with a position with one of my friends
who has some clerical
work to be done and intimate that it is nice light clean
work with the pen,
from nine o’clock in the morning till about six in the
afternoon. He nearly
falls off his chair but recovers himself and after a
vain attempt to turn the
conversation he says that after all his elder brother is
pretty sure of a
clerkship in one of the government offices as soon as
the [page
447]
present minister resigns and then of course it will not
be necessary to bother
about a position. And with this Micawber-like decision
he betakes himself away
.
There
you have the matter in a nutshell. He depended upon his
slight friendship with
me to secure him a position where he could get a good
salary for next to
nothing in exchange. It will be a great day in Korea
when you can say to such
an applicant “what diplomas can you show or what
certificates from some
reputable school?” and when no man will have the face to
apply to you without
having such papers to show. It should be the constant
practice of every
foreigner in Korea to impress upon the Koreans that the
cash value of their
services will depend very largely upon their education.
Not that class-room
work will make a man necessarily useful in practical
work but because the grit
and the perseverance that will carry a man through a
course of study and bring
him a diploma is in itself prima facie
evidence that he has at least some of the qualities that
will make him
successful anywhere. And furthermore it demonstrates
that he has broken away
from the past and has chosen a path that lies parallel
with modern ideas of
enlightenment. His attitude is right whatever be his
actual attainments.
And
yet, while the student should be assured that his
education has cash value, he
should also be warned that too narrow and technical an
education will defeat
its own purpose; for though it may, and doubtless will,
secure him steady
employment it will not give him the breadth of mind that
is necessary to enable
him to rise to the head of any profession.
One
of the great obstacles at the present time is the
grievous lack of proper text
books; and not this alone but the absence of any genuine
literature along
modern lines. These things have all to be made. Korea is
in much the position
that England was when the fashion of writing everything
in Latin was just going
out but there was as yet little or nothing in English.
We smile when anyone
suggests that a Korean should try to write a modern
novel in his own tongue. It seems [page
448]
incongruous and to some extent absurd, but it is not a
whit more so than it was for Chaucer to take the giant
of prejudice by the
beard and defy him. The Koreans are charming
story-tellers. Every foreigner in
Korea should bend every energy to the task of convincing
the Korean that his
own vernacular is an immensely better medium of thought
than the Chinese to
which he has clung so long. There can be no naturalness,
no vigor, no snap to
Korean literature so long as they cling to the Chinese.
One has but to note the
clumsy manner in which a conversation is transcribed
when put in Chinese
characters. The Korean native writing has taken on much
of this stilted style,
but there is no reason why the Koreansmay not break away from it and transcribe a
conversation verbatim in
quotation marks as we do. But the first need is text
books. And in this
connection it is encouraging to note that a society has
been formed of
foreigners and Koreans called the Korean Educational
Association, and it has
gone to work in the right manner by appointing a large
number of committees on
nomenclature. Each committee takes certain subjects and
engages to make a
tentative glossary of technical terms covering these
subjects. These will be
reported at a general meeting, discussed, revised and
adopted as the standard
to be used in all scientific works. This is a thorough,
conservative and
scientific plan and will prevent much confusion and
waste of time and energy in
the future. We cannot impress too strongly upon the
foreign residents in Korea
the adoption of the system that will be so evolved even
though for a short time
it may cause some slight disturbance in their previous
methods and may not in
every individual case appeal to their judgment, which is
already biassed by the
use of their own system. This concession should be made
in the interest of
uniformity is nomenclature. The committees that have
been appointed are so
representative that there can be no difficulty arivsing
from local prejudice.
Their conclusions as revised by the society as a whole
may be depended upon as
being as near an approximation to an ideal standard as
can be reasonably
desired. Now that there is a prospect of our [page 449]
having a competent adviser in the Educational Department
in the person of a graduate of Tokyo University it may
be definitely expected
that the nomenclature adopted by this Educational
Association will be used in
all Government school books. This will give it a great
impetus.
One
of the gravest difficulties in the way is the lack of a
perfect and universally
accepted literary medium. The Korean alphabet is nearly
perfect and is capable
of expressing thought as well as the English alphabet,
but a very large number
of the terms that must be used in scientific works are
not at present readily
recognized by their sounds. The Korean wants to see the
ideogram before him,
even in cases where it would seem to us that the context
would clearly
circumscribe tlie meaning and prevent all ambiguity. But
we must not fall into
the opposite error of fearing that this difficulty is
insurmountable, for as a
man deprived of sight will soon develop a new and
marvelous delicacy of touch,
so these people if once weaned away from the Chinese
character will grasp the
idea of phonetically expressed thought. Nor do I fear
that this simile will be
successfully exploited by those who would make the
Koreans cling to the
Chinese, for the day has gone by when anyone can hold
that general education is
possible under the old system. If there are such we have
no common starting
point for argument. They would agree with Charles Lamb
that the only way to eat
roast pork is to bum down your house to get it.
There
will always be the cultured few who will want to know
the Chinese, just as
there are the cultured few in the West who study Greek
and Latin. For these few
we must provide in our schools, but as for the great
mass of the people, the
ninety-nine out of every hundred, they must have a
purely native literature.
The
vital question then arises. How are we to wean the
people away from the Chinese
to the pure Korean? The Chinese is the medium through
which all literary ideas
have flowed into this Peninsula. The existing religion
of the people, or at
least the recognized cult, [page 450]Confuciamism,
is embedded in Chinese. The ideograph and its
study form the great barrier between the upper and lower
classes, a barrier
which the upper classes will be loath to see torn down.
There is one and only one way to attack this
barrier and that is by
giving the common people such a good literature in
their own native character
that the position will be reversed and it shall came
to be acknowledged that
genuine education lies with the many rather than with
the few. Pardon the
italics but the supreme importance of this point
warrants them. Works, written
in the Korean can be made as fascinating and as
stimulating as those written in
Chinese, though in a different way. A wealthy young Arab
once heard the diamond
described, and his desire to possess one grew upon him
so strongly that at last
he sold all his land and houses and went in search of
such a stone. After
wandering all over that portion of the world and
spending all his patrimony
without securing the coveted object he came back home
only to find that the man
to whom he had sold his land had found a mine of
diamonds in a spring on the
place. So with the Koreans, the time will surely come
when they will
acknowledge that the failure to develop and use their
alphabet has cost them —
perhaps life itself; for with the enlightenment that
must have come from
general education they never would have found themselves
in their present
dilemma.
It
cannot be too strongly urged upon all those who are
interested in the
intellectual growth of the Korean the need of hastening
the preparation of good
books of all kinds. Of course school text books will
come first, but our ideas
must not be limited to these. Koreans should be
encouraged to write. There
should be magazines in Korean to which the best writers
should contribute and
prizes should be offered for competitive material. They
should be encouraged to
embark upon the stormy sea of fiction, to make
experiments, to explore the
unknown continent of literary attainment.
The
question, and a very pertinent one, arises as to what
center all this should
proceed from. Where will be the nucleus of it? Who will
attend to its
initiation? We cannot look to the Government for it. Nor
can we [page
451]
look to the Chinese scholars. It must grow up out of the
middle classes and
spread both down and up. It has been almost exclusively
the Protestant
missionaries who have interested themselves along this
line and the publication
of the New Testament in the native character cannot but
be regarded as a most
significant factor. As things are shaping themselves
today it looks as if the
movement here outlined would find its nucleus in that
strong body of men who
form the Christian Church in Korea. From one point of
view this will be a
misfortune and from another it will be a great benefit.
Such a. source will
inevitably prejudice some people against it but on the
other hand it will as
inevitably attract others and bring them in contact with
Christianity and only
those that are wilfully blind can deny, after honest
investigation, that the
Protestant Christians of Korea include the brightest,
the most progressive and
the most loyal people of the land.
Those
of us who have come in contact only with the official
classes, which are
characterized by a certain smug self-satisfaction and
want nothing better, can
hardly realize how hungry the Koreans are for education.
This city simply
swarms with young men who would be glad to study if some
proper incentive were
offered. They are uneasy and dissatisfied and hardly
know themselves what it is
they want. It will take a short campaign of education to
brush away the cobwebs
that obstruct their vision and crystalize their ideas of
what they really want.
This is one of the ways in which the newly opened Young
Men’s Christian
Association will help. Courses of lectures have been
arranged which will at
least give a glimpse into some of the fields of
knowledge which the Koreans
have never cultivated, and will help to stimulate the
imagination of the young
Korean.
If
the question is raised as to what direction the
education of Koreans should
take we would reply that provision should be made for
what is generally
denominated a liberal education, that is an intellectual
expansion in all
directions. But it seems to me that special emphasis
should be laid upon those
studies that will develop the [page 452]
logical faculty. Books on natural science should call
special attention to the
great laws underlying all science rather than present a
vast number of minutiae
which in the present state of things would bring into
exercise only the already
over-developed faculty of mere memory. Books on
mathematics should emphasize
the appUcation of principles and call out the well-nigh
atrophied faculty of
original thought, intellectual initiative. It is simply
marvelous the readiness
with which Koreans will learn to work out the most
difficult mathematical
problem if you will explain just one example of that
same kind to them first.
For instance one of my classes learned in half an hour
to solve any problem of
the following kind though I doubt if they could have
originated the solution in
ten years: How many measures of oil at eighteen cents a
measure must be mixed
with thirty-eight measures at twenty-seven cents a
measure so that if the
mixture be sold at twenty-four cents there will be a
gain of one and a half
cents on each measure? They had not the remotest idea of
how to attack the
following problem: At what time after three o’clock will
the two hands of a
watch be together? But when the principle of the thing
was once explained they
recognized it immediately. It is not because they have
not the mental power to
think the thing out for themselves but because the very
idea of applying
themselves to the independent solution of such a problem
seems to them absurd.
They seem to think the teacher is as unreasonable to ask
them to attack a
knotty problem alone, as it would be to ask a blind man
to go on the street
without his stick. The way I deal with the situation—
and I mention it as a
mere suggestion — is to introduce slight changes in
problems already explained
and so lead them to exercise a slight degree of
ingenuity, of original thought.
In time they will learn to apply general principles to
very diverse cases and
so an intellectual stimulus will be given. This was
fairly well proved in a
class in algebra, about one half of which was finally
able to take new and
untried problems and throw them into the form of an
equation and solve them.
The Koreans have one excellent intellectual [page 453]
quality. They want to know the reason why a thing is
done thus or so. It is this thoroughness which enables
them do any problem of a
specified kind alter the principle has been explained to
them. What they do not
like is to be asked to feel after the principle
themselves. (To be continued.)
The Foreign
Cemetery.
On the 31st of
October the annual meeting of the Western Foreign
Residents of Seoul, for the
purpose of discussing matters connected with the Foreign
Cemetery, was held at
the Seoul Union. Judging from the number present it was
evident that the
foreigners of Seoul are not much interested in
cemeteries, in spite of the fact
that we are all to go to one finally. But, seriously,
would it not seem certain
that the care of the Foreign Cemetery is a matter to
which every foreigner should
give at least one hour’s thought a year? We feel sure
that the feeling of the
community was not reflected in the paucity of members at
the meeting and we
therefore offer no apology for laying before the public
a general statement of
the business that was transacted. An attempt is to be
made to secure the piece
of land which juts into the cemetery compound on the
northeast comer and on
which there stands a ruined shrine or tablet-house of
some kind. This will add
greatly to the appearance of the place and will make it
possible to construct a
better road to the top of the plateau by partly
encircling it on the eastern
side, instead of going straight up the hill as at
present. This land probably
could not be purchased, but it is not unlikely that the
government might be
made to see its way clear to making a free grant of it.
At any rate a good
committee was appointed to look into the matter.
The
next question that engaged the attention of the meeting
was that of the road
leading from Seoul to the cemetery. It is a fairly good
road in parts but it is
spoiled by the existence, at two or three points, of
short stretches of very
bad road. These alone would render it [page
454]
impossible to drive a carriage to the cemetery. It was
therefore decided to make application to the government
to have this road put
in good shape and it is hoped that in this we may have
the active support of
Dr. J. McLeavy Brown whose name is so closely associated
with good roads in and
about Seoul.
It
was announced that a new bier had been constructed and
would be permanently
housed at the Methodist Church in Chong-dong, opposite
the Seoul Union.
Arrangements were made to have it always accessible and
orders were given for
the making of simple and appropriate uniforms for use by
the coolies who carry
the casket to the cemetery. The former executive
committee was continued in
office for the ensuing year with the one exception that
the name of M. Collin
de Plancy was substituted for that of Alex. Kenmure,
Esq., who is absent.
But
the most important question discussed was the need of a
rest-house which would
also be used as a mortuary chapel in connection with the
cemetery. It is very
necessary not only for the convenience but also for the
safety of those who
attend funerals at the cemetery in bleak and inclement
weather that there
should be a room where a fire could be built and the
ceremony could take place
under less dangerous circumstances than at present.
After the long cold ride to
such a distant point it is positively dangerous to stand
on that exposed
plateau while the service is being read. This applies
especially to ladies, and
it becomes the duty of the community to provide some
means whereby this danger
may be obviated. We must note that this is for the
living, not for the dead; and
which one of us may not at any time be called upon to
attend such a service and
expose himself or herself to this positive danger? The
obligation weighs with
equal pressure upon each one of us, and the attendants
upon this meeting were
of the unanimous opinion that such a building should be
erected. There should
be a central room twenty by sixteen feet, with retiring
rooms on either side
for ladies and gentlemen respectively. A modest
substantial brick building of
this size might cost from Yen 2,000 to 2,500. It is not
improbable that, being
built [page 455]
for such a purpose, a contractor would engage to put it
up for the minimum
price consistent with good workmanship. It is at the
request of the annual
meeting that we bring the matter thus clearly before the
public, and it is with
the unanimous voice of that representative meeting that
we urge the public to
take the matter into practical consideration. As it is a
matter of such
universal interest a subscription paper would be honored
by every foreign member
of our community and it would take but a few dollars
apiece to realize a sum
that would carry the work through to a successful issue.
Which one of us could
not give, for instance, five per cent of one month’s
salary for this purpose?
This together with about Yen 300 from the balance now in
the treasury would be
fully enough to carry the thing through, if each
foreigner would guarantee that
amount; for there are doubtless a goodly number in the
outports who would be
glad to aid in such a work as this. No one has been
authorized to start a
subscription paper for this purpose but if it were done
we have no doubt the
needed sum could be easily raised.
Treasurer’s
Report.
Receipts.
Expenditure.
Balance in
band from previous Caretaker’s wages for 12 years Yen
552.09 months . Yen 66.00
Subscriptions 175.00 New Year’s present to Sale of grave
sites 20.00 Caretaker
2.00 Interment fees 10.00 Digging Graves 18.00 Interest
on deposit 17.17
Ricksha fares 8.26 Ropes 4.00 Total Yen 774.26 Bier
25.00 Petties 1.35 Deposit
in Bank 641.78 Cash in hand 7.87
Total Yen
774.26
Funds in hand
at the close of 1904, Yen 649.65. Seoul, October 31st,
1904. R. Brinckmbier,
Hon.
Treasurer.
[page
456]
Editorial Comment.
It is not
greatly to the credit of the American public that the New York Herald deems it possible to stir
up antipathy against
Japan by such arguments as those which have been quoted
so widely in Eastern
papers. We do not wonder that the Japanese authorities
forbear to bring
pressure on foreign papers within her domains to stop
the publication of such
arguments, for they are so palpably absurd or else so
palpably untrue that they
are quite harmless. While we sympathise with the
independent attitude of our
Seoul contemporary we fail to see why these arguments
are quoted at such
length. Is it to show us what the Herald
thinks, or is it to bring the pressure of those
arguments upon us as well? If
the former, it is unnecessary, for the whole world knows
that the Herald
has been extremely pro-Russian
from the first, and if the latter, we fail to be
impressed. The Herald
is simply taking advantage of the
natural reaction which was to have been expected after
the truly American
enthusiasm with which the first Japanese victories were
hailed, a reaction that
was perhaps partly caused by the grumblings of a few
score disgruntled
correspondents who failed to get to the front. But have
the principles of this
thing changed since then? Are the first words of these
correspondents to be
called fiction because of a change of mind due to
personal disaffection? Not
for a moment. The object for which Japan is fighting now
is the same as at
first. No one has discovered any change in it and the
fact that Japan does not
carry on this war to suit the foreign press does not
impair the laudableness of
that object.
In
the first place the Herald speaks
of
the “Oriental trick by which the Russian navy was
crippled before the
declaration of war.” Go back to the English and American
papers of last
February and count the instances they cite in which the
same method has been
adopted by European powers, and the authorities they
quote to show that Japan
was well within her rights.
[page 457]
The Herald
should be challenged to
show an oriental precedent for Japan’s action. There is
none, Japan learned war
from Europe.
Take
the words straight from the pen of the Herald writer and
imagine that we are
talking about Russia for a moment. He says “They are
insufferably overbearing
and insolent. They implicitly believe their army and
navy are invincible and
give their views publicly in a manner which is galling.
Their total disregard
of the truth, their apparent inability to conceive that
there is anything
sacred about a promise or agreement, and the barbarism
which is so clearly
apparent through their veneer of civilization has
invitated and alieniated all
who have come in contact with them. We submit that the
dictionary does not
contain words that more precisely describe the facts as
to Russia. And we do
not have to rely on the statements of “Army and navy
officers from the
Philippines” to show it. Which side has been bragging
about its army and navy?
Which side has broken its promises? Which side has
broken the rules of
civilized warfare? Why, this very day comes news that a
foreign Minister at
Peking has had to protest against the use of Manchu
clothes by Russian troops.
The
Herald must be
in desperate straits
for an argument if it tries to play upon the
Southerner’s antipathy to the
blacks, in connection with this war. We do not doubt the
seriousness of the
race problem in the United States but the attempt to
prejudice people against
Japan by lugging in this wholly unrelated question is
about as it would be for
an Irish Catholic to refuse to eat oranges because of
their color. The Japanese
and the negro have nothing in common.
There
is an element of wholly unintentional humor in the
paragraph in which the Herald says
that military men have a
feeling that there is something uncanny about the
Japanese soldier. Nothing
could be truer, as the Russians are finding out. The
dictionaries define
uncanny as meaning unsafe, strange,
weird, ghostly. Well, the Japanese have proved
themselves rather unsafe for
certain parties in the East and they have certainly been
[page
458]
strange compared with the other peoples Russia has run
up against in this part
of the world. As for the wierdness and the ghostliness
of them, they seem to
make very substantial spooks.
By
the way, what high praise the Herald
unconciously and wholly unintentionally gives the
Japanese when he says that
they fear their officers more than any possible enemy.
And we suppose the Herald would
reverse the statement in
the case of Russia. If so we find the solution of the
whole question of Japan’s
superiority right here; but personally we do not think
the Russian lacks in
bravery. It was not until the battle of the Shaho that
the military skill of
the Japanese was definitely proved to be superior to
that of the Russians, The
latter were simply out-classed.
Then
the statement that by committing suicide rather than
fall into the hands of the
enemy they are “not observing the rules that govern the
sport” will hardly bear
examination. Perhaps the Herald does
not agree with the Spartan mother who told her son to
return from battle with
his spear or upon it. Perhaps it would say that the
scores of sea-captains that
voluntarily go down with their ships each year are not
“playing the game.” Such
an attitude ought to be branded as utterly un-American
and every citizen of the
United States should repudiate it.
The
Japanese have their faults just as every other people
has. It would probably
have been better if they had frankly said at the very
first that war
correspondents would not be allowed at the front. We
believe that the Japanese
have not lost in the estimation of the general foreign
public by refusing to
become responsible for the crowd of men whom the various
papers wanted to send
to the battle field to take snap-shots of the carnage
that was inevitable. The
public is better off without those pictures. The ethics
of such things are
essentially the same as those of the Spanish bull-fight,
and no useful end
could be served by it all. We should take General
Sherman’s word for it that in
some aspects “War is Hell,” and let it go at that.
[page 459]
The latest that comes to hand is the attack of the
Baltic Squadron on the
English fishermen. We commend this to the Herald
as a case of “playing the game.”
The
readers of the Review will notice how widespread is the
disaffection in the
country. To us it all looks very puerile for these men
who rush to form a
society have no such backing as would make their plans
in any way successful;
but at the same time it is not the part of wisdom to
ignore the state of things
existing in so many districts.
In
the first place these people evidently believe the
stability of the Korean
Government, as an autonomous and sovereign power, is
being undermined, and that
there is danger of a serious and permanent impairment of
Korean indepeadence.
We hardly need say that a perusal of the press of the
East shows that these are
not the only men who fear this.
In
the second place these man evidently believe that the
only way to obviate such
a national catastrophe is to bring about radical reforms
in Korea, Here again
they are not alone. This belief of theirs is attested by
the cutting of the
hair, which, however puerile it may seem to outsiders,
is a radical departure
from one of the most honored and most distinctive
customs of old Korea. The top
knot is to the Korean what the toga was to the Roman,
what the two swords were
to the Japanese Samurai, what the beard was and is to
the Jewish rabbi.
Furthermore,
the ideas and propsals of these men are despicable only
in the lack of power to
carry them out. They want to uphold the independence of
the country, protect
the common people from indirection whether of Korean
officials or Japanese
subjects, and secure needed reforms in the
administration of government. Why
these things should seem laudable when proposed by
foreign periodicals and
nonsensical when proposed by Korean subjects we do not
see, for it is very
certain that the periodicals have no more power to bring
about these desired
objects than the members of the Chin-bo Society [page 460]
have. We do not commend the methods adopted by this
organization as being wise at the present time, but the
mere protest may have
some effect on the public opinion and lead men to ask
the question whether the
present condition of affairs is wholly unexceptionable.
Judging
from certain quotations from the Japan Mail
which have come under our notice, it seems that the
Editor of that journal has
gauged the present status as regards Korea and Japan
very accurately. If we
interpret him correctly he recognizes two possible
courses of action on the
part of Japanese authorities. The first is to go one
step further than they
have gone and declare a protectorate over Korea in
imitation of England and
Egypt, and the other is to continue the present
difficult and perplexing
problem until Korea shall prove to the world the
necessity of such a
protectorate. He takes the reasonable ground that the
promises that Japan has
made in regard to Korean independence would lay her open
to grave criticism if
not active protest in case the former plan were adopted.
But we think he falls
short of stating the whole case for to his second
aJtemative should be added
the words or that
such a protectorate is
unnecessary.
As
between Japan and Great Britain the understanding is
clear enough, supposing,
as we do of course, that the published terms of the
alliance represent “the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” The
question of importance
is — who will decide when the time has arrived, when
Korea shall be declared
incapable of attending to her own affairs? There seems
to us to be one deciding
factor. If the time arrives when it becomes plain that
Korea is determinedly
hostile to the essential
interests of
any one of the treaty Powers, among which she is nom
inally neutral, that Power
will be justified in seeking to rectify the matter,
whether the power be Japan
or any other. A treaty of peace and friendship will
hardly stand the strain of
persistent efforts to injure or thwart legitmate
interests. We have italicized
the words essential
interest, and
upon what these words mean depends the [page 461]
right of any Power to have recourse to armed
intervention, all peaceful means having failed. By
essential interests we mean
those whose impairment strikes directly at the safety of
the state. If, for
instance, Korea should discriminate flagrantly in favor
of Russia as against
Japan by granting Russia bases of military or naval
concentration, Japan would
feel herself endangered and would naturally and rightly
object, but the refusal
of Korea to regulate her Government according to
Japanese ideas or to grant
concessions of any kind whatsoever or so to adjust her
monetary system as to
favor Japanese trade does not affect the essential
interests of Japan in the
sense that it strikes directly at the safety of the
state and is therefore no
more to be made the excuse for armed intervention than
the high import duties
into the United States could be made a casus
belli by any European Power.
Of
course the latest agreement between Korea and Japan
insures the latter certain
special temporary rights in the peninsula and makes it,
in a sense, incumbent
upon Korea at least to listen courteously to Japanese
advice and adopt such of
it as may seem mutually beneficial, but it does not give
Japan the right to
insist upon any privileges not specifically mentioned,
much less to use armed
force to secure such privileges. It is for this reason
that we feel sure that
Japan has no intention of declaring a protectorate over
Korea, and will have
none unless Korea succeeds in alienating the good will
of those whose protests would
be of some avail.
Ladies’ Days.
For the
convenience of the readers of the Review
we have secured a list of the days upon which the
different ladies in Seoul
receive. There may be a few omissions but most of these
are because these
ladies have no day or else no special day.
Mrs. Avison
Fridays, except last of the monthMiss Barrett First and
third Wednesdays. Mrs.
Beck Monday. [page 462]
Mrs. Bostwick Saturday. Mrs. Brinckmeier Thursday. Mrs.
Bunker Wednesday. Miss
Carroll Tuesday. Mrs. Elliot Wednesday. Mrs. EnglishTuesday. Mrs.
Gillett Tuesday, except last of
the month. Miss Guthapfel First and third Wednesdays,
Mrs. Hallifax Friday.
Miss Harbaugh First and third Wednesday. Mrs. Hodge
Friday. Miss Hounshell
Tuesday. Mrs. Hulbert Wednesday. Mrs. Joly Friday. Mrs.
McLellan Wednesday.
Mrs. McGill Monday. Mrs. Mimashi WednesdayMrs. F. S.
Miller First and third
Wednesdays Mrs, E. H. Miller First and third Wednesdays
Mrs. Hugh Miller
Monday. Mrs. Morris Wednesday. Mrs. Moose First and
third Tuesdays. Mrs, Moose
Fridays except last of month. Mrs. Reynolds First and
third Wednesdays. Mrs. M.
F. Scranton. Mondays, first excepted. Mrs. W. B.
Scranton. Mondays, first
excepted. Mrs. C. E. Sharp Fridays except last of month.
Mrs. Underwood Friday.
Mrs. Welbon Tuesday.
News Calendar.
The native
paper of October 15 said that the Governor of Kongju
wired that at Kang-gyong-i
four or five thousand men gathered and cut their hair.
Some of them rode in
four-man chairs and some rode horse, and they were on
their way to Kong-ju. The
Home Departaient re -plied that soldiers would be sent
from Seoul to arrest the
movement. In Yi-ch’an also several thousand men were
rampant, calling them
selves the Chin-bo Society and declaring their object to
be the upholding
[page 463]
of the Independence of Korea, the discussion of ways and
means to cleanse the
government, to guard the peoples lives and property, to
diminish the number of
soldiers in the army, to aid the Japenese troops in
every way.
The prefect of
Kim-song seems to have more of the genuine stuff in him
than most prefects for
instead of merely asking what he must do to combat the
thousands of Chin-bo men
who have gathered there he announced that he has
arrested twelve of their
leaders and incarcerated them.
The governor
of South Ham-gyung announced the distressing fact that
on September 26th there
was a heavy frost which did enormous harm to the crops
all through that
section.
In Yi-Ch’on
three tonghak leaders were arrested about the middle of
October and were locked
up. The rest of the tonghaks dispersed. But soon after
hundreds of Chin-bo men
gathered and refused to disperse.
In Kwak-san
some Korean coolies were trying to carry some heavy
drainage tile across a
river in a boat for use on the Seoul Wiju Railway, but
the boat capsized and
two of the coolies were drowned.
On the
seventeenth of October the Governors of the various
provinces telegraphed to
Seoul that large numbers of the people had gathered in a
seditious manner aud
had decided to cut off their hair, without receiving
orders from the central
Government and the Governors say that if they do not
desist and disperse when
ordered to do so it will be necessary to send soldiers
to handle them.
On the 15th of
October at noon a telegram came from the Governor of
Kongju saying that the
Chin-bo people had put up placards stating that they
were for freedom and that
they were going to oppose the selling off of the land to
foreigners. At two o’clock
the same day news came from Im-p’i that a crowd of these
men had gone to
Kang-gyung-i and that the agitation was rapidly
spreading. Also from No-song
came news that hundreds had gathered there and were
making speeches saying that
it was untrue that they were against the Government and
that they ought not to
be called bad men since their object was to help the
country.
In Ka-ch’on in
the North several hundred tonghak arose and gathered at
the prefectural town
and began making speeches, the tenor of them being to
the effect that they were
going to protect the foreign missionaries and that they
were going to guard
every village against unwarranted acts of foreign
soldiers who are prone to
commit excesses. They declared that if any prefect or
Governor should try to
make them disperse they would tell them that they had
congregated in the
interests of the Government. They further decided to use
lanterns instead of
flags as the Society’s emblem, because in foreign
countrys flags were not used
for such a purpose.
Marshall
Hasegawa left Seoul for Wonsan on the ninteenth of
October.
[page
464]
On Oct. 5th the Governor of South Ham-Kyung Province
announced that 1,200
Russians were at Puk-ch’ung with 1,500 horses.
The
Superintendent of Trade at Masanpo claims that the
Japanese on the island of
Ko-je have put up notices in various places forbidding
certain things and that
when the ignorant people fail to follow these directions
they are executed
whether their offense be a grave one or a light one
It is said
that a man of Kang-won Province came up to Seoul and
brought some dynamite
cartridges for catching foxes but the Japanese took them
away from him. The modus operandi
is as follows. They smear
the cartridge with grease and put it where they think
foxes pass and when the
animal bites the cartridge he just naturally goes off
his head.
The Japanese
authorities have demanded an indenmity for the lives of
the Japanese killed in
the riot at Si-heung last month.
The prefect of
Ham-heung announced on the eleventh inst. that about
1,000 men gathered at
Yong-heung and had a big meeting. They had books in
which the writing was much
like that of the tonghaks of 1894. So 110 of them were
seized and locked up and
the rest dispersed, but they will probably meet again.
The Governor
of Chunju announced that several thousand tonghak had
gathered in Ham-yul and
had cut their hair and he asks what he shall do to stop
it. The Governor of
South Kyung-sang also states that the tonghak
thereabouts were changing their name to chin-bo
and that there were hundreds of them even in the
provincial capital, and that
even when ordered to go they went only ten li and met
again. Soldiers and
police were sent to disperse them.
On the 13th of
October Marshall Hasegawa arrived in Seoul. He was
driven from the station in a
fourwheeled carriage drawn by a spirited horse. The road
had been specially
prepared and the entrance into the city was made in
style. He proceeded
straight to the Ta-gwanjung.
The seems to
have been a specially stubborn lot of Chin-bo people in
T’a-chun in the north..
The native account of the trouble there is as follows. A
crowd of these people
assembled and held a meeting in the room over the town
gate, as many as could
crowd in. The Japanese gendarmes warned them to go home
and attend to their
legitimate business but they refused and began throwing
stones. The Japanese
and the Korean police at last fired over the heads of
the crowd but without
hurting anyone. Some dispersed but many stood their
ground and said they would
die rather than obey. Those were arrested and locked up.
That night an immense
crowd gathered and threatened to burn the town and kill
the Japanese and the
Korean police. The Koreans flourished a great flag and
yelled at the top of
their voices. Then the Japanese fired in earnest and
four Koreans were killed
and six fell into the water and drowned and one other
was wounded. The people
said that if it had not been for the Japanese they would
have suffered severely
.
[page
465]
KOREAN HISTORY.
Thus it will
be seen that in spite of all domestic political
complications and
discouragements the country was making definite advance
along some lines. The
leaven had begun to work and no conservatism on the part
of the public leaders
could stop the ferment.
Chapter XXIV.
Russian
tactics . . . . murder of An Kyung-su . . . . the Boxer
troubles. . . .
evidences of advancement . . . . the career of Kim
Yong-jin . . . . the rise of
Yi Yong-ik. . . . his methods of collecting money. . . .
sale of Roze Island to
Japanese . . . . attempt to remove J. McLeavy Brown . .
. . . establishment of
Greek Church Mission . . . . French interests in Korea
growing . . . . the
French Loan . . . . Yi Yong-ik makes a nickel currency.
. . . the famine of
1901 . . . . the import of Annam rice. . . .tension
between Russia and Japan
increasing . . . . material advances of 1901 . . . .
deterioration . . . .
Buddhism on the increase . . . . the centralization of
all power . . . . the
use of special tax commissioners . . . the Russo-Korean
agreement about Masanpo
. . . . useless employees.
The return to
Seoul of M. Pavlow on Jan. 15, 1900, marked the definite
beginning of that
train of events which led up to the declaration of war
by the Japanese in 1904,
The Russians had been induced, two years previously, to
remove the heavy
pressure which they had brought to bear upon the
government, but it was only a
change of method. They were now to adopt a policy of
pure intrigue and by
holding in power Koreans who were hostile to the
Japanese to harrass and injure
Japanese interests in every way possible.
At
this same time we see a clear indication of the trend of
events in the return
to Korea of An Kyung-su and Kwan Yong-jin, two of the
best men that late years
had developed in Korea. They had been charged with
connection with the plot to
compass the abdication of His Majesty, and had taken [page 466]
refuge in Japan. Now on the promise
of the government that they should have a perfectly fair
trial and on the
guarantee of protection by the Japanese they returned
boldly to Korea and
presented themselves for trial. They were strong men and
they had to be
reckoned with. They strongly favored Japanese influence
and the reforms that
that influence was supposed to embody. In fact they were
thoroughly in sympathy
with the best motives of the defunct Independence Club.
An Kyung-su returned on
January fifteenth and was held in detention until May
sixteenth when Kwan
Yong-jin returned. They were to stand a fair trial, but
on the night of the
twenty-seventh of May they were both strangled secretly
in the prison. No more dastardly
crime ever stained the annals of this or any other
government. Induced to
return on the promise of a fair trial they were trapped
and murdered. The
reactionists looked upon this as a signal victory, and
indeed it was such, for
it indicated clearly that a man was not safe even when
he had the guarantee of
the Japanese authorities. Nor would it be difficult to
indicate the source from
which the government obtained the courage thus to flout
the Japanese.
As
the summer came on, all interest in things Korean was
held in suspension while
the great uprising in China swelled to such monstrous
proportions and the
investment of Peking and the siege of the foreign
legations there left the
world no time to care for or think of other things.
There were fears that the
boxer movement would be contagious and that it would
spread to Korea. Indeed it
was reported in the middle of July that the infection
had reached northern
Korea; but fortunately this proved false.
In
spite of the reactionary policy of ihe government
progress continued to be made
on certain lines, just as the momentum of a railway
train cannot be checked the
moment the brakes are applied. A distinguished French
legalist was employed as
adviser to the Law Department; mining concessions were
granted to British,
French and Japanese syndicates; the Government Middle
School was established;
the Seoul-Chemulpo Railway was formally opened; A French
teacher was engaged to
open a School of Mines; a representative was sent to the
great Paris
Exposition.
[page 467]
This year 1900 was the heyday of another parvenu in the
person of Kim Yung-jun.
He was a man without any backing except his own colossal
effrontery. He had
acquired influence by his ability to get together
considerable sums of money
irrespective of the methods employed. Scores of wealthy
men were haled to
prison on one pretext or another and were released only
upon the payment of a
heavy sum. He was a man of considerable force of
character but like so many
adventurers in Korea he was lured by his successes into
a false feeling of
security and he forgot that the history of this country
is full of just such
cases and that they inevitably end in violent death.
Even the fate of Kim
Hong-nyuk did not deter him, though his case was almost
the counterpart of that
victim of his own overweening ambitions. Against Kim
Yung-jun was ranged the
whole nobility of the country who waited with what
patience they could until
his power to extort money began to wane, and then fell
upon him like wolves
upon a belated traveler at night. But it was not until
the opening of the new
year 1901 that he was deposed, tried and killed in a
most horrible manner.
After excruciating tortures he was at last strangled to
death.
But
even as this act was perpetrated and the fate of all
such adventurers was again
illustrated, another man of the same ilk was pressing to
the fore. This was Yi
Yong-ik,who had once been the major domo of one of the
high officials and in
that capacity had learned how to do all sorts of
interesting, if unscrupulous,
things. He was prominent in a felonious attempt to cheat
the ginseng farmers of
Song-do out of thousands, back in the eighties. He was
an ignorant boor and
even when rolling in oppulence failed to make himself
presentable in dress or
manner. He was praised by some for his scorn of luxury
and because he made no
attempt to hoard the money that he bled from the veins
of the people. The
reason he did not hoard it was the same that makes the
farmer sow his seed,
that he may reap a hundred-fold. Yi Yong-ik sowed his
golden seed in fertile
soil and it yielded him a thousandfold,
One
of his favorite methods of obtaining money for his
patron was to cause the
arrest of shoals of former prefects who for one cause or
another had failed to
turn into the public [page 468]
treasury the complete amount nominally levied upon their
respective districts.
These arrears went back several years and many of them
were for cause. Either
famine or flood or some other calamity had made it
impossible for the people to
pay the enthre amount of their taxes. There were many
cases, without doubt, in
which it was right to demand the money from tke
ex-prefects, for they had “eaten”
it themselves; but there were also many cases in which
it was a genuine
hardship. Literally hundreds of men were haled before a
court and made to pay
over large sums of money, in default of which their
property was seized as well
as that of their relatives. In exact proportion as the
huge sums thus extorted
paved his way to favor in high places, in that same
proportion it drove the
people to desperation. The taking off of Kim Yung-jun,
so far from warning this
man, only opened a larger door for the exercise of his
peculiar abilities, and
it may be said that tbe official career of Yi Yong-ik
began with the opening of
1901.
In
March a Japanese resident of Chemulpo claimed to have
purchased the whole of
Roze Island in the harbor of Chemulpo. The matter made a
great stiir, for it
was plain that someone had assumed the responsibility of
selling the island to
the Japanese. This was the signal for a sweeping
investigation which was so
manipulated by powerful parties that the real
perpetrators of the outrage were
desmissed as guiltless, but a side-issue which arose in
regard to certain
threatening letters that were sent to the foreign
legations was made a peg upon
which to hang the seizure, trial and execution of Kim
Yong-jun as before
mentioned. Min Yongju was the man who sold the island to
the Japanese and he
finally had to put down Y35,00 and buy it back,
Russia
made steady advances toward her ultimate goal during the
year 1901. In the
Spring some buildings in connection with the palace were
to be erected and the
Chief Commissioner of Customs, J. McLeavy Brown, C. M. G
was ordered to vacate
his house on the customs compound at short notice.
Soldiers even forced their
way into his house. This affront was a serious one and
one that the Koreans
would never have dared to give had they not felt that
they had behind them a
power that would see them through. [page
469]
The British authorities soon convinced the government
that such tactics could be easily met and it had to
retreat with some loss of
dignity.
The
Russian Church established itself in Seoul at this time
and took active steps
to start a propaganda in Korea. Considerable disturbance
was caused in the
Southern provinces by Koreans who had become Russian
subjects pretending to be
agents of the Russian church and collecting from the
people large sums of money
by intimidation. For many months the Russians tried to
induce the Koreans to |
allow the Korean telegraph lines in the North-east to be
connected with the
Russian line from Vladivostock. Why this should not be
done we cannot see but
evidently the Koreans considered it a national danger
and, try as they might,
the Russians never really succeeded in making the
connection.
The
Russians and French were naturally working together in
the peninsula and when
Russia adopted the principle of withdrawing her military
instructors from Korea
she so manipulated the wires that the government threw
many positions into the
hands of the French. For the next three years the French
population of Seoul
increased manyfold. Many of the French gentlemen
employed by the government
were thoroughly competent and rendered good service but
their presence tended
to add to the tension be tween Japan and Russia, for it
was quite plain that
all their influence would be thrown in the scale on
Russia’s side. The attempt
to loan the Korean Government ¥5,000,000 was pushed with
desperate vigor for
many months by the French, but divided counsels
prevented the final
consummation of the loan and the French thus failed to
secure the strong
leverage which a heavy loan always gives to the
creditor. Yi Yongik who had
become more or less of a Russian tool was pointedly
accused by the Japanese of
being in favor of the French loan but he vigorously
denied it. It is generally
admitted that Yi Yong-ik was something of a mystery even
to his most intimate
acquaintances and just how far he really favored the
Russian side will never be
known, but it is certian that he assumed a more and more
hostile attitude
toward the Japanese as the months went by, an attitude
which brought him into
violent conflict with them, as we shall see.
[page 470]
Yi Yong-ik posed as a master in finance, whatever else
he may or may not have
been, and in 1901 he began the minting of the Korean
nickel piece. No greater
monetary disaster ever overtook this country. Even the
desperate measures taken
by the Regent thirty years before had not shaken the
monetary system as this
did. The Regent introduced the wretched five-cash piece
which did enormous harm
but that fivecash piece was of too small face value to
be worth counterfeiting.
The nickel was the ideal coin to tempt the
counterfeiter, for its intrinsic
value was not so great as to require the employment of a
large amount of
capital and yet its face value was sufficient to pay for
the labor and time
expended. The effects of this departure will be noted in
their place.
In
the summer of 1901 Yi Yong-ik performed one act that, in
the eyes of the
people, covered a multitude of other sins. It was a year
of great scarcity. The
Korean farmers raised barely enough grain for domestic
consumption and in order
to prevent this grain from being taken out of the
country the government
proclaimed an embargo on its export. In spite of the
fact that Japan was
enjoying an unusually good crop and did not really need
the Korean product, the
Japanese authorities, in the interest of the Japanese
exporters in Korea,
brought pressure to bear upon the Korean government to
raise the embargo,
utterly regardless of the interests of the Korean
people. As it turned out
however, the enhanced price in Korea due to the famine
and the cutting of a
full crop in Japan prevented the export of rice. But Yi
Yong-ik saw that there
would inevitably be a shortage in Seoul and with much
forethought he sent and
imported a large amount of Annam rice and put it on the
market at a price so
reasonable that the people were highly gratified. From
that time on whenever
the mistakes of Yi Yong-ik were cited there was always
someone to offer the
extenuation of that Annam rice. It was a most clever and
successful appeal to
popular favor.
All
through this year 1901 were heard the distant rumblings
of that storm that was
to break three years later. Every movement of the
Russians by land or sea was
watched with a fascinated attention and every
proposition of the Japan, ese was
closely scrutinized. As a fact the war was already in [page 471]
existence, only it had not been declared. Even then
Japan, ese agents were swarming all over Manchuria
gaining exact information of
its geography and products and Japan was| hastening the
preparation of her navy
for the struggle that she felt to be inevitable.
As
the year 1901 came to a close the tension was beginning
to be felt. People were
asking how much longer Japan would acquiesce in the
insolent encroachments of
Russia. But the time was not yet. As for material
advances the year had seen
not a few. Seoul had been supplied with electric light.
The Seoul-Fusan Railway
had been begun. Plans for the Seoul-Wiju Railway had
been drawn up. Mokpo had
been supplied with a splendid sea-wall. Building had
gone on apace in the
capital and even a scheme for a system of waterworks for
the city had been
worked out and had received the sanction of the
government. Education had gone
from bad to worse and at one time when retrenchment
seemed necessary it was
even suggested to close some of the schools, but better
counsels prevailed and
this form of suicide was rejected.
With the opening of the
year 1902 there were several indications that the
general morale of the
government was deteriorating The first was a very
determined attempt to revive
the Buddhist cult. The Emperor consented to the
establishment of a great
central monastery for the whole country in the vicinity
of Seoul, and in it was
installed a Buddhist High Priest in Chief who was to
control the whole Buddhist
Church in the land. It was a ludicrous attempt, for
Buddhism in Korea is dead
so far as any genuine influence is concerned. Mixed with
the native
spirit-worship it has its millions of devotees, but so
far as becoming a
fashionable cult is concerned nothing is more unlikely.
But it has been the
case for over a thousand years that when things have
gone badly in the
government there has been a harking back to the old
Buddhist mummery, to
fortune-tellers, geomancers and the like, and the only
significance of this
attempt was to prove that there was something “rotten in
Denmark.”
Another
evidence was the constant and successful attempt to
centralize the power of the
Government in the hands, of the Emperor. The overthrow
of the Independence
Party, [page 472]
whose main tenet was curtailment of the Imperial
prerogative, gave a new impulse
to the enlargement of that prerogative so that in the
year 1901 we find almost
all the government business transacted in the Palace
itself. The various
ministers of state could do nothing on their own
initiative. Everything was
centered in the throne and in two or three favorites who
stood near the throne.
Of these Yi Yong-ik was the most prominent.
A
third evidence of deterioration was the methods adopted
to fill the coffers of
the Household treasury. The previous year had
been a bad one. Out of a possible twelve million dollars
of revenue only seven
million could be collected. There was great distress all
over the country and
the pinch was felt in the palace. Special inspectors and
agents were therefore
sent to the country armed with authority from the
Emperor to collect money for
the Household treasury. These men adopted any and every
means to accomplish
their work and this added very materially to the
discontent of the people. The
prefects were very loath to forego a fraction of the
taxation, because they saw
how previous prefects were being mulcted because of
failure to collect the full
amount, and so between the prefect and the special
agents the people seemed to
be promised a rather bad time. In fact it caused such an
outcry on every side
that the government at last reluctantly recalled the
special agents.
Early
in the year the fact was made public that Korea had
entered into an agreement
with Russia whereby it was guaranteed that no land at
Masanpo or on the island
of Ko-je at its entrance should ever be sold or
permanently leased to any
foreign Power. Russia had already secured a coaling
station there and it was
generally understood, the world over, that Russia had
special interest in that
remarkably fine harbor. Avowedly this was merely for
pacific purposes, but the
pains which Russia took to make a secret agreement with
Korea, debarring other
Powers from privileges similar to those which she had
acquired, naturally
aroused the suspicions of the Japanese and of the
Koreans themselves, those of them
that had not been in the secret; and this step, inimical
to Japan as it
undoubtedly was, probably helped to hasten the [page 473]
final catastrophe. Meanwhile Russian subjects were
taking advantage of the influential position of their
Government in Seoul and
through ministeral influence some glass-makers,
iron-workers and weavers were
employed by the Government without the smallest
probability of their ever doing
anything in any of these lines.. In fact at about this
time the Government was
induced to take on quite a large number of Russians and
Russian sympathisers
who never were able to render any service whatever in
lieu of their pay. In
many cases the most cursory investigation would have
shown that such would
inevitably be the result. It is difficult to evade the
conclusion that the
Government was deliberately exploited.
It
was in the spring of this year that the project began to
be seriously discussed
in Japan of colonizing portions of Korea with Japanese,
and a society or
company was formed in Tokyo with this as its avowed
purpose. This naturally
evoked a good deal of feeling in Korea where the
Japanese were not at the time
enjoying any considerable influence at court. The fact
then came out for the
first time, and has been further emphasized since, that
the Korean, whatever he
may feel for his Government, is passionately attached to
the soil.
But
at this time another and a far greater surprise was in
store for the world. It
was the announcement of a defensive alliance between
Japan and Great Britain.
By the terms of this agreement Japan and Great
Britain guaranteed to insure the independence of Korea
and the integrity of the
Chinese Empire. The tremendous influence of this
historic document was felt at
once in every capital of Europe and in every capital,
port and village of the
Far East. It stung the lethargic to life and it caused
the rashly enthusiastic
to stop and think. There can be no manner of doubt that
this alliance was one
of the necessary steps in preparing for the war which
Japan already foresaw on
the horizon. It indicated clearly to Russia that her
continued occupation of
Manchuria and her continued encroachments upon Korea
would be called in
question at some not distant day. But she was blind to
the warning. This
convention bound Great Britain to aid Japan in defensive
operations and to work
with her to the preservation of [page
474]
Korean independence and the integrity of China. It will
be seen, therefore, that Japan gave up once and for all
any thought that she
might previously have had of impairing the independence
of this country and any
move in that direction would absolve Great Britain from
all obligations due to
the signing of the agreement.
The
year had but just begun when the operations of
counterfeiters of nickel coins
became so flagrant as to demand the attention of all who
were interested in
trade in the peninsula. Japan had most at stake and
Russia had least, and this
explains why the Russian authorities applauded the work
of Yi Yong-ik and
encouraged him to continue and increase the issue of
such coinage. In March
matters had come to such a pass that the foreign
representatives, irrespective
of partisan lines, met and discussed ways and means for
overcoming the
difficulty. After careful deliberation they framed a set
of recommendations
which were sent to the Government. These urged the
discontinuance of this
nickel coinage, the withdrawal from circulation of
spurious coins and stringent
laws against counterfeiting. But this was of little or
no avail. The Government
was making a five cent coin at a cost of less than two
cents and consequently
the counterfeiters with good tools could make as good a
coin as the Government
and still realize enormously on the operation. It was
impossible to detect the
counterfeited coins, in many cases, and so there was no
possibility of
withdrawing them from circulation. The heavy drop in
exchange was not due so
much to the counterfeiting as to the fact that the
intrinsic value of the coin
was nothing like as much as the face value, and by an
immutable law of finance
as well as of human nature it fell to a ruinous
discount. But even this would
not have worked havoc with trade if, having fallen, the
discredited coinage
would stay fallen, but it it had the curious trick of
rising and falling with
such sudden fluctuations that business became a mere
gamble, and the heavy
interests of Japanese and Chinese merchants were nearly
at a standstill.
[page
475]Chapter XXV.
Tae Japanese
Bank issues notes . . . .
Independence Club scare . . . lighthouses . . . .
Opening of work on Seoul-Wiju
R.R . . . . combination against Yi Yong-ik . . . . he is
accused and degraded .
. . . rescued by Russian guard . . . . protest of the
Japanese against his
return . . . . Yi Keun-t’ak. . . .
Russian complacency . . . . Russian policy in the Far
East . . . . contrast
between Russians and Japan’s aims.
At this point
the First Bank of Japan, called the Dai Ichi Ginko,
brought up a scheme for
putting out an issue of special bank notes that would
not circulate outside of
Korea. Korea was importing much more than she exported
and the balance of trade
being against her it was impossible to keep Japanese
paper in the country in
sufficient quantities to carry on ordinary local trade.
For this reason the
bank received the sanction of the Korean Government to
put out this issue of
bank paper which could not be sent abroad but would be
extremely useful as a
local currency. This was done and it was found to work
admirably. The Koreans
had confidence in this money and it circulated freely.
It had two advantages
not enjoyed by any form of Korean currency, namely, it
was a stable currency
and suffered no fluctuations and it was in large enough
denominations to make
it possible to transfer a thousand dollars from one
man’s pocket to that of
another without employing a string of pack-ponies to
carry the stuff.
But
we must retrace our steps and note some other events of
interest that happened
in the spring months. One of these was the scare in
government circles over the
reported revival of the Independence Club under the
encouragement of a
so-called Korean Party in Tokyo, to which it was
believed some Korean political
refugees belonged. A great stir was made in Seoul and
several men were
arrested, but there was no evidence that would pay
sifting, and though it was
evident that the government would have been glad to find
a true bill against
some of the men who were arrested it was forced by lack
of evidence to let them
go. The incident was of importance only as showing the
extreme sensitiveness of
the government on the point, and its determination, [page 476]
now that the Independence Party was down, to keep it
down.
The
one important material improvement of the year was the
adoption of a plan for
the building of some thirty light-houses on the coast of
Korea. Ever since the
opening up of foreign trade the lack of proper lights
especially on the western
coast had been a matter of growing concern to shipping
companies. This concern
was warranted by the dangerous nature of the coast where
high tides, a perfect
network of islands and oft-prevailing fogs made
navigation a most difficult and
dangerous matter. The fact that lighthouses ought to
have been built ten years
ago does not detract from the merit of those who at last
took the matter in hand
and pushed it to an issue
The
month of May witnessed a spectacular event in the
ceremony of the formal
opening of work on the Seoul-Wiju Railway. The spirit
was willing but the flesh
was weak. Neither French nor Russian money was
forthcoming to push the work,
and so the Korean government was invited to finance the
scheme. Yi Yong-ik was
made president of the company and if there had been a
few thousand more
exprefects to mulct he might have raised enough money to
carry the road a few
miles; but it is much to be feared that his financial
ability, so tenderly
touched upon by the Japanese Minister in his speech on
that “auspicious
occasion,” was scarcely sufficient for the work, and the
plan was not
completed. There is much reason to believe that this
whole operation was mainly
a scheme on the part of the Russians to preempt the
ground in order to keep the
Japanese out.
As
the year wore toward its close the usurpation of
numerous offices by Yi Yong-ik
and his assumption of complete control in the palace
bore its legitimate fruit
in the intense hatred of four-fifths of the entire
official class. He was
looked upon as but one more victim destined to the same
fate which had
overtaken Kim Hong-nyuk and Kim Yungjun. But in his case
the difficulties were
much greater. Yi Yong-ik had put away in some safe place
an enormous amount of
Government money and he held it as a hostage for his
personal safety. Until
that money was safely in the [page 477]
Imperial treasury even the revenge would not be sweet
enough to make it worth
the loss. Not only so but the whole finances of the Household
were in his hands and his sudden taking off would leave
the accounts in such
shape that no one could make them out and enormous sums
due the department
would be lost. Yi Yong-ik had fixed himself so that his
life was better worth
than his death however much that might be desired. But
the officiary at large
cared little for this. There was no doubt that the one
person who should
accomplish the overthrow of the favorite and thus bring
embarrassment to the
Imperial purse would suffer for it, but Korean intrigue
was quite capable of
coping with a little difficulty like this. The result
must be brought about by
a combination so strong and so unanimous that no one
would ever know who the
prime mover was. This at least is a plausible theory and
the only one that
adequately explains how and why the scheme miscarried.
The whole course of the
intrigue is so characteristically Korean and includes so
many elements of
genuine humor, in spite of its object, that we will
narrate it briefly. It must
of course be understood that the officials were keenly
on the lookout for an
opportnnity to get the hated favorite on the hip and in
such a manner that even
his financial value to the Emperor would not avail him.
One
day, while in conversation with Lady Om, the Emperor’s
favorite concubine who
has been mistress of the palace since the death of the
Queen, Yi Yong-ik
compared her to Yang Kwi-bi a concubine of the last
Emperor of the Tang dynasty
in China. He intended this as a compliment but as his
education is very limited
he was not aware that he could have said nothing more
insulting; for Kwi-bi by
her meretricious arts is believed to have brought about
the destruction of the
Tang dynasty. At the time Lady Om herself was unaware
that anything derogatory
had been said and she received the supposed compliment
with complacency; but
her nephew who was present, not understanding the
reference, went and asked
someone else about it and learned the truth of the
matter. He doubtless knew
that Yi Yongik was not aware of his gaucherie
and so held his peace for a time, but in some way the
Prime Minister and the
Foreign [page 478]
Minister heard a rumor that something insulting had been
said. They called up
the nephew of Lady Om and from him learned the damning
facts. They also knew
well enough that no insult had been intended but here
was a “case” to be worked
to its fullest capacity. The most sanguine could not
hope that the hated
favorite would give them a better hold upon him than
this : for the position of
Lady Om was a very delicate one and there had been a
dispute on for years
between the Emperor’s counsellors as to the advisability
of raising her to the
position of Empress. A word against her was a most
serious matter.
Everything
was now ready for the grand coup and on the 27th of
Novenber fourteen of the
highest officials memorialized the throne declaring that
Yi Yong-ik was a
traitor and must be condemned and executed at once. His
Majesty suggested a
little delay but on the evening of the same day the same
men presented a second
memorial couched in still stronger language, and they
followed if up the next
morning with a third. To their urgent advice was added
that of Lady Om .herself
and of many other of the officials. A crowd of officials
gathered at the palace
gate and on their knees awaited tbe decision of the
Emperor. There was not a
single soul of all that crowd but knew that the charge
was a mere excuse and
yet it was nominally valid. It was the will of that
powerful company against
the will of the Emperor. The tension was two great and
His Majesty at last
reluctantly consented, or at least expressed consent;
but he first ordered the
accused to be stripped of all his honors and to render
all his accounts. This
was nominally as reasonable as was the charge against
the man. It was a case of
“diamond cut diamond” in which the astuteness of the
Emperor won. The accusers
could not object to having the accused disgorge before
being executed but it
was at this very point that they were foiled Yi Yongik’s
accounts were
purposely in such shape that it would have taken a month
to examine them, for
he alone held the key. Nothing can exceed the desperate
coolness of the man
under the awful ordeal. At one point, just after the
acquiescence of the
Emperor, the written sentence of death is said to have
gone forth but was
recalled just as it was to have gone out of the palace
gates, after which there
would [page 479]
have been no recall. No man ever escaped by a narrower
margin. When Yi Yong-ik
presented his accounts the Emperor announced that it
would take some days to
straighten matters out since the accused was the only
man to unravel the skein.
Here was probably the crucial point in the intrigue. If
the white heat of the
day before had been maintained and the officials had
demanded instant
punishment, accounts or no accounts, the thing would
have been done, but as it
happened the consciousness of having won relaxed the
tension to such a degree
that the accused gained time. This time was utilized by
calling in a Russian
guard and spiriting the accused away to the Russian
Legation. This accomplished
His Majesty suavely announced that the case would be
considered, but that
meanwhile the officials must disperse. There were
further memorials,
resignations en masse, passionate recriminations until
at last two or three
officials who had held their peace saw that the game was
up and, in order to
curry favor themselves, offered a counter memorial
charging Yi Yong-ik’s
accusers with indirection. This was listened to and the
Prime Minister was
deprived of his official rank. This made possible a
compromise whereby both Yi
Yong-ik and the Prime Minister were restored to all
their former honors and all
went “merry as a marriage bell.” But it was thought best
to let Yi Yong-ik
travel for his own and his country’s good, so he was
made Commissioner to Buy
Annam Rice, which was itself a pretty piece of diplomacy
since it recalled
prominently to the people the one phase of the injured
man’s career which they
could unhesitatingly applaud. He was taken off in a
Russian cruiser to Port
Arthur — to buy Annam rice!
When
he returned to Seoul a few weeks later the Japanese
lodged a strong protest
against his return to political power but the Russian
authorities made a
counter-proposition urging that he was the only man
capable of handling the
finances of the country. Under existing circumstances
the very protest of the
Japanese was an argument in his favor and he came back
into power on the flood
tide, backed, as he had never been before, by the full
favor of the Russian
party. They naturally expected substantial payment for
having saved him, and so
far as he was able he liquidated the debt.
[page 480]
Meanwhile another man, Yi Keun-t’ak, had risen to power
through servile
adherance to Russian interests. The somewhat enigmatical
chiracter of Yi
Yong-ik made him to a certain extent an unknown
quantity. Not even the Japanese
considered him wholly given over to Russia; but this new
man was definitely
committed to Russian interests and with his rise to
important position it
became evident for the first time that the Korean
Government had decided to
rely upon Russia and to reject the aid or the advice of
Japan. The end of the
year 1902 may be said to have been the approximate time
when Japan first
realized that all hope of a peaceful solution: of the
Korean problem was gone.
One naturally asks why Korea took this step, and, while
we are still too near
the event to secure an entirely dispassionate estimate
or opinion, there seems
to be little doubt that it was because Russia made no
pretensions, and expessed
no desire, to reform the administration of the
Government. She was perfectly
content to let things go along in the old way in the
peninsula, knowing that
this would constantly and increasingly jeopardize the
interests of Japan while
she herself had practically no commercial interests to
suffer.
The
immemorial policy of Russia in Asia sufficiently
accounts for her work in
Korea. Her policy of gradual absorption of native tribes
has never held within
its purview the civilizing or the strengthening of those
tribes, until they
have been gathered under her aegis. On the other hand,
until that has been
accomplished she has either waited patiently for the
disintegration of the native
tribes or has actually aided in such disintegration.
History shows no case in
which Russia has strengthened the hands of another
people for the sake of
profiting by the larger market that would be opened up;
for until very recently
the commercial side of the question has scarcely been
considered, and even now
the commercial interests of Russia depend upon an
exclusive market. So that in
any case a dominant political influence is the very
first step in every move of
Russia in the East. Why then should Russia have advised
administrative or
monetary or any other reform, since such action would
inevitably form a bar to
the success of her own ultimate plans?
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
NOVEMBER,
1904.
The
Educational Needs of Korea.
SECOND PAPER,
We have mentioned
some of the difficulties in the way of the spread of
education in Korea and
some of the needs that must be supplied. We have here
the public which needs
educating and the society which proposes to supply the
necessary text-books but
there remains the great and important question as to the
methods by which the
contents of these text-books shall be gotten into the
minds of the people. One
thing is certain, foreigners are neither numerous enough
nor have they the
leisure to do the teaching. It must be done if at all
through the medium of the
natives themselves. Before any great progress can be
made there must be found a
body of capable and enthusiastic teachers from among the
Koreans.
According
to Korean custom and tradition any man who knows Chinese
fairly well can become
a teacher. There is no such thing as a science of
teaching, and the general
average of instruction is wretchedly poor. The teacher
gets only his deserts,
which are extremely small The traditional Korean school
teacher, while receiving
some small degree of social consideration because of his
knowledge of the
Chinese characters, is looked upon as more or less of a
mendicant. Only the
poorest will engage in this work, and they do it on a
pittance which just keeps
them above the starvation line. It has been [page 482]ingrained in the Korean
character to reckon the profession of pedagogy as a mere
makeshift which is
only better than actual beggary. One of the most
difficult things before us is
to combat this feeling and to impress upon the people
the fact that the true
teacher is worth a better wage than the mere coolie. If
you examine the pay
list even of the Government schools you will find that
the ordinary wage is
about thirty Korean dollars, This means about fifteen
yen a month, and is
almost precisely the amount that an ordinary coolie
receives. Of course there
are other things to take into consideration. The teacher
has far shorter hours
than the coolie and does not work on Sunday but the
actual amount received each
month as a living wage is the same. This wretchedly low
estimate of the value
of a teacher’s services debauches the whole system. The
men who hold these
positions are doing so because nothing better has turned
up, and they get their
revenge for the inadequacy of the salary by shirking
their work as much as
possible. The fact is that the salary is not actually
inadequate considering
the quality of the man who does the work, but a minimum
wage will never spur a
man on to do his best or to improve the quality of the
service he renders.
Before
the best results can be obtained there must be an
opportunity for normal
instruction where men can be properly qualified for the
profession of pedagogy,
and the impression must be made gradually to prevail
that this profession is
worthy of as much consideration as any other. This can
be done only by making
it actually worthy of such consideration. How the
traditional contempt of
teachers can be speedily overcome we do not see, but
even though it requires
years of eflfort it must be done. One method will be by
foreigners preparing
men and giving them positions in the schools governed by
foreigners, under
adequate salaries and under such direction that they
shall render the full
equivalent for the money invested. The products of such
schools must inevitably
be far superior to that of schools in which the teachers
are poorly qualified
and under-paid. In time the superior school will become
a standard of
excellence [page 483]
for its graduates will command better positions than
those of other schools,
and a spirit of emulation will be aroused. The other
schools will be obliged in
very selt defence to raise their standard.
But
here again we meet the same difficulty as before. Who is
to found such a school?
It is the policy of the different missions at the
present time to operate their
schools strictly along denominational lines and to give
instruction only to
adherents or their children. For this they are not to be
blamed, since their
appropriations for such purposes are limited and their
first duty is to the
children of Christian natives. The need of raising up an
educated native
ministry also, and very rightly, engages the special
attention of the
missionary. Christian missions cannot be expected or
asked to furnish secular
education free to all comers, but there can be no
question that Christianity
develops an instant and pressing demand for liberal
education. This was shown
very plainly in the case of the little sea-side village
of Sorai in Whang-hae
Province, Almost simultaneous with the erection of a
Christian church a
school-house was provided wholly at native expense and
for years the Christian
children of that village have been studying the
elementary branches as taught
in common schools in America and England. So while we
cannot look to missionary
societies to provide the means and the men to push the
distinctive work of
secular education we can and do look to the results of
mission work to give an
incentive to education and to set the pace in its
pursuit. It is a question
that has been seriously asked, whether the desire for an
education has not
pushed many a Korean to a verbal profession of belief in
Christianity in order
that he might secure a place in a school. For such
people we have the utmost
sympathy, the same that we have for the man who cannot
find employment and
steals bread wherewith to feed his starving family. The
theft is wrong but
there is something still more wrong in the conditions
which drive him to the
crime. Even so in this case, the means employed to
secure the opportunity are
wrong but there is something still worse in [page 484]
the condition of affairs which drives him to the
questionable expedient.
In
the second place we do not see how the government can be
made to realize the
importance of this work. When no protest is made against
the appropriation of a
paltry 60,000 dollars a year for education as compared
with 4,000,000 dollars
for the Korean Army (!) there is little use in expecting
a change in the near
future. The government could do nothing better than
reverse these figures, but
the age of miracles is past.
Before
suggesting a possible solution of the question we should
note with some care
what is at present being done to provide young men with
an education. There are
the seven or eight primary schools in Seoul with a
possible attendance of forty
boys in each. This means a good deal less than 500 boys
in this city of over
200,000 people, including the immediate suburbs. At the
lowest estimate there
ought to be 6,000 boys in school between the ages of ten
and sixteen.
Practically nothing is being done. As for intermediate
education there is the
Middle School with a corps of eight teachers and an
average attendance of about
thirty boys. The building, the apparatus and the
teaching staff would suffice
for 400 students. There are several foreign language
schools with an attendance
of anywhere from twenty to eighty each and they are
fairly successful, but the
study of a foreign language can never form part of a
scheme for a general
national education. Then there are the various private
schools, almost every
one of which is in a languishing condition. A Korean
will start a private
school on the least provocation. It runs a few months
and then closes nobody
being the wiser, though some be sadder. When, we come to
reckon up the total
number of young Koreans who are pursuing a regular
course of instruction along
modem lines we find that they represent only a fraction
of one per cent of the
men who ought, and easily might be doing so. It is the
opinion of those Koreans
who are in a position to know, that since the general
discontinuance of the
study of Chinese because of the stopping of the national
examination or kwaga
and the [page
485]
failure of the present system of education to interest
the people, the young men of Seoul have been rapidly
deteriorating in
character. Freed from the restraints imposed by the
close study of the Chinese
classics they seem to be giving themselves over to all
the vagaries and
excesses that youth is prone to. We foreigners perhaps
do not see it, but the
Korean who keeps his eyes open cannot but mark the
difference. These young men
are not vicious for the sake of vice but because they
have nothing to do. Their
own houses are dull and uncongenial; there are no
meeting-places, clubs or
social rendezvous, except those which are vicious in
their tendencies and the
natural results follow. We suggest that the foreigner in
passing along the
street some fine day note the crowd of young men between
sixteen and twenty-two
years old that are slouching along the street with
nothing to do, evidently,
but kill time. These young men ought to be in school and
they would be there if
there were the proper facilities; anything to waken
their enthusiasm or kindle
their interest. The whole range of School Life delights
has yet to be revealed
to them. Their whole idea of school is a dirty, dim,
dreary aud unsanitary
Korean room with its unpainted and torturesome benches,
a battered blackboard
and a teacher who knows just enough about the matter he
is teaching to reveal its
difficulties without arousing any interest in their
solution. What we would
emphasize is the dangers attending a continued and
widening hiatus between the
old system and some new one. When Japan threw off the
old garment of feudalism
she instantly donned the new one and threw herself into
the work of mastering
the modern system with an intensity and fervor that was
almost fanatical, but
Korea has been induced to throw off the old without
donning the new and she is
in danger of suffering from intellectual frost-bite in
the interval. It would
be better to go back to the old Kwaga system with all
its anachronisms than to
shuffle along in the present raw manner, like a snake
that has cast its skin
without arranging for a new one.
We
see no hope of the Koreans taking the initiative [page 486]
in any plan for the breaking of this intellectual
dead-lock. They have schemes enough and they ckn plan to
a dot what is needed
but, like the lofty ideals of Confucius, the fruit,
though tempting, hangs so
high that they stand beneath the tree and praise it
without having the energy
to climb the tree and pluck it. They need the spur of
sympathetic foreign
leadership This will be a guarantee of the genuineness
of the work done, of the
continuity of the svstem and of the gradual victory of
the new ideal over the
old. But who is prepared to do this work? The foreigners
now resident in Korea
are all too busy to give time to such matters, but a
plan has been broached
which offers at least the beginning of a solution. We
have not space in this
number to discuss it but in the next issue we shall lay
the matter before the
public. (To be continued . )
The Severance
Hospital.
The present
Severance Hospital is the direct successor to the Royal
Korean Hospital which
was established by Dr. H. N. Allen in 1884 under the
patronage of His Majesty
the King. For some years it was supported by His Majesty
but the fund were
increasingly diverted to other purposes until 1895, when
the cost of the work
was undertaken by the Presbyterian Mission. At that time
the medical work for
the Korean people was divided amongst the Presbyterian,
Methodist and English
Church Missions, none of whom had anything but the most
inferior plants. This
condition of things obtained up to 1899 when Dr. Avison
who had been for nearly
6 years in charge of the Royal Korean Hospital returned
to America on furlough
with the great need for a proper hospital plant weighing
heavily on his mind
and also in the firm conviction that it was a very
unwise use of men and money
to place so many physicians in Seoul in so many
different hospitals all with
poor buildings, poor equipment, insufficient manning and
very inadequate
support.
[page 487] If
fell to Dr. Avison’s lot while in America to read a
paper before the great
Ecumenical Missionary Conference in New York in the
Spring of 1900, the subject
assigned him being one which lay very close to his
thought viz: “Comity in
Medical Missions.’’ Dr. Avison in this paper referred to
the conditions in
Seoul mentioned above, viz: Seven physicians working
separately in seven
different hospitals and dispensaries, none of them
having either buildings,
equipment, manning or support at all commensurate with
their needs, and he
expressed the opinion that half the number of physicians
placed in one good
hospital could do the medical work of Seoul with greater
ease and efficiency
and at less actual cost than was then done by so many
men and women. He pled
for the extension of the plain business principle of
comity into this feature
of the Missionary enterprise, expressing the hope that
the various Missions at
work in Seoul might unite in the establishment and
support of one good, well
equipped and well supported hospital.
At
the close of his address Dr. Avison was summoned to meet
Mr. L. H. Severance,
of Cleveland, Ohio, who was present at the meeting.
Mr.
Severance expressed his cordial agreement with the views
set forth in the paper
and introduced the question of the cost of erecting a
hospital in Seoul. He was
told that $10,000 U. S. gold would probably be required.
Later on Mr. Severance
conferred with the Presbyterian Board of Foreign
Missions in New York on the
subject and as an outcome offered to donate $10,000 for
the purpose. When Dr.
Avison returned to Korea he expected to erect the new
hospital on the site of
the old building near the center of the city, but
circumstances prevented this.
His Majesty the Emperor had expressed his intention of
donating a site but his
purpose was frustrated and the want of a site blocked
the way for the erection
of the building. The matter having been reported to Mr.
Severance he generously
donated another $5,000. gold for the purchase of a site,
and with this the
present beautiftil site outside the South Gate was
bought and the work actually
begun in the summer of 1902, the [page
488]
corner stone being laid on the afternoon of Thanksgiving
Day by His Excellency, Dr. H. N. Allen, U.S. Minister,
in the presence of a
large gathering of the foreign community and Korean
officials.
The
opening of the war and other causes contributed to
increase the actual cost
very materially above the estimated cost, but Mr.
Severance realised the
conditions and generously allowed the expenditure of the
amount necessary to
complete and equip the hospital in good shape, and by
the time the adjunct
buildings are completed at least $20,000 U. S. gold will
have been spent.
The
result is, however, that Seoul has now a modem hospital
in which all kinds of
cases can be treated in accordance with modem scientific
methods.
The
main building is about 40 by 80 ft., consists of two
stories and a basement,
but the basement having high ceilings and being well
lighted and well finished
practically adds another story to the building.
The
basement contains the public dispensary, consisting of
two waiting rooms, a
consultation room, a laboratory and a pharmacy; a store
room for medicines;
furnace and coal room; kitchen and laundry with a modern
drying room attached
to the laundry. The first floor contains physician’s
office with a room off it
supplied with electrical apparatus to which an X-ray
outfit will be at once
added, steam bath cabinet, dry hot air apparatus for the
treatment of joints,
compressed air apparatus for the treatment of nose,
throat, etc., and other
special forms of apparatus, three medical wards for men,
linen closet, bath
room and W.C. for men, four wards for women with linen
closet, bath room and W.
C. for women, and a general meeting room.
The
second floor is entirely devoted to surgical work for
men, and here is located
the operating room with wash room for the operators and
sterilising room
opening off it. This room is 16 by 16 ft. with ceiling
14 ft. high, the
exposure is N.E. and that side is almost all glass which
in addition to a large
skylight gives good reflected light, no shadows
interfering with the work of
the operators. [page 489]
This room is fitted up with white enamelled steel
operating furniture and
water-sterilizing apparatus, and is well adapted for the
work to be done in it.
This
floor has seven wards, linen closet, bath room and W.C.,
nurse’s room and minor
operating room, and like the first floor has a diet
kitchen which communicates
with the basement kitchen by means of a dumb-waiter, for
the distribution of
food.
The
physician’s office communicates by means of speaking
tube with all parts of the
building, while a private telephone connects the
hospital with the doctor’s
residence.
For
the convenience of foreign patients it is intended to
connect the hospital with
the general telephone system of the city.
The
whole interior of the building, including walls and
ceilings, is painted in
mild colors so that it can be washed and kept clean, and
this feature of
cleanliness is also facilitated by the rounding of all
corners so as to prevent
the lodgment of dust. Several private wards have been
fitted up for the
accommodation of those who wish to have a room to
themselves, and these are
suitable also for the use of foreign patients. The
baths, W.C.’s, and
wash-basins are all fitted up in a modem way and
properly’ plumbed and supplied
with hot and cold water.
The
entire building is heated by a hot water system, so that
neither smoke, coal
dust nor ashes are present in the rooms, and an equable
temperature can be kept
in all parts.
Electric
lighting throughout is a great help, too, in preventing
the contamination of
the wards with foul gases.
Ventilation
has been well thought out and arranged for both by
transoms placed over the
doors and by a system of incoming and outgoing flues by
which warmed fresh air
is introduced into the wards and the fouled air carried
off, so that the air of
the wards is being constantly renewed even though doors
and windows are closely
shut, and that without noticeable drafts.
[page 490]
The laboratory is fitted up with modern apparatus for
the examination of blood,
urine, faeces, sputum, etc.
A
rabbit pen has been fitted up and a fully equipped, a
Pasteur Institute will
soon be in operation, so that those who are so
unfortunate as to be bitten by a
rabid dog may get prompt treatment according to the
Pasteur method. The many
accidents of this kind which have happened emphasize the
great need of such an
institution in our midst.
Plans
are now out for the erection of an Isolation Building
for the reception of
contagious diseases. This will be built as soon as
Spring opens. Other adjunct
buildings such as mortuary storehouse etc. are to be
added; and several houses
for assistants and servants grouped around the main
buildings combine to make a
plant complete in almost every particular.
Keeping in mind the fact
that all forms of mission work must be only temporary
and looking forward to
the time when even hospital work must be done by native
physicians, a strong
effort has been made to give systematic medical
instruction to a small number
of young men, and this effort has meant special language
study on the part of
the doctor and much time spent in the preparation of
text-books. The task
altogether was found too heavy for one man to continue
to do, and do it well,
and again Mr. Severance opened his heart and purse and
at his own expense sent
out a second physician, Dr. J. W. Hirst to be associated
with Dr. Avison in the
work so that now all departments of the hospital can be
carried on with greater
vigor and more care, and the training of Korean young
men and women as
physicians and nurses will form a more prominent
feature, while at the same
time a series of medical text-books in the native
language and script will
result.
As
might be expected in a country where the principles of
sanitation are so
constantly violated tuberculosis is rampant, a large
proportion of those who
apply for treatment being sufferers from some form of
this disease.
It
is the hope of those in charge to erect a tent or [page 491]
other building suitable for the modem treatment of
tuberculosis, which has proven so effective in Europe
and America.
The
building which has just been erected is planned to
accommodate about 30 to 35
patients, but beds can be placed for 40 in case of need,
and the isolation ward
will have beds for about 6. The number of patients
treated daily averages about
30, or about 10,000 in a year, but it is likely that a
larger number will be
treated at the new hospital as its advantages become
more widely known.
To
do this work well will mean the expenditure yearly of a
considerable sum of
money, a careful estimate putting this sum at Yen
7,500.00 exclusive of
physician*s salaries.
Towards
meeting this there is an estimated income from various
sources of say Yen
4,500.00 leaving a deficit of Yen 3,000.00 per year, and
this sum those in
charge hope to obtain from within the bounds of Korea.
This looks like a goodly
sum to expect yearly, but it is not a large sum for the
successful diplomats,
the business men and others to put into a benevolent
work which promises so
much definite and tangible good to the poor and
suffering people who are so
numerous. In many communities the cost of plant and the
entire current
expenditure is being given by the community but here in
Seoul everything has
been supplied and less than half of the current
expenditure is being asked from
the community at large.
A
very important point to be borne in mind is that while
the plant is owned and
managed by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions
yet it is entirely
undenominational in the scope of its work, and while it
has been built and is
being carried on largely by American enterprise it is
entirely without national
bias in the distriubtion of its benefits. The sick of
any religion or no
religion and those of any nationality are admitted and
given the best treatment
its facilities will afford.
And
while it is the avowed and definite aim of the Mission
and those in charge to
give religious instruction to all who come within its
sphere of influence and
so far [page 492]
as possible to influence them in favor of Christianity
yet no compulsion is
used, and no persuasion other than the presentation to
all of Christ as their
Savior, and no effort is made to influence Christians of
other denominations in
favor of Presbyterianism. In the case of Methodists or
Roman Catholics becoming
patients in the hospital, the Methodist pastor or the
Roman Catholic priest is
as free to visit them as are the Presbyterian pastors,
and so with any
denomination whatsoever.
So
long as there were several denominational hospitals in
Seoul no effort was made
to obtain local financial support, but now that the
Methodist and English
Churches have given up their general medical work (only
the Methodist women’s
hospital being now carried on on behalf of Korean women)
it is felt that a part
of the support of the work may well be looked for from
the general community.
The
cost of food and medicines for a general ward patient
for a year is estimated
at Yen 100, and several persons have already offered to
support beds to be
named as they may direct.
The
general surgical ward of ten beds could be supported by
the payrment of Yen
1,000 per year, or any bed in it for Yen 100.
Then
there are several wards with three beds in each which
could be supported with
300 yen per year.
The
Pasteur Institute is not directly part of the Severance
Hospital, the only
donation thus far being that of Yen 100 by the guard of
the Italian Legation,
which was used in the erection of the rabbit pen. To
properly establish this
Institute will require the purchase of the apparatus for
the manipulation of
the virus and its storage. The work must be carried on
under the strictest
antiseptic precautions, and special apparatus is
required. The cost of this
will probably be about Yen 250, and the donation of this
by some one would be a
beneficent act.
Further
than this a room about 12-16 feet is needed in which to
keep the inocluated
rabbits, and the erection of this will cost about Yen
100 to 125.[page 493]
After the Institute has been thus started, whether there
are patients or not
the supply of fresh virus must be kept up constantly,
and this will necessitate
the using up of a large number of rabbits each month. It
is calculated that at
the Nagasaki Institute about 30 rabbits are used each
month. The cost of
maintaining the Institute therefore will not be small,
as it will require
almost all the time of one assistant to look after the
rabbits, see that they
are kept healthy, and especially watch over and care for
those that have been
inoculated. The sum of Yen 400 to 500 yearly will
probably be needed for the
upkeep of the Institute, and this offers a good
opportunity for an exhibition
of generosity.
Stock
is offered in the Pasteur Institute at Yen 50 per share,
and for each Yen 50
advanced the donor will be entitled to a full treatment
at the Institute or to
command the treatment of one other person, the same
being a foreigner or
well-to-do Korean, or to send for treatment four Koreans
of the poor class for
whom the cost of treatment will be reduced to Yen 12.50.
The
treatment consists of 21 inoculations, and covers a
period of 21 consecutive
days.
Another
direction in which generosity may be well placed is in
the support of some
bright young man as a medical student. This can be done
at a cost of about Yen
100 per year.
Probably,
however, the most urgent need at the present time is the
support of beds in the
hospital. Can Seoul not take up at least 20 of these at
Yen 100 each per year
and thus provide for the cure and relief of many of the
sick and suffering poor
in our midst?
Supporters
of beds may choose a name for their beds and have them
placed over them and
each year a report will be rendered of the cases treated
in them.
O. R. Avision.
[page
494] Opening
of the Severance Memorial Hospital. Wednesday, November
16th, 1904,
The weather
and everything else combined to make the opening of the
new Hospital in Seoul,
known as the Severance Memorial Hospital, an auspicious
event. The foreign
community of Seoul, together with several of the native
Korean officials,
gathered in the large upstairs room, to hear something
of the history of the
Hospital; and also to be shown over the now completed
building.
Dr.
H. N. Allen, the United States Minister, whose name has
from the start been so
intimately associated with the beginnings of medical
work in this land, and
whose skill in 1884 opened a wide door for medicine and
surgery, made the
address of the afternoon, and pointed out clearly the
need that exists in Korea
for medicine and surgery; showed how an attempt had been
made to supply the
need with the poor facilities at hand; touched upon the
notable success that
had attended work with even poorer facilities; and
heartily congratulated Dr.
Avison, the foreign community, and the citizens of
Seoul, on the magnificient
plant that had been procured through the kindness and
generosity of Mr. Louis
H. Severance, of Cleveland, Ohio, U. S. A. His
Excellency, Youn Chi Ho, of the
Foreign Office, after addressing a few words to the
Koreans who were present,
in his inimitable way, referred to what foreign medicine
might do in Korea;
and, in the name of his country, thanked the foreign
residents, and especially
the Presbyterian Mission, for the fully equipped
institution that was thrown
open to the public on that day. Dr. Avison followed,
giving in a concise way,
the history of the development of the plans for the
present Hospital and
enlarged upon the generosity of the donor in providing
such a complete outfit
for Seoul.
The
company were then escorted round the Hospital, [page 495]
and soon saw there had been provided a comparatively
small but perfectly equipped Hospital. It was said that
one of Japan’s leading
officials had remarked that there were larger
institutions in Japan but none
better equipped than the one just opened.
The
generosity of an outsider, one who has never seen Seoul
or Korea, has brought
to our doors the means by which the people of this city
can secure for their
sick, rich and poor alike, the advantages of the best
and latest researches in
medical science and surgery. Much as we who are out here
in the East may
sympathize with and pity the sufferers of this land, it
would have been
absolutely beyond our reach to provide such an
institution. It has now been
bestowed upon us, and the least that we can do will be
to take our share in
furnishing the means for the running of the same.
In
the hospital department there are some forty odd beds,
and Doctor Avison told
us that one hundred yen would pay for the keep of a
patient in one bed
throughout the year. Thus one hundred yen invested here,
will, in all
probability, give health and strength to an average of
from eight co ten
Koreans each year. Several have taken this into
consideration and are purposing
to provide the yearly sustenance for one bed; and, I
should think that in
Seoul, at least forty persons ought to be found who
would be willing thus to
endow a bed, which can then he named after the donor, if
so desired. The
dispensary department where some 10,000 or more patients
are treated every
year, cannot possibly pay its expenses, as necessarily a
large number of the
patients have to be provided with medicine free. Here is
a way in which those
who do not care to endow a bed can do something to help
support the sick in
Seoul.
While
the institution has been provided through the generosity
of a Christian
gentleman in America, and has been placed by him under
the care of the
Presbyterian Board of Mission, as was said at this
gathering, it is intended to
care for all nationalities, all classes, all creeds, all
religions, and as such
commends itself most heartily to all those who have the
interest of their
fellow man at [page 496]
heart. Is there not a responsibility resting especially
upon those of us who
have had the advantages of civilization to take our
share in the alleviation of
the suffering around us; and does not this institution
offer us an opportunity
of doing the same?
In
our comfortable homes we do not have much chance of
seeing the condition of the
natives of this land; but any of us can easily imagine
what it would be, had we
no physicians, and had we to rely upon poor quackery
with its acupuncture and
blistering, crudely administered by so-called docters
who are entirely ignorant
of human anatomy. After the obnoxious, filthy and foul
decoctions that these
people prepare and administer, very little hope remains
for the patient.
When
an American gentleman reaches out arms of love and mercy
from the other side of
the globe to the destitute and suffering of this nation,
we cannot afford to
allow ourselves to be hindered from giving at least a
little of what Providence
has so bountifully given us; and, thereby, offer a few
crumbs from our table to
those who, like Lazarus, lie at our doors.
H. G.
Underwood.
The New
Hospital
The ideal form
of philanthropic giving is the personal kind, where the
giver comes into
personal contact with the individual to whom he gives.
Shakespeare says that
mercy is twice blessed because it blesses him who gives
and him who receives.
But aid that is given at second hand or through an agent
loses at least a
portion of the reflex half of its beneficent power.
And
yet it is manifestly impossible for all people to engage
to any considerable
extent in the work of personal distribution of their
benefactions. Wise giving
requires a careful examination of the condition and
needs of the recipient, and
such examination takes far more time than the mere
handing over of the money.
The [page
497]
great majority of people, therefore, find it wiser to
put their money into the
hands of those whose business it is to learn the
conditions and who for this
reason can make the most worthy disposal of the funds.
Nor is this always done
simply to save bother and relieve the donor of the onus
of personal
investigation and contact with uncongenial surroundings.
Many people are
actually afraid of the expressions of thankfulness and
love which their
kindness often elicits and give their money through
others rather to hide from
their left hand what the right hand does than to salve
the conscience merely.
In
such a land as this, where extreme poverty and lack of
any considerable moral
restraints render poor people very susceptible to the
temptation to impose upon
the generosity of the well-to-do, it is a great question
how to give without
doing more harm than good. Ignorance of the language
makes it impossible to do
the work personally and yet there is no man of right
feeling who is willing to
go on year after year without doing something to relieve
the suffering which
evidently exists.
In
a general way it may be said that there is no object
which appeals to all men
so commonly as a free hospital. To those who are
actuated by the distinctively
religious side of the question it represents a
continuation of the personal
work of Jesus Christ who paid special attention to
bodily ailments. To those
who are actuated simply by humanitarian motives it must
appear as the most
definite and genuine of mediums through which to aid
suffering humanity. There
is the least possible danger of money being misapplied
or of helping people
that do not need help. A sick man is manifestly unable
to earn a living; and
who of us does not know that not one Korean in a
thousand has any available
funds to fall back upon in case of temporary disability?
The
Severance Hospital is the only thoroughly organized and
properly equipped
institution of the kind in Seoul or its vicinity. The
building is free of debt,
the salaries of its medical staff are guaranteed and
therefore every cent which
you give will be used directly in the relieving of [page 498]
suffering. The man of broad views will recognize that
money given even for a subsidiary purpose such as fuel,
lights and office
expenses is as genuinely useful as that given directly
in the care of the sick,
but in this case even such a slight objection as this is
wanting. Every dollar
invested is applied directly to the providing of the
actual wants of the
patients. Some members of the foreign community have
already seen fit to assume
the support of individual beds in the wards of this
hospital at the
comparatively trifling expense of about one hundred yen
a year and it would
seem to be a matter of little difficulty to secure forty
such guarantees from
among a community such as this.
If
it be objected that when a man builds a hospital to be
called after his name he
should also endow it, we must remember that Mr.
Severance has already
practically endowed the institution with the equivalent
of Yen 35,000, for the
sum which he annually donates amounts at a minimum
estimate to the interest on
the above sum, reckoned at five per cent. It would seem,
then, that Mr.
Severance has done all that could reasonably be expected
toward the running
expenses of the institution. But is it not true that
such an enterprise must
exert a greater influence over the community both direct
and reflex if it
engages the active financial support of the people among
whom it is placed?
Where the treasure is, there the heart is also, and if
you have a little
treasure invested in this enterprise it will do
something toward helping you to
remember that the physical sufferings of this people are
beyond your wildest
imagination and thus keep you true to your moral
obligations to them.
There
is every reason to believe that well-to-do Koreans will
be unwilling to have
all this work done with foreign money and will demand a
share in the work.
Already an attempt has been made in the Seoul Young
Men’s Christian Association
to endow a bed in the Severance Hospital, with Korean
funds. Mr. T. H. Yun,
Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs made a telling appeal
at the Y. M. C. A. rooms
the other night and there was an [page
499]
instant response One man pledged $100 and others smaller
sums, so that the required amount was raised.
We
wish to bring this matter very plainly before the
attention of the foreign
community and urge that each individual settle with
himself the question
whether this is not the very best and safest medium
through which to give
expression to his sympathy for the Koreans. To the man
without sympathy any
appeal is vain but we do not believe there exists such a
person in our
community. Many of us are receiving a monthly stipend
from the Korean
government and is it not eminently fitting that a moiety
of this sum should
revert to the direct relief of Korean suffering?
The Ghost of a
Ghost.
It was a
curious combination of justice and chicanery and
illustrated to a dot the
Korean ideal of official rectitude. But the reader must
judge for himself.
A
Korean country gentleman, Kim for convenience, had
become a widower with a
small son on his hands, and as this threw his domestic
arrangements into
confusion he looked about for a number two to share his
joys and sorrows and
incidentally to cook his pap. In this
quest he was successful and in time another son was
born. But by this time the
first-born had grown into a young man and had developed
a violent dislike to
his step-mother and his little half-brother, and a
person even less astute than
the father could not fail to foresee that upon his
demise the elder son would
show small favor to the wife and the child.
For
this reason the old gentleman upon his death-bed gave to
his wife a piece of
paper on which was drawn a picture of a man and his son,
and told her to keep
it with great care and when the time came that she could
no longer make ends
meet she should take the picture to the local magistrate
and ask redress. He
unhesitatingly affirmed that justice would thus be done
her.
[page 500]
Not long after this he breathed his last, and it was but
a month or two later
that the elder son began to show his teeth. The property
was all taken from the
widow and no provision whatever was made for her
support. She had only one
small box in which she preserved the picture. The little
boy plead with his big
brother to help his mother, but was driven from the door
with blows. Finally
the unhappy woman reached the point of destitution which
her husband had
foreseen, and taking the picture she went to the office
of the prefect and told
her story.
The
prefect looked long and intently at the piece of paper,
studied it from every
point of view, but said at last that he could make
nothing out of it. The
enigma was too deep for him. He told her to leave the
picture with him over
night and he would think it over. As he pondered the
matter he concluded there
must be some solution and was piqued at his own
inability to find it. Late into
the night he sat and thought about it but the more he
thought the more
insoluble became the riddle. About midnight he called
his servant and ordered a
bowl of water. After drinking a little he set the bowl
down, but in doing so a
portion of the water was spilled upon the picture which
lay on the floor beside
him. He was startled, for this might injure the picture
and render the solution
wholly impossible; so he picked up the paper carefully
and held it near the
candle flame to dry it, when lo! the riddle solved
itself. The porous paper was
made semi-transparent by the water, and the light,
shining through, revealed a
written communication concealed between the two
thicknesses of paper which
formed the substance of the picture. He glanced around
to see whether his
servant had noticed it and was relieved to find that he
alone was the possessor
of the secret. His first act was to destroy the picture,
after which he retired
as usual.
In
the morning when the ajuns came to pay their respects he
ordered one of them to
go down to the house of the man who had treated his
step-mother so badly and
announce that the prefect would call there at two in the
[page
501]
afternoon. This created something of a sensation and
when the prefect arrived
he found the place swept and garnished. Quite a crowd of
the towns-people had
gathered out of curiosity to see what this visit might
portend.
As
the prefect entered the gate he saw the master of the
house and the others
gathered about the steps of the sarang or reception room
but on the left the
yard was empty. The host came forward to greet him but
strange to say he waved
him aside and looked intently to the left. Then folding
the front part of his
coat about him as the Korean does in the presence of a
superior he advanced a
few steps toward the left, bent forward in a deferential
manner and said:
Yes,
certainly no, never before without doubt . . . .Oh no,
no I could not think of
it . . . . yes quite sure . . . .no difficulty whatever
. . . . It shall be
done at once . . . .Indeed I shall not forget.
All
this in reply to apparently unheard questions of an
unseen interlocutor! The
people stood open-mouthed with wonder. Had the prefect
indeed gone mad? But the
play was not yet finished. The prefect went toward the
gate as if taking leave
of some one, said good-by with the utmost deference and
then came back to the
amazed group of spectators and said:
“Who
was that man?” They hesitated but at last one of them
made bold to answer :
“There
was no one there.”
“What;
that man I was just talking to and who has just gone?
You didn’t see him?”
“No,
we saw no one nor did we hear anything but your words.”
“Amazing!
Wonderful! Astounding! I saw an elderly gentleman
standing there and he had the
air of a great official. He spoke to me and said that in
this town his widow
and her little boy were suffering because the grown-up
son had defrauded them
of their rights. He told me he had foreseen this and had
buried beneath the
floor of that deserted house, over there, three caskets
of silver and two of
gold for the use of his widow. He told [page 502]
me to take two of the silver caskets and give the rest
to his widow. And you never saw him! Well, well, it was
a singular
hallucination. Let us think no more about it.”
But
what company of people would rest satisfied with this?
They protested that
there must be some reason behind the vision and urged
the prefect to dig for
the treasure. He demurred and said it was foolish but
was finally persuaded.
Mattocks were secured and they all hastened to the
deserted house where, sure
enough, the caskets were unearthed. Instead of thinking
the prefect was crazy
they now concluded that he was inspired. He took it very
modestly, and calling
the widow and her son turned over the valuable treasure
to them.
“The
old gentleman told me to keep two of the silver caskets
for myself, but I am
going to venture to disobey him and keep only one.”
A
murmur of admiration went around the company and they,
and the woman, begged
him to take two, but he protested that even the fear of
the spirits’ anger
would not induce him to take more than one.
Thus
the woman was vindicated, the prefect enveloped in the
odor of sanctity and his
exchequer replenished; for the writing in the picture
had only revealed the
position of the buried treasure but had made no
provision for the prefect’s
squeeze.
COREA: THE
HERMIT NATION.
PREFACE TO THE
SEVENTH EDITION.
When in
October, 1882, the publishers of “Corea the Hermit
Nation” presented this work
to the public of English-speaking nations, they wrote :
“Corea
stands much the same relation to the traveller that the
region of the pole does
to the explorer, and menaces with the same penalty the
too inquisitive tourist
who ventures to penetrate its inhospitable borders.”
[page 503]
For twenty-two years, this book, besides enjoying
popular favor, has been made
good use of by writers and students, in Europe and
America, and has also served
even in Korea itself as the first book of general
information to be read by
missionaries and other new comers. In this seventh
edition, I have added to the
original text ending with Chapter XLVIII (September,
1882), four fresh chapters
: on The Economic Condition of Korea; Internal Politics:
Chinese and Japanese;
The War of 1894: Korea aa Empire; and Japan and Russia
in Conflict; bringing
the history down to the autumn of 1904.
Within
the brief period of time treated in these new chapters,
the centre of the word’s
politics has shifted from the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean to the waters
surrounding Korea, the stange anomaly of dual
sovereignty over the peninsular
state has been eliminated, and the military reputation
of China ruined. The
rise of Japan, within a half century of immediate
contact with the West, to the
position of a modern state, able first to humiliate
China and then to grapple
with Russia, has vitally affected Korea, on behalf of
whose independence Japan
has a second time gone to war with a Power vastly
greater in natural resources
than herself. In this period, also, the United States of
America has become one
of the great Powers interested in the politics of Asia,
and with which the
would-be conquerors of Asiatic peoples must reckon.
In
again sending forth a work that has been so heartily
welcomed, I reiterate
gladly my great obligations to the scholars, native and
foreign, who have so
generously aided me by their conversation,
correspondence, criticism, and
publications, and the members of the Korean Branch of
the Royal Asiatic
Society, who have honored me with membership in their
honorable body. My
special obligations are due to our American Minister, H.
N. Allen, for printed
documents and illustrative matter; to Professor Homer
B.Hulbert, Editor of The
Korea Review, from the pages of which I have drawn
liberally; and to Professor
Asakawa of Dartmouth College, author [page
504]
of “The Early Institutional Life of Japan.” I call
attention also to the additions made upon the map at the
end of the volume.
I
beg again the indulgence of my readers, especially of
those who by long
residence on the soil, while so thoroughly able to
criticize, have been so
profuse in their expressions of appreciation. From both
sides of the Atlantic
and Pacific have come these gratifying tokens, and to
them as well as to my
publishers I make glad acknowledgments in sending forth
this seventh edition.
Ithaca, N.Y.,
September 22, 1904.
Wm. Elliot
Griffis.
Review.
Corea e
Coreani by Lieut. Carlo Rossetti, Cr 8° pp300 Rome,
1904. Illustated.
We have
received from the author a copy of the above mentioned
book and in spite of one
sad deficiency in knowledge of the Italian language we
have taken pains to
examine with some care the contents of the volume. It is
a large crown octavo
in flexible covers and is an excellent example of
typographical and artistic
skill. It is par
excellence a book of
illustrations and shows the exceptional skill and taste
of the author, who took
most of the photographs himself. An examination of the
letter press will
convince anyone that the author confined his remarks to
things which he had
personally verified, and made no pretense to an intimate
knowledge of, or an
authoritative voice in, matter which can be known only
after a long and
thorough acquaintance with the Korean people. Even a
brief account of things
that one knows at first hand is worth more than long
chapters of
generalizations and inductions, and the author is to be
congratulated upon the
stamp of verisimilitude which is impessed upon every
page of this book.
[page
505]
A New Book on Japan
We have
received from the Japanese authorities a neat volume
entitled Japan in
the Beginning of the 20th Century.
It is published by the Imperial Japanese Commission to
the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, and contains some 800 pages. After all the
descriptive and
sentimental books on Japan based upon a partial or
onesided observation it is
indeed pleasant to take up a book that is simply crammed
with facts, well
authenticated facts. In one sense it is dry but in
another it is most
interesting reading. We want to know what Japan has back
of her as genuine
resource from which to draw in this her time of life and
death struggle.
Nowhere else can these facts be found so succinctly
stated, so clearly exposed
and so scientifically grouped as in this work. It has
all one wants to know
about the geography, population, administrative system,
agriculture, forestry,
mines, fisheries, manufactures, foreign and domestic
trade, finances, army and
navy, communication, transportation and education. Under
each of these heads
there are numerous subdivisions which take one right
down to the bed rock of
Japanese institutions and life, and to one who wants
serious and exact
knowledge of the country we know of no book nearly so
satisfactory. This is the
kind of book that will some time be written about Korea,
giving not mere
sketches here and there but telling us the facts in
their proper proportions
and bearings. The Japanese authorities are to be highly
complimented upon the
neat and attractive get-up of the book, its
unexceptionable English and its
entire adequacy to fill the requirements of the case.
Mr. Kennan on
Seoul.
Mr. Geo.
Kennan has a very readable article on Seoul in the
October number of the Outlook. He is
a keen [page
506]observer
and describes things in a very dramatic way. The
results of some of the extravagant praises which Mr,
Hamilton lavished upon
Seoul are evident in this article, for Mr. Kennan had
been given to expect so
much that his disappointment drove him to the other
extreme and he could see
very little in Seoul worth seeing. For instance his
description of the natural
scenery about Seoul does not imply that Seoul is the
most picturesquely
situated city in the Far East with the single exception
of Hongkong. Mr. Kennan
leaps from the extreme laudation of Mr. Hamilton to the
other extreme when he
says that Seoul is much more truthfully set forth in the
doggerel verses of “a
former resident of Seoul’’ who was in fact a U. S. Naval
officer whose
acquaintance with Korea was but one degree more complete
than that of Mr.
Kennan. We must demur at the impression left by the
writer’s reference to
semi-nude women on the street. Any resident of Seoul
will agree that while a
few slave women go about with the breasts exposed this
is not a characterstic
of Korean women on the streets, generally. The term
“semi-nude” implies a far
more objectionable state of things than actually exists.
To have been fair Mr.
Kennan should have added a contrast between the Japanese
and Koreans in the
matter of nudity, to his other comparisons. What we fail
to get in any of these
passing notices of Seoul is a fair compariscm.
Mr.
Kennan makes much of the filth and the smells of the
Capital but we would have
it clearly understood that something more than a passing
observation of this
and other cities of the East will show that Seoul is
less objectionable in the
matter of offensive odors than any native town in the
open ports of China. It
is notorious that the native towns of Tientsin, Chefoo,
Shanghai, Suchow and
hundreds of others are incomparably worse than those of
Seoul. Mr. Kennan must
have seen some of these other places, but one would
gather from his article
that Seoul stands preeminent in this matter. We have
been in Tokyo many times
and have never failed to be more annoyed by evil odors
in that city than in
Seoul.
[page 507]
“There seem to be no scavenger birds in Korea.” This
amazing statement shows
conclusively that Mr. Kennan kept his eyes on the
ground, for one of the
conspicuous things about Seoul is the immense numbers of
large hawks that soar
about the city all day long catching up any stray bits
of garbage. There are
simply thousands of them, and when the little boys find
a dead mouse they amuse
themselves by throwing it up in the air for the hawks to
swoop down upon and
seize before it reaches the ground.
Many
of Mr. Kennan’s statements are true to fact and those
that fall short of this
are due to incomplete or imperfect observation. This
much may be said, that for
a visit of such short duration and such limited range it
shows a marvelous
power of concentration and quick appreciation of salient
features.
Of
course there is this to be said, that those who have
lived here some time get
used to conditions as they are and are in a sense
hardened to them but if we
are not mistaken it is the general opinion of people who
have lived in Chinese
cities that Seoul is far preferable to them. And as for
sanitation, we should
think that Korean methods are far preferable to the
Chinese, Mr. Kennan
doubtless knows that an open ditch with the sun shining
into it all day, though
more repulsive to the eye, is far less unhealthful than
a ditch indifferently
boarded over so that the sun cannot get at the germs. It
is said that
diphtheria was practically unknown in Tokyo until they
covered over the
ditches.
In
Seoul there are ten miles of street that are wide as
many of the streets in New
York City and the lay of the land is such that every
good rain sweeps the
sewers fairly clean for an Eastern city. The night soil
is all carried out by
men who make this a special business. Mr. Kennan
unfortunately did not have
time to learn what the interesting sights in and about
Seoul are. Someone ought
to compile a good guide book to the capital and vicinity
so that travellers
will not go away and say they cannot find things of
interest here.
[page
508]
Editorial Comment.
This number of
the Review may properly be called the Hospital
Edition. We have given a full account of the
beginnings of the new Severance
Hospital and have added some words by different people
as to the value of this
work and the duty of foreigners in Seoul and Korea
generally to rally to the
support of this institution. It needs no other words to
commend it to the
public, and we feel sure that there will be a generous
response to the appeal.
Since the articles were in press we have learned that
two Korean merchants in
the vicinity of the hospital joined in guaranteeing the
support of one of the
beds.
We
have decided to suspend the publication of the Korea
Review with the end of
this year. It was begun four years ago as a “Medium of
communication between
those who are interested in Korean matters,” an ideal
which has not been
realized. Foreigners in Korea who are competent to
handle questions of history,
folk-lore, language, sociology, religion and other
topics have been too much
engaged in other matters to spend time in writing, the
consequence being that
the entire work has fallen upon the shoulders of a
single individual. One third
of the space has been filled with a detailed history of
Korea from the earliest
beginnings to the present hour. That being now completed
the work of supplying
material for the magazine will be increased by fifty per
cent. There is
abundance of material at hand to continue the
publication of this magazine
indefinitely, and while the management acknowledges no
difficulty in securing
interesting matter we think that a magazine like this
ought to be filled with
articles from many pens rather than from one alone. We
should probably have
stopped sooner had we not felt in duty bound to keep on
until the history was
completed, but now we feel at liberty to say our work is
done and if the public
is [page
509]
to have a magazine it must be the product of a common
effort. It has been
suggested that there are many who would write for the
magazine if they were
solicited for material, but we do not care to ask any
favors. If people are not
interested enough in the interchange of information
about Korea to submit
material of their own accord no amount of solicitation
would be of use.
We
are far from granting that the magazine has not been a
success. The list of
subscribers has grown continually and every month sees
new names upon the
mailing list from America and Europe. The Review
circulates in America, Canada,
England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway,
Sweden, Russia, Italy,
Morocco, South Africa, India, Annam, Australia, China,
Japan and Korea. So far
as we can learn there is no diminution of interest in
the periodical and we are
constantly receiving letters from abroad expressing
interest in this
publication. Financially the Review has been as
successfal as we ever expected
it would be, in that it has paid for itself and more.
The sole reason for
discontinuing is that the mere manual labor of preparing
the manuscript,
reading proof and attending to the business interests of
the magazine leave so
little time for other and, as we believe, more important
work.
We
would be pleased to receive from any subscriber his
views as to the utility of
continuing publication and suggestions as to the way in
which this can be done
without letting the entire burden of it fall upon a
single individual. We still
hold to the opinion that there ought to be a magazine of
some kind published in
Korea. It should be of a general nature and take up at
least as wide a range of
subjects as the Review. It may be that some other
individual would be willing
to shoulder the responsibility and the work alone. It
may be that a joint
committee or company could be found whereby the work
would be divided up. The
present management would gladly co-operate with any such
committee or body or
would turn the whole thing over to them in the interests
of the public.
As
the matter stands, therefore, the Korea Review as [page 510]
now operated, will suspend publication on the
thirtyfirst of December 1904. If there are any who
desire to complete their
file of the Review, we have on hand a certain number of
odd copies of many of
the issues and these can be obtained upon application.
If
there are any who have odd numbers of the first volume,
1901, we will be glad
to purchase them, paying the full amount that they
originally cost. And for
full sets of the 1901 Review we will pay five yen.
We
have already indicated by circular that the History of
Korea in two volumes,
with copious indexes, appendices and chronological,
geographical and other
tables will be issued about the end of the year, bound
in halfleather. Our
purpose was primarily to furnish a few sets of the
history alone for libraries
at home, but there has been some little demand for it
here so that we have
reserved a few sets for the local trade. The readers of
the Review already have
the subject matter of the history serially in the four
years of the magazine but
it is evident that the general index for the history
itself will not apply to
the history as printed serially, because of the
difference in paging. The
various sketch maps of Korea at various stages of her
history, some seven in
number, will appear in the history proper. The
considerable expense connected
with their publication makes it impossible to furnish
them free in connection
with the Review, as we would like to have done.
News Calendar.
It is with
great regret that we have to record the death, on Oct.
18th, of Joseph Allen
Kearns, the infant son of Rev. and Mrs. Kearns, of
Sun-ch’un at the age of
seventeen months.
We learn from
the far north that “ever since the gathering of the
tongkak in all the
county-seats of North Pyeng-yang Province on Oct. 8th
they have been having a
hard time of it. They have been searched for by the
‘hunter police’ in a most
relentless way, and all for the sake of ‘squeeze’. It
has gotten to such a
state that in some sections the country houses are
deserted, and everywhere, as
a result of tonghak persecution and forced labor on the
railroad, harvesting
has [page
511]
been much delayed. The work on the railway all the way
up from Seoul, wherever
I saw it on my overland trip, is well advanced and with
the exception of the
bridges over the big streams I should think they could
have it operating to
Pyeng-yang this winter as they claim. The grades in some
places are tremendous,
especially over one hill in ChungWha. The labor question
is a bad one, however,
and the Japanese have won the most universal and bitter
hatred of the Koreans.
The policy seems to differ every few miles according to
the whim of the man in
charge. In many places there is no pay and in others
only a very small wage.
The worst thing I have heard of the Japanese doing was
the burning of a whole
village of eighteen houses near Wiju as the result of a
small fight caused by
the unjust demands of one of the villainous Korean
interpreters. Only four or
five of the owners were involved in the trouble. Three
or four hundred troops
were sent over from Wuntung to burn the village. This
seizing of large sections
of land for their new ports, notably on the East bank of
the Ta-dong River
above Chinnampo. also thirty li from An-ju and thirty li
from Pak-ch’un with
absolutely no pay for the land is nothing better than
common stealing.”
It is
unfortunately evident that while the underlying
principle of Japanese action
may be all right, the methods they use to carry them out
are sometimes open to
grave questions.
A very painful
incident occurred last month near Fusan. Some Japanese
coolies were making
trouble at the house of a Korean attached to Rev. G.
Engel. The latter went to
the Korean’s support and succeeded in driving the
Japanese away. Thereupon the
Korean who was naturally rather excited called to them
saying that they could
not ride rough-shod over his rights since he had a
foreigner to defend him.
Thereupon the Japanese came back and attacked Mr. Engle
with great ferocity and
after rendering him insensible tied him to two posts,
head to one and feet to
another and left him. The matter was referred to Seoul
and became the subject
of diplomatic communication. The Japanese authorities
recognize the lawless
character of many of their nationals in Korea and it is
greatly to be wished
that these men might be held in check in some way. It is
a heavy strain upon
the good will which Americans and British have had and
still try to have for
the Japanese in their struggle.
The completion
of the Seoul-Fusan Railway marks an epoch in the
material progress of Korea. It
is a great work and deserving of praise though in the
construction of it the
Koreans have been made to fear that the Japanese people
have small respect for
their rights. This feeling may wear away as the Koreans
come to see the great
benefits that it may bring them if rightly used.
Yi Seung-man
who was imprisoned for five or six years on account of
his connection with the
Independence Club and who has but recently been
liberated, has gone to America
to take a course of study. He is a man of exceptional
ability and breadth of
view and the future should have in store for him a very
useful career.
[page
512]
An attempt has been made to secure a rough estimate of
the numbers of Il-chin
and Chin-bo followers in the country and it is found
that there can hardly be
less than 50,000 of them in all.
The Crown
Princess of Korea died on the sixth of November after a
lingering illness. This
sad event threw the court and the people into double
mourning and extended the
period of mourning one year beyond that for the late
Queen Dowager. The funeral
expenses were put at $1 000,000 but the Adviser to the
Finance Department
demurred and advised that the sum be cut in two.
The Japanese
authorities complain that stones are put on the track of
the Seoul-Fusan
Railway, and threaten to take the matter of bringing
these people to justice
into their own hands unless the government attends to
it.
A man in Mapo
dressed up two little boys in women’s clothes and sold
them as slaves. The
purchaser discovered the fraud and the seller was
arrested There is no such
thing as male slavery in Korea, hence the illegality of
the act, aside from its
otherwise fraudulent character.
The American
Legation guard has been relieved and twenty-eight new
men have been stationed
in Seoul in their place. On the whole the men feel that
they have had a pretty
good time here, though rather quiet. One of the new
arrivals said very
feelingly that “It is good to get into a place where
people shake hands with a fellow.”
The American residents of Seoul have taken special pains
to organize dififerent
forms of entertainment for the “boys” and this is much
appreciated. We trust
that this effort will be continued and enlarged during
the present winter and
that the genuine demonocracy of the American people will
be demonstrated in
acts of social courtesy to these young men.
The Minister
of Education Yi Chi-geuk returned from Japan via the
Seoul-Fusan Railway
arriving in Seoul on the First of December. He was met
at the station by
hundreds of the school boys of Seoul with lanterns and
received quite an
ovation. It is much to be hoped that his experiences in
Japan will pave the way
to radical and far-reaching reforms in the system, or
lack of system, of
education in this country. The Japanese was eminently
right who advised that
hereafter money should be diverted from the army
estimates to those of
education. The Korean army will never amount to anything
until popular
education results in that enlightened public sentiment
called patriotism.
A daughter was
born to Rev. and Mrs. C. E. Sharp of Seoul on Nov. 15th.
A woman of
Nam-po came up to Seoul and threw herself on the ground
in front of the Palace
gate and cried to the Emperor for help. When asked what
the trouble was she
said that she evidently had been born with a very
unfortunate P’al-cha (at an
unlucky time) for her husband died and left her with a
young son and the
questionable legacy of a mother-in-law. The uncle of her
husband charged her
with a serious offence against morals and drove her away
and seized all her
household effects. She had applied to magistrates and
governors without avail
and at last in desperation she determined to throw
herself at the feet of her
sovereign for redress. The Emperor sent word to her to
apply to the Law Office
and she proceeded to present her claim there.
[page
513]
KOREAN HISTORY.
The historian
of the future, taking his stand above and out of the
smoke of battle, will take
a dispassionate view of the whole situation. Then and
not till then will it be
possible to tell whether the present recorders of events
are right in asserting
that while the policies of both Powers are essentially
selfish the success of
Russia’s policy involves the disintegration and national
ruin of the peoples
she conies in contact with while the success of Japan’s
policy demands the
rehabilitation of the Far East,
Much
depended upon the attitude which Korea should finally
assume toward these two
mutually antagonistic policies. If she had sided with
Japan and had shown a
fixed determination to resist the encroachments of
Russia by adopting a policy
of internal renovation which would enlist the interest
and command the
admiration of the world, the present war might have been
indefinitely
postponed. Whether it could have been finally avoided
would depend largely upon
the changes that are taking place in Russia herself
where in spite of all
repressive agencies education and enlightenment are
filtering in and causing a
gradual change. Here again the future historian may be
able to say with
confidence that it was better that the war came when it
did in that it
confirmed Japan in her course of commercial, industrial
and intellectual
expansion, guaranteed China against disintegration and
opened the eyes of the Russians
themselves to their need of radical internal reform. And
he may be able to say
that tfhe temporary suspension of Korean autonomy was
but a small price to pay
for these enormous benefits to the Far East and to the
world at large.
Chapter XXVI.
Return of Yi
Yong-ik. . . . Attack on Japanese Bank . . . .
Government backs down . . .
.Roman Catholic troubles in Whang-ha Province . . . .
trials at Hi-ju . . . .
difficulty settled . . . . Korean students to be sent to
[page
514]
Russia. . . .The Russian timber concession. . . .Russia
enters Yongampo. . .
.Korean prophecies. . . . Japan, England and America
urge the opening of
Yonganipo. . . . Russia prevents it. . . . Russians
exceed limits of concession
. . . . Japanese protest . . . Port Nicholas. . .
Japanese suspend business in
Seoul. . . . Korean pawn brokers stop business . . . .
Legation guards . . . .
government protest against them . . . . fears of popular
uprising . . . .
native press incendiary. . . .fears of trouble in the
country. . .Foreigner
threatened
The year 1903
beheld the rapid culmination of the difficulties between
Japan and Russia, It
had already become almost sure that war alone would cut
the Gordian knot, and
if any more proof was necessary this year supplied it.
Yi
Yong-ik in Port Arthur received assurance from the
Emperor that if he returned
he would be given a powerful guard, and in this he was
doubtless seconded by
the Russians who could use him to better advantage in
Seoul than in Port
Arthur. He telegraphed for 15/300 bags of Annam rice and
arrived in Chemulpo on
the very day the rice came. It formed a sort of peace
offering which, in the
temporary scarcity, was very agreeable to the people.
His return was the signal
for a vigorous attack upon Japanese interests. On the
eleventh of the preceding
September the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs had
issued an order
prohibiting the use of the Japanese bank notes, alleging
that since they were
not government notes they were unsafe. This was a direct
breach of faith,
because as we have seen the Japanese Bank had already
obtained the full consent
of the government to issue and circulate these notes. It
is almost
inconceivable that any man of ministerial rank would be
so devoid of ordinary
common sense as to attempt such a thing as this. Of
course there was an instant
and peremptory protest on the part of the Japanese
authorities and the
government had to stultify itself by taking it all back.
The promise was made
that the governors of the provinces would be instructed
to remove all objections
to the circulation of the notes, but the promise was
never kept. Now on the
seventeenth of January Yi Yong-ik, who had but just
returned, made a fierce
attack upon the Japanese bank and a note was sent from
the Finance Department
to that of Foreign Affairs demanding by what right the
latter had ventured to
interfere in the finances of [page 515]
the country, Cho Pyong-sik who had reinstated the
Japanese notes was dismissed
from the Foreign Office and everything fell into the
hands of Yi Yong-ik. A few
days later the Mayor of Seoul posted a circular
forbidding the use of these
notes on pain of severe punishment. This went all over
the country and there
was an immediate run on the bank, which was tided over
with the greatest
difficulty. Of course the Japanese were in a position to
make reprisals, and
after a little pointed talk the bluster of the favorite
subsided to a weak
whisper, and the authorities apologized in the most
abject manner. It should be
noted that the Russians gave no help to Yi Yong-ik when
it came to the point of
an actual breach with Japan.
For
some time there had been great unrest throughout the
province of Whang-ha owing
to the lawless acts of the Roman Catholic adherents
there. The matter was
brought clearly before the notice of the Government
through American Protestant
missionaries because many of the Protestant native
Christians had been involved
in those troubles and had been imprisoned, beaten,
tortured and robbed by those
who were avowedly members of the Roman Church. A number
of these lawless acts
were committed under the sign and seal of the Church
itself. When the matter
became too notorious to escape action on the part of the
Government a native
official named Yi Eung-ik was appointed as a special
Commissioner to go to Ha-ju,
the capital the province, and investigate the matter
thoroughly. Foreign
representatives of both the Roman Catholics and of the
Protestants were present
and the trial was instituted in a perfectly fair and
impartial manner. It was
clear that the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth was to be
elicited by this trial and after vain attempts to quash
the indictment one of
the French Catholic priests left the place accompanied
and followed by a
considerable number of those against whom there were
most serious charges.
These people gathered at a certain town and assumed a
threatening attitude
toward the Korean Government, but though all the foreign
Roman Catholic
representatives refused to attend the trial of the dozen
or more of their
adherents who had been arrested, the trial continued and
charge after charge of
the [page
516]
most grievous nature was proved, one man being convicted
of murder. During the
trial various attempts were made to discredit the
Commissioner but before the
end of the trials his power was greatly increased. The
result was to put an end
to the difficulties and though those responsible for the
outrages were never
adequately punished it is probable that the Korean
Government sufficiently
demonstrated its purpose to deal with such matters in a
strictly impartial
manner.
The
great preponderance of Russian influence was manifested
early in 1903 by the
decision on the part of the Government to send a number
of young Koreans to
Russia to study, but when it came to the point of
selecting the men it was
found that there was no desire on the part of the
students to go. This was due
in part to the feeling that Korean students abroad are
not looked after very
carefully by the authorities and there are long delays
in, if not complete cessation
of, transmission of money for their support.
Early
in the year it transpired that the Russians had obtained
from the Korean
Emperor a concession to cut timber along the Yalu River.
The thing was done
secretly and irregularly and the government never
received a tithe of the value
of the concession. By this act the government
dispossessed itself of one of its
finest sources of wealth and sacrificed future millions
for a few paltry
thousand in hand, and a promise to pay a share of the
profits, though no
provision was made for giving the government an
opportunity of watching the
work in its own interests. Soon after the Russians had
begun to work the
concession they began to make advances for the obtaining
of harbor facilities
in connection with it. The port of Yongampo was decided
upon and the Korean
government was asked to allow the Russians the use of it
for this purpose. This
created a very profound impression upon Japan and upon
the world at large. It
was felt that this was giving Russia a foothold upon the
soil of Korea, and
Russia’s history shows that, once gained, the point
would never be given up.
The activity of Russia in the north gave rise to the
notion that Japanese
influence was predominant in the southern half of the
peninsula and Russian in the
northern half. This gave birth to all sorts of rumors
among the Korean people
and the ancient books were ransacked for prophecies [page 517]
that would fit the situation. One of these is worth
repeating since it illustrates very perfectly the Korean
tendency to consult
some oracle in times of national peril. This particular
prophecy is supposed to
say that “when white pine-trees grow in Korea the
northern half of the
peninsula will go to the Tartar and the southern half to
the Shrimp.” Japan,
from its shape, is said to resemble a shrimp, while
Tartar covers the
Muscovite. The people interpreted the “white pines” to
refer to the telegraph
poles! And thus the prophecy was considered to mean that
when Korea is opened
to foreign intercourse it will be divided between Russia
and Japan. It cannot
be said that this caused any considerable stir among the
people and its only
value lies in the certain indication that it afforded of
the general unrest and
suspicion among them. As a whole the attitude of the
Korean has always been a
rational and consistent one as between Russia and Japan.
He has a greater
personal antipathy for the latter because they have come
into closer contact,
but there is a mysterious dread in his heart which warns
him of the Russian. He
will never say which he would rather have in power here,
but always says, “I
pray to be delivered from them both.”
Japan
began to urge upon the government the necessity of
opening Yongampo to foreign
trade, but Russia, of course, opposed this with all her
powers of persuasion.
Great Brit ain and the United States joined in urging
the opening of the port.
The United States had already arranged for the opening
of the port of Antung
just opposite Yongampo, and for the sake of trade it was
highly desirable that
a port on the Korean side of the Yalu should be opened.
It had no special
reference to the Russian occupation of the port, but as
pressure was being
brought to bear upon the government to throw open the
port it was considered an
opportune time to join forces in pushing for this
desired end. And it was more
for the interest of Korea to do this than for any of the
powers that were
urging it. Such an act would have been a check to
Russian aggression and would
have rendered nugatory any ulterior plan she might have
as regards Korea. But
the Russian power in Seoul was too great. It had not
upheld the cause of Yi
Yong-ik in vain, and the government, while using very
specious language,
withstood [page 518]
every attempt to secure the opening of the port. At last
the American
Government modified its request and asked that Wiju be
opened, but to this
Russia objected almost as strongly as to the other.
There can be little doubt
that this uncompromising attitude of Russia on the
Korean border confirmed
Japan in the position she had doubtlesss already
assumed. It was quite evident
that the force of arms was the only thing that would
make Russia retire from
Korean soil.
All through the summer
complaints came in from the north that the Russians were
working their own will
along the northern border and taking every advantage of
the loose language in
which the agreement had been worded. Again and again
information came up to
Seoul that the Russian agents were going outside the
limits specified in the
bond but there was no one to check it. It was impossible
to police the
territory encroached upon and there is reason to believe
that the Government
chafed under the imposition. At least the telegraph
lines which the Russians
erected entirely with out warrant were repeatedly torn
down by emissaries of
the Government and apparently without check from the
central authorities.
In
the Summer when the text of the proposed Agreement
between Russia and Korea
anent Yongampo became public the Japanese Government
made a strong protest. She
probably knew that this was a mere form but she owed it
to herself to file a
protest against such suicidal action on the part of
Korea. The insolence of the
Russians swelled to the point of renaming Yongampo Port
Nicholas.
In
October the Japanese merchants in Seoul and other
commercial centers began
calling in all outstanding moneys, with the evident
expectation of war. All
brokers and loan associations closed their accounts and
refused to make further
loans. It is more than probable that they had received
the hint that it might
be well to suspend operations for the time being. From
this time until war was
declared the people of Korea waited in utmost suspense.
They knew war only as a
Universal desolation. They had no notion of any of the
comparative amenities of
modern warfare or the immunities of noncombatants. War
meant to them the
breaking up of the [page 519]
very foundations of society, and many a time the anxious
inquiry was put as to
whether the war would probably be fought on Korean soil
or in Manchuria. Once
more Korea found herself the “Shrimp between two whales”
and doubly afflicted
in that whichever one should win she would in all
probability form part of the
booty of the victor.
The
year 1904, which will be recorded in history as one of
the most momentous in
all the annals of the Far East, opened upon a very
unsatisfactory state of
things in Korea. It had become as certain as any future
event can be that Japan
and Russia would soon be at swords points. The
negotiations between these two
powers were being carried on in St. Petersburg and, as
published later, were of
the most unsatisfactory nature. Japan was completing her
arrangements for
striking the blow which fell on February the ninth. Of
course these plans were
not made public but there was conflict in the very air
and all men were bracing
themselves for the shock that they felt must soon come.
The action of Japanese
moneylenders in suspending operations was followed in
January by the Korean
pawn brokers and at a season when such action inflicted
the greastest possible
harm upon the poor people of the capital, who find it
impossible to live
without temporarily hypothecating a portion of their
personal effects. This
together with the excessive cold aroused a spirit of
unrest which came near
assuming dangerous proportions. Some of the native
papers were so unwise as to
fan the embers by dilating upon the hard conditions
under which the Koreans
labored. Their sharpest comments were directed at the
Government but their
tendency was to incite the populace against foreigners.
All
through the month the various foreign legations were
bringing in guards to
protect their legations and their respective nationals
and this very natural
and entirely justifiable action was resented by the
Government. It protested time
and again against the presence of foreign troops, as if
their coming were in
some way an insult to Korea. The officials in charge
thereby showed their utter
incompetence to diagnose the situation correctly. It was
well known that the
disaffection among the Korean troops in Seoul was great
and that the dangerous
element known as the Peddlars Guild was [page 520]
capable of any excesses. The unfriendlv
attitude of Yi Yong-ik and Yi Keun-tak towards western
foreigners, excepting
Russians and French, together with their more or less
close connection with the
Peddlars was sufficient reason for the precautionary
measures that were
adopted. But the native papers made matters worse by
ridiculing both the
government and the army. At one time there was
considerable solicitude on the
part of foreigners, not lest the Korean populace itself
would break into open
revolt but lest some violent faction would be encouraged
by the authorities to
make trouble; so little confidence had they in the good
sense of the court favorite.
It was fairly evident that in case of trouble the
Japanese would very soon hold
the capital and it was feared that the violently
pro-Russian officials,
despairing of protection at the hands of Russia, would
cause a general
insurrection, hoping in the tumult to make good their
escape. It was felt that
great precautions should be taken by foreigners not to
give any excuse for a
popular uprising. The electric cars diminished their
speed so as to obviate the
possibility of any accident, for even the smallest
casualty might form the
match while would set the people on fire.
But
popular unrest was not confined to Seoul. A serious
movement was begun in the
two southern provinces where, it was reported, hundreds
of the ajuns or
prefectural constables were preparing to lead a
formidable insurrection. The
firm hold that these men have upon the people made it
not unlikely that it
would prove much more serious than the Tonghak
insurrection of 1894. From the
north, as well, persistent reports came of the banding
together of the
disaffected people, and foreign residents in those parts
affirmed that they had
never before seen such a state of affairs. One of them
was driven from a
country village and threatened with death if he should
ever return. The Korean
soldiers who formed the garrison of Pyeng-yang joined
the police in breaking
into the houses of wealthy natives and stealing money
and goods. The
authorities remonstrated, but without effect. By the
twentieth of January the
tension became so great in Seoul that a considerable
number of the wealthy
natives began removing there families and there
valuables to the country. About
the 20th of January the report circulated that Russia [page 521]
had proposed that northern Korea be made a neutral zone
and that Japan exercise predominant influence in the
south. This was only an
echo of the negotiations which were nearing the breaking
point in St
Petersburg, and it confirmed those who knew Japan in
their opinion that war
alone could settle the matter. On the following day the
Korean Government
issued its proclamation of neutrality as between Russia
and Japan. This curious
action, taken before any declaration of war or any act
of hostility, was a
pretty demonstration of Russian tactics. It was evident
that in case of war
Japan would be the first in the field and Korea would
naturally be the road by
which she would attack Russia. Therefore while the two
were technically at
peace with each other Korea was evidently induced by
Russia to put forth a
premature declaration of neutrality in order to
anticipate any use of Korean
territory by Japanese troops. At the time this was done
the Foreign Office was
shorn of all real power and was only the mouth-piece
through which these
friends of Russia spoke in order to make their
pronouncements official. It was
already known that two of the most powerful Koreans at
court had strongly urged
that Russia be asked to send troops to guard the
imperial palace in Seoul and
the Japanese were keenly on the lookout for evidences of
bad faith in the matter
of this declared neutrality, When, therefore, they
picked up a boat on the
Yellow Sea a few days later and found on it a Korean
bearing a letter to Port
Arthur asking for troops, and that, while unofficial in
form, it came from the
very officials who had promulgated the declaration of
neutrality, it became
abundantly clear that the spirit of neutrality was
non-existent. It must be
left to the future historian to declare whether the
Japanese were justified in
impairing a declared neutrality that existed only in
name and under cover of
which the Korean officials were proved to be acting in a
manner distinctly
hostile to the interests of Japan. All through January
the Japanese were busy
making military stations every fifteen miles between
Fusan and Seoul. All along
the line small buildings were erected, sufficiently
large to house twenty or
thirty men. On January 22nd Gen. Ijichi arrived in Seoul
as military attaché of
the Japanese Legation. The appointment of a man of such
[page
522]
rank as this was most significant and should have
aroused the Russians to a
realizing sense of their danger, but it did not do so.
Four days later thia
general made a final appeal to the Korean Government,
asking for some definite
statement as to its attitude toward Russia and Japan.
The Foreign Office
answered that the government was entirely neutral. Two
days later the Japanese
landed a large amount of barley at the port of Kunsan, a
few hours’ run south
of Chemulpo, and a light railway of the Decauville type
was also landed in the
same place. On the 29th all Korean students were
recalled from Japan.
On
February the first the Russians appeared to be the only
ones who did not
realize that trouble was brewing, otherwise why should
they have stored 1,500
tons of coal and a quantity of barley in their godown on
Roze Island in
Chemulpo Harbor on the second of that month? On the
seventh the government
received a dispatch from Wiju saying that seveal
thousand Russian troops were
approaching the border and that the Japanese merchants
and others were
preparing to retire from that place. The same day the
Foreign Office sent to
all the open ports orderrng that news should be
immediately telegraphed of any
important movements.
On
the eighth day of February the Japanese posted notices
in Seoul and vicinity
that what Japan was about to do was dictated by motives
of right and justice
and that the property and personal rights of Koreans
would be respected.
Koreans were urged to report any cases of ill-treatment
to the Japanese
authorities and immediate justice was promised. From
this day the port of
Chemulpo was practically blockaded by the Japanese and
only by their consent
could vessels enter or clear.
Having
arrived at the point of actual rupture between Japan and
Russia, it is
necessary before entering into any details of the
struggle to indicate the
precise bearing of it upon Korea. Japan has always
looked upon Korea as a land
whose political status and affinities are of vital
interest to herself, just as
England once looked upon the Cinque ports, namely as a
possible base of hostile
action, and therefore to be carefully watched. One of
two things have therefore
been deemed essential, either that Korea should be
thoroughly independent
[page 533]
or that she should be under a Japanese protectorate.
These two ideas have
animated different parties in Japan, and have led to
occasional troubles. There
is one radical faction which has consistently and
persistently demanded that
Japan’s suzerainty over Korea should be established and
maintained, and it was
the unwillingness of the Japanese authorities to adopt
strong measures in the
Peninsula which led to the Satsuma Rebellion. Another
large fraction of the
Japanese, of more moderate and rational view, are
committed to the policy of
simply holding to the independence of Korea, arguing
very rightly that if such
independence is maintained and the resources of the
country are gradually
developed Japan will reap all the material advantages of
the situation without
shouldering the burden of the Korean administration or
meeting the violent
opposition of the Koreans which such a step would
inevitably entail. It is this
latter policy which has prevailed and according to which
Japan has attempted to
work during the past three decades. It is this which
actuated her during the
period of China’s active claim to suzerainty and finally
caused the war of 1894
which finally settled the question of Korea’s
independence. But following upon
this came the encroachments of Russia in Manchuria and
the adoption of a
vigorous policy in Korea. Japan’s efforts to preserve
the intrinsic autonomy of
Korea were rendered abortive partly through mistakes
which her own
representatives and agents made but still more through
the supineness and
venality of Korean officials. The subjects of the Czar
at the capital of Korea
made use of the most corrupt officials at court and
through them opposed
Japanese interests at every point. Furthermore they made
demands for exclusive
rights in different Korean ports and succeeded in
encroaching upon Korean
sovereignty in Yongampo. The evident policy of Russia
was to supplant Japan in
the peninsula, and no reasonable person can fail to see
that it was their
ultimate plan to add Korea to the map of Russia. The
cause of the war was,
therefore, the necessity laid upon Japan of
safe-guarding her vital interests,
nay her very existence, by checking the encroachments of
Russia upon Korean
territory.
But
before submitting the matter to the arbitrament of the
sword Japan exerted
every effort to make Russia define [page
524]
her intentions in the Far East. With a patience that
elicited the admiration of the world she kept plying
Russia with pertinent
questions until at last it was revealed that Russia
intended to deal with
Manchuria as she wished and would concede Japanese
interests in Southern Korea
only and even then only as Japan would engage not to act
in that sphere as
Russia was acting in Manchuria.
All
this time the Japanese people were clamoring for war.
They wanted to get at the
throat of their manifest foe; but their Government, in a
masterly way, held
them in check, kept its own secrets so inviolable as to
astonish the most
astute diplomatists of the day, and at last, when the
hour struck,, she
declared for war without having weakened the enthusiasm
of her people and
without giving occasion to adverse critics to say that
she had yielded to
popular importunity. When she communicated to Russia her
irreducible minimum
one would think that even the blind could see that war
was certain to follow
soon. But even then, if there is any truth in direct
evidence, the great
majority of the Russians laughed the matter aside as
impossible. The moderation
and self-control of Japan was counted to her for
hesitation, so that when the
moment for action came and Japan sprang upon her like a
tigress robbed of her
whelps, Russia cried aloud that she had been wronged..
It was on the morning of
the seventh that Baron Rosen’s credentials had been
handed back to him in
Tokyo. The evening before this the Japanese Minister had
left St. Petersburg.
This in itself was a declaration of war but forty hours
elapsed before Japan
struck the first blow. During those hours Russia had
ample time in which to
withdraw her boats from Chenrulpo even though the
Japanese refused to transmit
telegrams to Seoul. A fast boat from Port Arthur could
easily have brought the
message.
It
was on the sixth and seventh that reports circulated in
Seoul that the Japanese
were landing large bodies of troops at Kunsan or Asan or
both. These rumors
turned out to be false, but beneath them was the fact
that a fleet was
approaching Chemulpo. The question has been insistently
asked why the Russian
Minister did not inform the commanders of these Russian
vessels and see to it
that they were clear of the harbor before these rumors
were realized. The [page
525]
answer as given is that the Russian Minister had no
control over these boats.
They had their orders to remain in Chemulpo and they
must stay. One would think
that there would be at least enough raport
between the civil and military (or naval) authorities to
use the one in
forwarding the interests of the other.
Even
yet the Russians did not appreciate the seriousness of
the situation, but they
decided that it was time to send notice to their
authorities in Port Arthur of
what was rumored at Chemulpo. So the small gunboat Koryetz made ready to move out. Her
captain, Belaieff, proposed to
the Russian Consul that the Russian steamship Sungari, which was in port, should go with
the Koryetz and thus enjoy her protection, but
the agent of the company
which owned the steamship strongly objected to her
leaving the neutral port at
such a time. He evidently realized in part the acuteness
of the situation. So
the Sungari remained
at her anchorage
and the Koryetz steamed out of port at two o’clock in
the afternoon. Now, the
harbor of Chemulpo is a somewhat peculiar one, for in
one sense it is
land-locked and in another it is not. It is formed by
islands between which
there are many openings to the open sea, but most of
these are so shallow that
ships of medium draught do not dare attempt them. There
is but one recognized
entrance and that is from the southwest, or between that
and the south. This
entrance is several miles wide and in the center of it
lies Round Island. When
the Koryetz
arrived at the exit of
the harbor she suddenly found herself surrounded by
torpedo-boats. The only
witnesses of what occurred at this point are the
Japanese and the Russians and
we can only give their accounts. The Russians say that
the Japanese launched four
torpedoes at the Koryetz
and when
within ten feet of her side they sank. Another statement
is that a shot was
fired on board the Koryetz but it
was
a mere accident! The Japanese claim that the Koryetz fired first. If we try to weigh
the probabilities it seems
impossible that the torpedoes of the Japanese should
have missed the Koryetz
if the torpedo-boats were as
near as the Russians claim. On the other hand the
admission on the part of a
single Russian that the first gun was fired on the Koryetz, even though by accident, is
rather damaging, for it is
more [page 526]
than singular that an accident should have happened at
that precise time. It is
a tax on the credulity of the public to give this lame
excuse.
In
any case it makes little difference who began the
firing. The Japanese had
already seized the Russian steamer Mukden
in the harbor of Fusan and the war had begun. The
Japanese doubtless held with
Polonius, that if it is necessary to fight the man who
strikes first and
hardest will have the advantage. The Koryetz
turned back to her anchorage and the Russians became
aware of the extreme
precariousncss of their position. Whatever attitude one
may take toward the
general situation it is impossible not to extend a large
degree of sympathy to
these Russians personally. Through no fault of their own
they were trapped in
the harbor and found too late that they must engage in a
hopeless fight in
order to uphold the honor of the Russian flag. But even
yet it was not sure
that the neutrality of the port would be ignored by the
Japanese. Lying at
anchor among neutral vessels in a neutral harbor, there
was more or less reason
to believe that they were safe for the time being.
About
four o’clock in the afternoon of February eighth, which
fell on Monday, three
Japanese transports entered Chemulpo harbor from the
south, convoyed by
cruisers and torpedo-boats. They seemingly took no
notice of the two Russian
boats lying at anchor and were evidently sure that the
Russians would not fire
upon the transports. It would be interesting to know
whether the Japanese were
relying upon the declared neutrality of the port in thus
venturing or whether
they felt sure that their own superior strength would
keep the Russians still,
or whether, again, they were certain that the Russians
had orders not to fire
the first gun. But it is bootless to ask questions that
can never be answered.
Here is where the assailant has the advantage. He can
choose the time and
method of his attack. We may surmise that had the
Russians divined the intentions
of the Japanese and had foreseen the outcome they would
have acted differently,
but divination of Japanese intentions does not seem to
be Russians’ strong
point.
As
soon as the Japanese came to anchor preparations were
made for the immediate
landing of the troops, and the [page 527]
cruisers and torpedo-boats, that had convoyed them in,
left the port and joined
the fleet outside. This fleet consisted of six cruisers
and several
torpedo-boats. The Asama and the Chiyoda were
the most powerful of the
cruisers, the former being nearly half as large again as
the Variak.
Night
came on, and throughout its long hours the Japanese
troops, by the light of
huge fires burning on the jetty, were landed and marched
up into the town. When
morning came everyone was in a stat,e of expectancy. If
there was a Japanese
fleet outside they doubtless had other work on hand than
simply watching two
Russian boats. Nor could they leave them behind, for one
of them was Russia’s
fastest cruiser and might steam out of the harbor at any
time and destroy
Japanese transports. Knowing, as we do now, that an
immediate attack on Port
Arthur had been decided upon we see it was impossible to
leave these Russian
boats in the rear. Japan had never recognized the
nuetrality of Korea, for she knew
that the declaration was merely a Russian move to
embarrass her, and she never
hesitated a moment to break the thin shell of pretense.
About
ten o’clock a sealed letter was handed to Captain
Rudnieff of the Variak,
It was from the Japanese Admiral
and had been sent through the Russian Consulate. It was
delivered on board the Variak by the
hand of Mr. N. Krell, a
Russian resident of the port. This letter informed the
Russian commander that
unless both Russian boats should leave the anchorage and
steam out of the bay
before twelve o’clock the Japanese would come in at four
o’clock and attack
them where they lay. Captain Rudnieff immediately
communicated the startling
intelligence to Captain Belaieff of the Koryetz
and to the commanders of the British, American, French
and Italian war-vessels.
We are informed that a conference of the various
commanders took place and that
the Russians were advised to lie where they were. The
British commander was
deputed to confer with the Japanese, This was done by
signal and it is said a
protest was made against the proposed violation of
neutrality of the port, and
that the neutral boats refused to shift their anchorage.
But all complications
of this nature were avoided by the determination of the
Russians to accept the
challenge. This they deemed [page 528]
to be due their flag. It is not improbable that they now
foresaw that the
neutrality of the port would not avail them against the
enemy. By remaining at
anchor they could only succeed in involving France,
Italy, Great Britain and
the United States, and there would be sure to be those
who would charge the
Russians with cowardice. If this was to begin the war it
must at least prove
the dauntless courage of the servants of the Czar. So
the commander of the Variak ordered
the decks cleared for
action. It has been stated that he would have preferred
to have the Koryetz
stay at her anchorage, for by a
quick dash it was just possible that the swift Variak alone might be able to evade the
Japanese and run the
gauntlet successfully. But the commander of the Koryetz refused to listen to any such
proposition. If the only
honor to be gotten out of the affair was by a desperate
attack he was not going
to forego his share of it. He would go out and sink with
the Variak.
So the Koryetz also cleared for
action. It was done in such haste that all moveables
that were unnecessary were
thrown overboard, a topmast that would not come down in
the usual manner was
hewn down with an axe and by half past eleven the two
vessels were ready to go
out to their doom. It was an almost hopeless task — an
entirely hopeless one
unless the Japanese should change their minds or should
make some grave
mistake, and neither of these things was at all
probable. The Russians were
going to certain destruction. Some call it rashness, not
bravery, but they say
not well. The boats were doomed in any case and it was
the duty of their
officers and crews to go forth and in dying inflict what
injury they could upon
the enemy. To go into battle with chances equal is the
act of a brave man, but
to walk into the jaws of death with nothing but defeat
in prospect is the act
of a hero, and the Japanese would be the last to detract
from the noble record
that the Russians made. Time has not yet lent its glamor
to this event, we are
too near it to see it in proper proportions, but if the
six hundred heroes of
Balaclava, veterans of many a fight, gained undying
honor for the desperate
charge they made how shall not the future crown these
men who, having never
been in action before, made such a gallant dash at the
foe?
THE KOREA
REVIEW.
DECEMBER, 1904
Retrospect of
1904.
It takes no
prophetic eye to see that the year of grace 1904 will
prove to have been one of
the most momentous in the history of this country. This
surmise is based on the
following historical proposition. We need not go further
back than the
beginning of our era. About that time three kingdoms
arose in the peninsula, Sil-la,
Pak-je and Koguryu. The general characteristics of these
three were that Silla,
the farthest from China, was pro-Chinese, Pak-je, on the
opposite side of the
peninsula from Japan, was pro-Japanese, and Koguryu in
the north was neither
pro-Japanese nor pro-Chinese. This general attitude may
be said to have brought
about a sort of equilibrium. In the seventh century
Sil-la obtained control of
nearly the whole of Korea and began that marvelous
absorption of Chinese ideas
which has left such indelible impress upon her. But at
the same time her
intercourse with Japan began to be more close. China
made no effort to enforce
her commands here and this may be called the golden age
of Korea. But like all
golden ages it fell into corrupt ways and early in the
tenth century it was
overthrown by Wang-gon, who founded the Koryu dynasty.
The five centuries during
which this dynasty flourished were the palmy days of
Buddhism. This cult had
come from India by way of China, but the mysticism of it
had appealed far less
to the hard-headed Chinese than to the more idealistic
Japanese, the result
being that on this score there was [page
530]
greater rapport between Korea and Japan than between
Korea and China. This helped to preserve the equilibrium
until the rise of the
Mongols. They, of course, swept eveything before them
and held Korea firmly in
their grip for a century and more. But it was purely
political. The Koreans
learned nothing from the northern savages nor was any
definite impression made
upon Korean life or institutions by their temporary
usurpations. Soon after the
Mongols retreated from Peking to their native wilds in
the middle of the
thirteenth century the Koryu dynasty, utterly corrupt,
fell before the sword of
Yi T’a-jo and the present dynasty arose.
The
Mings of China held Korea with the gentle grasp of a
parent rather than of a
suzerain, and at the same time trade relations were
resumed with Japan, which
had been interrupted by the long series of Japanese
freebooting expeditions.
For two hundred years Korea was quite independent but at
last the great
struggle came when the Japanese Hideyoshi tried to make
Korea a stepping stone
to the conquest of China. After eight years of war this
was put down, but the
mutual attitude of Japan and China was henceforth that
of jealousy over Korea.
Early in the seventeenth century the Japanese trading
post in Fusan grew to
great proportions and brought Korea and Japan into
profitable relations with
each other. The victorious Manchus swept over Korea
again in the middle of that
century and made Korea politically their vassal, though
their actual influence
on Korea was no greater than that of the Mongols had
been. When they retired
Japan offered to take the field with Korea to break the
bond which the Manchus
had forged but Korea wisely declined the offer. From
that time until 1876 Korea
remained practically free, for China looked upon her
hermit condition with
complacency. The awakening of Japan put a new face upon
everything. The
independence of Korea was made the main plank in Japan’s
eastern policy and
China weakly accepted the fact and waived her claim to
suzerainty until too
late, for treaties with several western powers were an
argument hard to get
behind. China had been caught napping. [page 531]
She tried to regain the lost ground but in so doing
brought upon herself the war of 1894. The equilibrium
had been violently
disturbed but it was resumed when Russia stepped in and
faced Japan. From that
time until the opening of the present war Korea remained
practically
independent.
In
summing it all up we may say ( 1 ) that China is
permanently out of the
reckoning. She will never claim nor obtain paramount
influence in Korea, And
(2) as for Russia and Japan there is much reason for
believing that the
unstable equilibrium of former times can never be
resumed. Whichever side wins
Korea will be very much under the wing of the winning
party. Should Russia
merely reoccupy the whole of Manchuria, Japan would make
a final stand in Korea
and as long as she was there Korea would be “in her
sleeve.” If Russia should
drive Japan out, Korea would be Russian territory. There
is some talk about
other Powers having a say as to the disposition of
Korea, but this may be set
aside as mere sentiment. Great Britain is Japan’s ally
and she will not
interfere in Japan’s plans, nor could she well interfere
if Japan suffered
reverses and lost her control of Korea, France is
Russia’s ally and for like
reasons she will not interfere in either case. There
remains the United States
and Germany, neither of which will lift a finger except
to insure an open door
for trade.
The
proposition therefore upon which we base the statement
that this is a most
momentous year for Korea is that the equilibrium which
has existed off and on
for 2,000 years has been definitively broken and Korea
will never again be able
to pit one enemy against the other. She must find some
other ground on which to
base her independence. It stands to reason therefore
that in her absolute lack
of physical power her only resource is to comport
herself in such a way that
the Power which stands able to compel her shall find it
more to its own
advantage to leave her independent than to impair her
independence. This could
not be done if Russia were paramount, for the very idea
of independence is
repugnant to her feelings and her policy. The murder of
Finland [page
532]
shows this. The very existence of the spirit of freedom
in Finland was a menace
to Muscovite institutions. It would be the same
anywhere. What would happen if
Russia and the United States were contiguous countries.
They would have to put
a wide strip of neutral territory between them or build
a wall a mile high — or
there would be the dogs to pay! But supposing that
things remain as they are,
then Korea has a chance to preserve her independence
only by proving to Japan
that such independence will be of greater value to Japan
herself than the
absorption of Korea will be. We see no other way out of
the dilemma.
In
what way then can the independence of Korea be made of
greater value to Japan
than the annexation of the peninsula would be? This can
be answered only by
discovering what Japan wants of Korea. After such a
decimating war as the one
in progress we doubt whether there will be a large
demand for room in which to
expand the population of Japan. The war is not yet over
and even if it results
in Japanese success Japan will need all the men she can
muster within her own
borders to build again the broken fabric of her state.
Besides, the territory
of Manchuria and the Ussuri will give ample room for
such expansion without
absorbing Korea. No, what Japan wants of Korea is that
she should be thoroughly
loyal to the pledge of mutual helpfulness that she has
taken and that the
resources of the country be opened up in an adequate
manner. Now, if these
things can be effected without throwing upon Japan the
onus of the actual
administration of affairs in Korea we are convinced that
Korea’s autonomy would
remain unimpaired; but if there is to be the constant
fear lest Korea betray
Japan to her enemies or if in a spirit of stubborn
conservatism Korea refuses
to effect much needed reforms, then we say it looks
exceedingly doubtful. All
sentimental considerations aside, we may depend upon it
that in case of victory
Japan will do with Korea what she pleases, and Korea has
it in her power so to
act that Japan will please to preserve the independence
and autonomv of the
country.
[page 533]
In making a retrospect of the past year we have to ask
whether Korea has taken
steps to insure this much desired object. If we are
forced to answer in the
negative the fault lies not solely with Korea herself.
If Japan had promptly
instituted needed reforms and given an impetus to a new
movement for which the
Koreans were entirely prepared and indeed eagerly
awaiting, the present
situation would have been much more cheering. In our
opinion the effort to make
individual profit out of Korea’s helpless condition
should have been sharply
checked by Japan, and the prejudices of the people
should have been soothed by
a conciliatory and helpful attitude. This accomplished,
Japan could have gone
much further along the line of Korean internal
development than she will now be
able to do.
But
as the year drew to a close the Japanese seemed to have
put aside the more
selfish considerations and begun with some sane
suggestions as to a
reorganization of the government which would do away
with much unnecessary
expense and would leave the government with funds in
hand whereby to strengthen
some of her weak points. Education has come to the fore
and it looks as if
steps were being taken to make a great advance along
this line. It is to be
hoped so. On the whole the year closes with much
brighter prospects than were
to be hoped for earlier in the year.
The
Educational Needs of Korea.
THIRD PAPER
Wc intimated
in a former paper that there is a way out of the
educational impasse
which this people has reached.
The solution is a double one and must be a combination
of government and
private effort. We have asked where the teachers are to
come from to teach the
common schools throughout the country. If we were to
wait until enough teachers
were carefully trained for these positions we should
never have them. The work [page
534]
must be a gradual and steady one. This does not mean
that we must begin with a
few schools and increase the number as fast as teachers
are ready. There is a far
better way. There are many young men of good parts who
are capable of teaching
the Chinese character together with Korean history and
geography. Let us
suppose that schools are started in every district with
these three branches in
the curriculum. The teachers are not as yet competent to
teach arithemetic or
general geography or any of the natural sciences, but
one object will have been
achieved, namely the getting of the boys into schools.
Suppose now that these
schools are operated eight months in the year and that
during the remaining
four months the teachers congregate at their provincial
capitals and study
under the direction of a first-class man sent down from
Seoul for the purpose.
Enough men of the proper kind could be found who would
spend the summer months
in this way on a good salary. During those four months
the teachers could learn
more than enough to teach their schools the following
school year. For each
summer school that they attended they would receive a
certificate. It is quite
certain that after four or five years of such work a
thoroughly good body of
teachers could be worked up. Of course some would be
weeded out but the average
would probably be fairly satisfactory. Their study
during the summer would be
based on text books that were prepared at Seoul and
these would be supplied to
all the country schools.
It
should not be understood that these teachers are to be
Seoul men. Each district
could supply the teacher for its school and in this way
the dissatisfaction
which always attends a change of residence in Korea
would be avoided.
As
for the financing of these schools, the government
should authorize each
prefect to deduct from the government revenue the amount
necessary to run the
school; or better still would be the plan to lower the
government tax by this
amount and levy the difference on the people as a direct
local tax for the
specific purpose of [page 535] education.
This in itself would be beneficial in impressing the
fact that the people are
themselves directly responsible for local schools. In
time it will be found
that each district will need more than one school, in
fact some will need a
dozen, but at its inception this would be impossible
because the vast number of
teachers could not be handled in the summer schools to
good advantage. But
after say four years the best of the teachers could be
selected to carry on
summer schools for teachers in their districts, and so
the system would spread
to the smaller villages. The salaries of the teachers
would vary according to
the attainments they had made as vouched for in their
credentials received each
year from the summer schools.
We
venture to say that such a scheme as this could be
carried out without
difficulty and without the government feeling the burden
of the expense. The whole
thing could be done with a fraction of the money now
wasted on the army. There
are some 360 districts. Let us suppose the teacher’s
salary is $20 to start
with. This would call for $86,400 a year. Fuel,
superintendence etc. would
double this. As the teacher would receive this salary
twelve months in the year
he would be able to pay his own expentes at the summer
school. The whole thing
could be done on something less than $250,000 a year.
This is less than one
sixteenth the amount spent on the army! Supposing it
cost even double the
amount here specified, the government could well afford
to do it.
So
far as text books are concerned the cost to the
government should be reduced to
nothing, for each scholar could afford to pay at least
the cost price of his
books.
Such
is a rough outline of a plan that appears to me to be
not ideal but workable
and as near the ideal as we can hope to get at the
beginning. There may be some
who will object to beginning with the Chinese character.
No one is more anxious
than I to see the Chinese character take its place where
it belongs alongside
the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but this cannot be done at a
single bound. We
should advocate only such a knowledge of [page 536]
the ideographs as would enable a boy to read the daily
papers
and such other things as are printed in the mixed
script. This will not do him
much harm but meanwhile we will have schools. That is
the main thing. The study
of Chinese is better than nothing and country schools
would mean this or
nothing. We must not forget the intense prejudice of the
people in favor of
Chinese. If it were dropped from the curriculum not one
boy in ten in the
country would care to go to school. The point is to give
him gradually
something besides the Chinese and, as time goes by,
increase the ratio of these
new branches. There is no question that the practical
studies will soon wean
the student away from his present absorption in the
Chinese and the way will be
opened to drop the latter altogether. Meanwhile books on
interesting topics
should be printed in the pure native character and the
student encouraged to
read and discover the meaning even though it be
difficult at first.
So
much for the general system, but there still remains the
important question of
a good school of high grade for Seoul.
There
are hundreds of half educated boys in this city who have
graduated from various
schools or have left before graduating. No provision has
been made for higher
education excepting in exclusive mission schools. How
can a good school be established?
We believe there is only one way. There must be an
endowed institution under
competent foreign direction. This institution must be in
the hands of a board
of trustees composed of men who know how and men who
will be a guarantee of the
continuity of the system. One thinks naturally of the
Doshisha in Kyoto. A
school founded on similar principles would be still
surer of a consistent
history than that one has had. We say the institution
must be an endowed one,
for the vicissitudes of government administration would
not be a guarantee of
unhindered operation. It should be put above and beyond
the manipulation of
politicians. Its professorships should not figure in the
list of place for
political preferment. It must be entirely outside the
spoils system.It
should be entirely [page
537]
unsectariatn, but the study of science along western
lines would inevitably
give it an impetus at least toward the ethics of
Christianity. It would
unfailingly raise the question of the relative merits of
Christianity and the
eastern cults. We do not hesitate to say that in our
opinion the teaching force
in such a school should be at least not hostile to
Christianity. If I am taken
to task in this as being narrow I have but to answer
that there is no evidence
anywhere that Buddhism or Shintoism or Mohommedanism is
in vital sympathy with
the higher levels of education or of intellectual
independence. Beyrout and
Roberts colleges form the high water mark of education
in Turkey. The Imperial
University of Tokyo offers no incentive toward Buddhism
but on the other hand
it enlightens men beyond the possibility of belief in
the pessimisms of that
cult. Buddhism answers no questions. The Doshisha stands
as high,
intrinsically, as Tokyo University, but what has
Buddhism done for popular
education in Japan? We affirm that Protestant
Christianity is the only religion
in the world that is not afraid of the very broadest and
deepest and most
untrammelled education. Agnosticism and atheism are not
afraid of broad
education but they lack the vital element of sympathy.
They give no warmth, no
vitality, because they dare not go beyond the dead wall
of physical matter or
propose any satisfactory answer to the question as to
the final reason for all
this. We say this much only to give the reason why we
believe such a school
should be at least not hostile to Christianity.
As
to the endowment for such a school we think it should
come largely from
Koreans. As to the ability of Koreans to do this there
is no manner of
question, but it is quite certain that they would not
give money if the control
of the institution and its funds were to be in the hands
of Koreans. This is a
harsh truth, but truth nevertheless. The kind of men who
would recognize the
value of such a school enough to give generously to it
are the ones who realize
how far short their countrymen have yet come of the
ability to handle a trust
sum permanently according to a fixed standard. The ups
and
[page 538]
downs of political life would make it impossible to
place this power in the
hands of any body of Koreans. It should be in the hands
of those who are
entirely separate from possible politics, who have deep
sympathy with the
Koreans, who are permanent residents of Korea. I know of
no such body of men
outside the missionary body. Diplomatic people are not
permanent fixtures.
Government employees are here to-day and to-morrow they
are gone. All these may
come and these may go but the missionary goes on forever
In other words the
school should be a second Doshisha. Its standard should
be high and its
graduates should command the respect and the esteem of
the government. They
would step into positions of importance and exert a
powerful influence in the
destiny of the country.
We
believe that most of the readers of this Review wish to
see the continuation of
an autonomous Korean government and an independent
people. If the Koreans would
wake up to the necessities of the case and show signs of
a determination to
follow the line of development marked out by Japan we
are confident that the government
of the latter country would be better satisfied than by
any other solution of
the problem. Can this be done otherwise than by a
campaign of education? If
not, what does this people need most, if it be not a
genuinely and thoroughly
good school as an object lesson, a school of which the
whole nation can be
proud? If so, again, is there any possibility of their
evolving such a school
themselves? If not, upon whom does the duty devolve? It
devolves upon those who
can do it without there ever being the possible breath
of suspicion that the
institution was or could be partisan in its politics or
that it could be
manipulated for partisan purposes.
We
have no suggestions to make as to what steps could be
taken to put such a plan
on foot; we simply state what ought to be done and what
might be done. There
are those who say that Christian missionaries are
interested in education only
as it directly affects the adherents of the church, but
we contend that
Christianity and general education are allies and not
enemies and that [page
539] the
spread of general education would surely work in the
interests of Christianity,
Not that missionary workers should be diverted from
their specific work; this
would hardly do, but they could take the lead in the
matter of working up such
a school and the actual workers in the institution could
be secured from
abroad, perhaps under the auspices of the Student
Volunteer Movement,
Spelling
Reform.
To THE EDITOR
KOREA REVIEW.
Dear Sir :—
Your October
number contained several letters on spelling reform from
the side of the
conservatives with their battle cry of “go slow” well in
evidence, and the old
bogie about forcing a change on the Korean people by
foreigners again held up
to frighten the timid hearted. They have now also a new
thing to say about the
new spelling. It is the work of a “Pied piper of Hamlin”
who has hypnotized a
number of foolish followers by a weird pipe he blows,
and is “leading” them to
destruction. To this I would reply that it would be far
more profitable to
discuss the principles of orthography, and the effects
of the adoption of a
scientific phonertic system upon the language than to
analyze the psychical
phenomena manifested in the advocates of simplification.
Dr. Gale did pipe a
lot of useless characters out of the Korean alphabet,
and has had as little
thanks as that one did who got the rats out of the
granaries. And to judge from
the apparent balance of opinion in Seoul when the
question was discussed, his
winsome pipe has had its effect on human intellects as
well. But it was no
credit to the town councillors of Hamlin that they were
not subject to the
pipers pipe; it only proved that they did not know or
appreciate melody as much
as the rats or the children. That Dr. Gale has no
followers from the part of
the country where ** is *, and * is *— the land of ***
and *** etc., only shows
that the citizens [page 540]
there have not sufficient ear for music to follow
Orpheus himself. Browning’s
parable was no doubt meant to show the thankless task
that the reformer has set
himself. So it has always been. “It must needs be that
reforms come, but woe
unto that man by whom they come.”
One
of the correspondents of your October number tries to be
facetious at the
expense of an “enthusiastic reformer” who was candid
enough to admit the
difficulty which his eye experienced in getting used to
orthographic change. He
leaves the inference to be drawn that if the change were
temporarily
embarassing to a foreigner who had studied Korean
spelling as he had his English,
it would be equally embarrassing to the Korean people as
a whole. But if he (or
she) were as candid in his turn as the “reformer” he
would admit that such is
not the case. Not one Korean in ten thousand can spell
correctly. When the
committee of the Presbyterian Council on spelling reform
was meeting it was
maintained that there were Koreans who pay attention to
spelling, and can spell
correctly. Indeed one of the Koreans present was
mentioned as being a very good
speller according to the old system. A “reformer”
present turned to the Korean
scriptures and taking the first word that his eye met
for a test asked him to
write the word ***. He wrote it wrongly two different
ways before he at last
hit on the way it goes in the book. The fact of the
matter is that as far as
writing goes all Koreans write phonetically. The trouble
is that there are so
many different signs for one sound that the area of
choice is too wide, so that
for example while each is writing phonetically they will
write for the same word
one * one * and one *. And Koreans are as elastic in
their reading as in their
writing; that is to say: — they are so used to reading
various styles of
spelling that it doesn’t jar them to see a word spelt a
little differently from
the approved model. That no doubt was the reason for the
apparently
contradictory position of the “Enthusiastic Advocate.”
Now
that spelling reform is before us I would like to draw
attention to still more
radical changes that need to be made in writing the
native script. This was [page
541]
brought to my mind on reading an article in the
Christian News where a Latin
quotation was introduced. Since Korean is written in
vertical and Latin in
horizontal lines, it was impossible to print the
quotation in the original
language and it was transliterated into Enmun so as to
conform to the vertical
direction of the lines, and in that form was with
difficulty understood by me.
This raised the question, what will we do when Korean
literature, as it
inevitably must, comes into contact with the outside
world of thought, and when
terms and names and translations and quotations in other
dialects must be
introduced into the Korean text. It can only be done
withperfection
by beginning from the present time
to educate the Korean eye to horizontal writing from
left to right. This should
not be difficult. The individual characters of both
Hanmun and Enmun are all
written from left to right so that the real current even
of these eastern
language is in a right, horizontal direction. Why the
original writers did not
keep on writing to the right but persisted in going down
vertically endangering
their sleeves by beginning at the top of the next line
before the bottom of the
previous one is dry, I cannot imagine. When foreign
‘‘sized’’ paper and steel
pens come into use with slowly drying ink, vertical
writing beginning from the
right must become very disagreeable, or necessitate the
use of the blotter for
every line.
Then again
will modem conditions permit the Enmun printer’s type to
go on in its present
complicated form, requiring so much expense for
type-making and type-setting.
Not being in close touch with Korean printing I do not
know how many different
pieces are needed to form a full set of Enmun type, but
the number must be very
large and it must make the compositor dizzy to have so
many cases round him.
When the type setting machine and the type-writer
become, as they will, as
imperatively necessary in Korea as in America, must we
not have a smaller
alphabet? And yet have we not a smaller .alphabet in
Enmun after all if we
write it in its elementary form
**************************************** only
25 in all or [page 542]
cutting out the useless * only 24. With such a simple
alphabet at hand, the
subsequent complication of matters by making them up
into syllables is
discreditable to the wonderful skill of the inventor of
the script, shows that
they did not anticipate the advent of typesetting and
proves the power of the
Chinese syllabic ideograph. Why should we not then even
at this late date try
to get the Enmun back to its old simplicity by using
separately the 24 letters
of the alphabet only. Then combining this recurrence to
first principle with
dextro-horizontal writing we would have something like
the following :—
**************************************This looks a
little strange to the eye,
resembling Greek type at first glance but a few days use
would enable one to
read as readily as in the present syllabic form.
I
expect that the “go-slow” party will be horrified at the
iconoclastic suggestion
herein embodied, or laughingly regard it as the Reductio ad absurdum of spelling reform
gone mad. Nevertheless I
would submit these considerations to them and to all who
care for Korea’s
preparation for a future close relationship with the
horizontal writing
nations, and the welding together of the literatures of
the East and West.
Yours etc.,
Argos.
A Case of Who’s
Who,
The young man
Kim was the son of a wealthy country gentleman who was
locally notorious for
his adherence to the theory that if you look after the
pennies the pounds will
look after themselves. His granaries were always full
and the constant
accumulation threatened to drive him to the expense of
new store houses, but
the bottom bags of rice rotted away or were consumed by
rats, so that things
had not as yet reached that pass. The old gentleman
winced when the time came
for putting
[page 543]
down the money for his sons’ wedding, but he did it at
last and the happy event
came off with sufficient eclat.
After
the festivities were over the bride and groom retired to
their own apartments
which had been specially fitted tip for them. But before
closing up for the
night the bridegroom made his way to the kitchen to get
a drink of water. On
returning to the nuptial apartment he was greatly
surprised, not to say
dumbfounded, to see another man putting his foot over
the threshold of the
private apartments. He leaped forward and seized the
intruder by the shoulder
and whirled him around. The latter turned and by the
light of the moon the young
man saw that the face was the exact counterpart of his
own, feature for
feature, as if he were looking into a glass, the
resemblance was complete down
to the minutest particular.
“What
do you mean by trying to enter my private room in this
manner?” he exclaimed
angrily. The man shook the hand off his shoulder and
replied:
“What
are you doing here? you mean. I am the son of the master
of this house, and
have only today been married, and now you try to prevent
my entering my own
room.” The real Kim was furious. This pretender was
actually claiming the
position of bridegroom. They began a violent dispute, in
the midst of which the
bride herself appeared upon the scene and made matters
worse as being wholly
unable to determine which man was indeed her husband.
Finally
the real Kim proposed that they lay the matter before
his father. There surely
must be some way to find out the truth. To this the
other readily consented.
They had some difiiculty in arousing the old man from
his beauty sleep but at
last they made him aware that something serious was on
the tapis and he came
forth grumbling. The real son stated the case, while the
old gentleman looked
from one face to the other in utter bewilderment.
“Now
if this other fellow is your son,” said the genuine
article, ‘‘he will be able
to answer certain questions about [page
544]
our
house, our family history and our domestic
arrangements, which no one but an intimate of the family
circle could know.”
“Surely,” said the parvenu, “put
your questions and do it in a hurry too, for I want to
get back to bed.”
“Well then, give the names
of our family genealogy back for twelve hundred years.’’
This would sorely
prove a ‘‘sticker” but no, the counterfeit bridegroom
rattled off the long list
as glibly as you please. The other listened open
mouthed.
“But
tell me in what the family wealth consists and the
sources of its revenue item
for item.” This was also done without hesitation and the
figures poured forth
correct to the fraction of a copper cash. The genuine
son swallowed hard and
made one more attempt.
“Tell
me the words of the conversation that passed between my
father and myself
yesterday when none else was about.” The interloper took
up the tale and
repeated the conversation word for word, and when he was
done he turned to the
old gentleman and said.
“Father,
how long has this thing got to be kept up? You see I am
the the real son and
this fellow, though he looks much like me, is a rascal.”
What could the old
gentleman do but agree that this was so and order his
own son off the place
under threat of severe legal penalties?
Was
there ever such an unkind fate? He went forth penniless
upon the road. He felt
of himself and pulled his ears till they tingled, to
make sure he was not
dreaming. There was no doubt about it, but that some
baneful influence was at
work there could be no question. And so he wandered on
until morning broke and
he cast himself upon a bank beside the road a prey to
the most miserable
feelings. As he sadly mused over the unkindness of
fortune a Buddhist monk came
shuffling by. He started as he saw the young man and
looked at his face long
and curiously. A sort of dark intelligenoe slowly
gathered in his eye and he
said :
“Young
man, you are in trouble and I can help you go to the
Diamond mountains and
study at the great [page 545]
monastery. Ingratiate yourself with the monks and in
some way induce them to
lend you the golden cat which sits before the great
Buddha. Take it to your
home and thus you will recover all that you have lost,”
With this he shuffled
on without waiting for any answer at all.
The
more the young man thought it over the more clearly he
saw that there was no
better plan open to him, though of what use a golden cat
would be to him was a
black mystery. In time he reached the monastery and such
was his brightness and
capacity’ to learn that he won his way to all hearts.
For three years he
remained there and by that time he had secured a
position in the esteem of the
monks that made almost any request sure of their
consent. When he deemed the
time ripe for action he hinted that he must be off, but
they entreated him to
stay. He was firm however and when they saw he was
determined to go they
insisted upon making him a present to make him remember
them. They asked him
what he would like but he said:
‘‘I
will not accept any gift from you, but if you could loan
me the golden cat that
sits before the great Buddha I will promise to bring it
back in a few weeks.”
They
all looked grave, for this was a very serious thing to
do, but they said they
would plead with the great Buddha for him.
Now
the Great Buddha was a living personage, a sacred being
who had attained a
place but one remove from the coveted nirvana. They
appointed a committee to
wait upon that awesome personage and happily they
succeeded in bringing away
the golden cat. The young man was overjoyed and thanked
them profusely. He
slipped the priceless trophy in his sleeve and turned
his feet toward home. He
tramped the weary miles with growing impatience and
excitement. At last he would
be even with his enemy.
He
climbed the last hill and looked down upon the ancestral
estates which had been
in the family for over a thousand years. They would be
his again, thanks to the
contents of his sleeve; but how? As he neared the house
it seemed to have
deteriorated greatly in the [page 546]interval
of his absence. It had a dilapidated appearance as
if it had been poorly tended and the lively throng of
servants were
conspicuously lacking. But the noise of drums and
tomtoms and pipes came from the
interior and showed him that there was still life there.
He entered the court
and asked what all the noise was about. A sad eyed
servitor explained that the
son of the master had long been ill and that the mudangs
were trying to
exorcise the evil spirits of disease. He found his
father sitting in a dejected
attitude and evidently aging fast. He introduced himself
as a distant relative
and entered into conversation with the old gentleman.
“The
trouble is that my son refuses to see a doctor or take
any medicine but makes
me pay out all my money for these miserable mountebanks
and sorceresses who do
no good at all but eat up my wealth. I shall be beggered
soon.”
“Let
me see your son,” said the young man, “I am something of
a physician myself and
might be able to prescribe. As a member of the family,
though distant, I am
much interested in this son of yours.” The old man was
pleased and went to ask
the sick man if he would see the new-comer but the
patient passionately refused
and adjured his father not to let the man come near him.
This message the old
man sadly delivered.
“But
when a man is ill he ought not to be consulted. Let me
only see his face and I
will tell you what must be done to cure him.” As a last
resort the father
consented and told the supposed physician to go to the
sick room unannounced.
The young man approached the door, opened it slightly
and thrust in his hand
and and sleeve. The Golden Cat gave a leap and landed in
the room. The young
man drew the door shut and fastened it. Inside there was
a terrrible uproar.
There were squealings and growlings and scratchings and
spittings. The
furniture seemed to be undergoing complete destruction
but at last all was
still again.
The
young man again opened the door a crack and thrust in
his hand and instantly
the cat leaped into his sleeve and turned to gold again.
Without looking into [page
547] the
room the young man hurried to his father and told him to
enter the sick
chamber. The door was opened and a curious sight met
their eyes. The room was
strewn with broken fragments of furniture and in the
midst of them lay the body
of an enormous rat but the sick man was gone.
The son threw himself at his fathers feet. “Don’t you
know me, Father? I am
your real son. This horrible vermin with his impish
power assumed my shape and
deceived you. As a constant infester of the house he had
learned its secrets
and so was able to answer the questions. The Golden Cat
has done the work,”
and he drew it forth from his sleeve and showed it to
the wondering old man
Of
course there was nothing to do but strangle the bride,
and after this was done
the house resumed its old time respectability.
Correspondence.
Ham Hung,
November 28th, 1904,
Editor of
Korea Review, Dear Sir:—
Affairs in the
whole region South of Ham Hung are very quiet. Nothing
is heard now of the
Chin-po Society who are probably sorry now that their
hair is short in the cold
weather. Since my last visit to Ham Hung the roads and
the bridges have been
fixed in the same way as between Seoul and Wonsan i.e.
wide with level crossing
and an easy grade.
The
only thing new in Wonsan is the new railroad terminus
business. The engineers
have marked out a large tract including the whole water
front of the Korean
town, half of the Korean village and a large part of the
valley up as far as
Dr. Hardie’s house. They have included a field of Mr.
Fenwick’s and part of Dr.
Hardie’s and have issued notice that none of the land in
the [page
548]district
so staked off can be bought, sold, or improved
without permission of the military authorities.
Here
in Ham Hung the city is still deserted, many of the
people having fled recently
as a result of a new scare. The necromancers prophesied
on account of a study
of the character * that on the 10th month the Russians
would come and fight a
big battle here. The town is like a plague city, hardly
a person to be met on
the streets. The Russians while not residing in force in
Hong Won send a large
patrol daily from Puk Chung direction to visit that city
and have lately marked
out a lot of houses that they intend to commandeer for
residence of soldiers.
They are also said to be extending their telegraph to
Hong Won. Junks with
bread and supplies from Vladivostok now come as far
south as Sin Ch’ang. The
Christians here are all feeling secure since Mr. M — is
here now, living in his
new house.
A
messenger recently from Song Chin said that the Russians
finding their tents
too cold, have folded them “like the Arabs” but not
“silently stolen away.”
They have turned in on the warm Korean floors, and as
the Korean settlement in
Song Chin is so small it makes close quarters. One
Korean teacher has ten in
his little house. The authorites seized the Mission
Church over a month ago and
made it a residence for their Red Cross people probably
because of the Red
Cross Church flag which was flown over it by the
Christians. They also ordered
the Korean who is watching Mr. R — ‘s house to put his
things away in one room
as they were going to occupy that house. As the
messenger left the next day he
did not know whether they had entered it or not. I heard
just before leaving
Wonsan that 500 Russian foot soldiers had arrived in
Song Chin but whether true
or not I cannot say.
Last
year’s good crops have made food plenty and prices cheap
but for some reason
the exchange for cash has been very high in N. E. Korea,
a yen bringing only
about 460 cash to 500 cash for the past few months
making living very costly
for people whose salary is in Yen.
[page
549] Editorial
Comment.
In our last
issue we said that it would be impossible to carry on
this magazine on the
lines already laid down, but our subscribers were
invited to suggest ways and
means by which it could be continued. We intimated at
the time that the only
difficulty in the way was the paucity of contributors.
Since that issue went
forth we have been in receipt of numerous protests
against the discontinuance
of the Review and of offers of aid in the matter of
contributions. S. A. Beck,
the Manager of the Methodist Publishing House, has
agreed to assume the
business management of the Review, and thus relieve the
editor of a great deal
of office work in connection with it.
Under
these circumstances and with the apparent demand that
exists for this or some
similar periodical we hardly feel justified in
withdrawing from the field. We
therefore solicit the continued interest and patronage
of the general public.
The
general policy of the Review will be the same as it has
been, its main object
being the discussion of any and every matter pertaining
to the history, the
language, the social condition, the religions, the
folk-lore or the politics of
the Korean people. The business management will have
control of the News
Calendar, which will be enlarged and made more efficient
than has heretofore
been possible with the forces at our command. We aim to
make a greater
specialty of the physical and industrial aspects of
Korea, and shall try to
publish interesting and valuable itineraries of main
lines of travel not
covered by the railways that are under construction or
are in contemplation.
As
we have said before, it is necessary to consult many
tastes in a paper of this
kind, and few if any of our readers will be equally
interested in all the lines
of investigation that win be touched upon,, but our
readers may rest assured
that we shall deal strictly with Korean topics and no
space will be given up to
outside matters. [page 550]
Our main purpose is to make the magazine a benefit to
Korea and the Koreans by
giving as correct an impression as possible of the facts
in regard to this
people. Adulation would be as harmful as wholesale
condemnation and we should
steer a middle course. We will gladly consider any
comments which our
subscribers shall send in, the only requisite being
that, whether palatable or
otherwise, such comment shall be sympathetic.
We
claim no ability to hold a neutral position as between
the Japanese and
Russians, as between liberalism and conservatism, as
between Christianity and
Confucianism, as between progress and retrogression, but
on any and all of
these points we hope to be able to give, (as we ask our
contributors to give) a
reason for the faith that is in us. There is a broad way
and a narrow way to
look at all great public questions; there are those who
condemn the Crusades as
a horrible blunder in that they failed to accomplish
their ostensible and
avowed purpose, forgetting that in reality they formed
one of the longest steps
in the evolution of modem civilization. So it is today;
there is no cause that
is propagated with infallible wisdom and without the
alloy of mistake; but let
us not judge great causes in the light of Shakespeare’s
aphorism
Their
virtues else be they as pure as grace
As
infinite as man may undergo
Shall
in the general censure take corruption
From
that particular fault.
But if we are
unable to forgive the error and condone the fault let us
at least make Burns
our commentator on Shakespeare’s immortal lines and
remember that
A man’s a man
for a’that.
But even
though in the case of an individual a single fault may
utterly disqualify him
yet the same cannot be said of a nation. It is necessary
to determine the
resultant of the forces which are working in it. Some
people condemn America on
the score of yellow journalism or of local municipal
corruption or some other
cause. Some people condemn Great Britain on the score of
the opium traffic,
Russia on the score of popular repression, Japan on the
score of her failure to
hold in check [page 551]
certain lawless characteristics of the lower stratum of
society. Is it fair to
estimate a whole people thus or to condemn a national
policy because of certain
excrescences which are not essential to it but rather
hinder it? We might as
well say that all ships should be anchored permanently
because barnacles grow
on them. dAn be it noted that barnacles grow on the
ocean greyhound as readily
as on the tramp steamer.
The
whole question lies in the willingness of any nation or
power to recognize its
weak points and to make an effort to correct them. It is
quite plain that the
fate of Korea is closely linked with that of Japan. This
is a fact that must be
faced. It will be faced willingly by those who believe
that Japan has it in her
to learn how to handle an alien people, as Great Britain
does, in such a way as
to be to the mutual advantage of both. Others will have
to face it the best
they can. The fact remains. For those, then, who
sympathize with Koreans and
desire to be of service to them what is the most
reasonable line of conduct?
Surely not to stand and merely exclaim against any and
every encroachment upon
what we deem to be Korea’s rights, unless there is to be
some practical result
of such exclamation. There are very few of us that would
deny that Japan has an
opportunity to do Korea a great service and at the same
time to do herself a
great service. The reasonable course then is for each
individual to use his
influence so far as he may to make both Japanese and
Koreans see that the
success of both depends upon the building up of a
genuine friendship between
them. On the one hand the Japanese must overcome the
tendency to look down upon
the Korean as unworthy of consideration, and on the
other hand the Korean must
be encouraged to put away his inborn prejudice against
the Japanese. We have
nothing to say about the ease or the difficulty with
which these results may be
accomplished. It may be hard, it may be impossible, but
would it be more
reasonable to stir up strife between the two which could
resttltonly in the
complete submergence of the Koreans?
In
our efforts to be of service to the Koreans, therefore, [page 552] we should strive to give
the Koreans and the Japanese a higher estimate of each
other. But this seems to
be an impossible task. The Japanese consider the Koreans
far below themselves
in general culture, while the Koreans believe that with
the exception of a few
of the upper classes of Japanese the balance of
civilization is with Korea. It
is this social deadlock which must be broken before
there can be any hope of
bettering the situation. It is our business then to
inquire how this can be
accomplished, if at all. We do not hesitate to say that
there is but one way to
do it and that is by a process of education. It will be
slow and tedious and
before it is accomplished other events may have
intervened which will overthrow
all plans and hopes for the future. But this does not
free us from the
obligation of doing what we can to bring about the
needed change in sentiment.
General education will work in two ways to accomplish
this object. It will
raise the Korean in the estimation of the Japanese and
it will bring the Korean
to a point where he can appreciate what Japan has
accomplished in the way of
general advancement. In this way these two peoples will
build up a genuine
respect for each other, a respect that is now
conspicuously lacking. There are
two things that command respect in Japan, physical power
and intellectual
power. The soldier and the literaius are the ideals of
the Japanese as they
always have been and they respect these two things in
others. Can we doubt that
it was the combination of university education and
militarism that attracted
Japan so strongly toward Germany? Korea can never
command respect on the score
of physical power, and it is for this reason that we say
that general education
and a manifest determination to take advantage of modem
learning is the only
thing that will make the Japanese respect the Koreans
Would
we be wrong in saying that the secret of successful
colonization or the
successful handling of alien peoples depends upon the
ability of the teacher to
respect the pupil? Much has been said on the opposite
side of the question but
this side needs emphasizing. If England [page 553]
has had any success in handling India it is because
those in whose hands the goiremment of that peninsula
lies recognize that
beneath all the moral and intellectual incubi which the
long centuries have
imposed, beneath the bigotry of caste, beneath the
cowardice evolved by
millenniums of indirection and oppression— that beneath
all these things there
ties a genuine man capable of becoming in time and under
proper tutelage an
honor to his race. He who charges the Anglo-Saxon with
lack of imagination will
have to reckon with this unique power to see in the
unhewn marble a possible
work of consummate art. This recognition on the part of
the English of
intrinsic manhood in the Indian has done more than any
other one thing to
engender self-respect and personal ambition in that
people; and it will be the
same the world over. Unless the Japanese find something
to respect in the
Korean the latter is doomed. Now there is something to
respect in the Korean
just as there was something to respect in the Indian,
and Japan has an
opportunity of showing the fundamental quality of her
civilization, as England
showed her’s, by recognizing beneath all the
superimposed prejudices and
follies of the Korean the genuine man, capable of
indefinite improvement.
We
print in this number a forceful article by “Argos” on
the reform spelling. We
are sorry to say that we could hardly do justice to his
sample of what the new
style would be. Our font of type is not quite capable of
effecting it but the
reader will see that the idea is to separate consonants
and vowels as we do in
English so as to reduce the font of type to less than we
have in an English
font. His suggestion is a startling one and one that is
sure to bring out some
discussion.
We
must take exception to the implication that Dr. Gale,
the proposer of a reform
spelling, has been shabbily treated or that people do
not appreciate the work
he has put on it. Such a momentous theme is surely
worthy of full discussion
and we are sure that “Argos’’ himself would not say that
failure to agree with
Dr. [page
554]
Gale and adopt the new system carries with it any lack
of appreciation of the
good which he certainly intended to do. This discussion
is carried on in the
best of humor and the personal element has been
conspicuously lacking. We want
to know whether a change would be a good thing for the
Koreans. The lack of
unanimity grows out of no narrow considerations whatever
but out of reasons
which appear to each side to be fundamental. The Review
stands ready to place
before its readers any and every argument bearing on
either side of the
question, for it is one that vitally affects the whole
future of Korean
literature. The advocates of the reform say we have no
standard of spelling. If
so the sooner a standard is made the better. The
question remains whether such
a standard can be made to order or whether it has to
grow up out of common
usage. It will not do to say that with the pure phonetic
system words will
spell themselves, for they will not. The differences in
pronunciation
throughout the country makes this impossible. We have
nothing to say at this
point either for or against the new system, but whether
the change is made or
not there will be need of a fixed standard of some kind
in printed form.
The
opening of the Seoul-Fusan Raiload induces a reminiscent
frame of mind. The
older residents of Seoul remember well the “good” old
days when we had to plow
our way through mud and water over the bridle-path to
Chemulpo. Then came the
river steamers which made it a rule rather than the
exception to rest for five
or six hours on some sand bank each trip. Then all this
was brushed away and
the winter of our discontent was made glorious summer by
the completion of the
SeoulChemulpo Railway. And to think that we shall never
have to pick our way
again around that tide-swept, foginfested southwestern
point of Korea! It seems
almost too good to be true.
The
first time we came to Korea, away back in the eighties,
old Capt. Hussey was
master of the Tsuruga
and the way he
would crawl up to an island in the fog [page 555]
and nose it with the prow of his ship until he could see
which island it might be was a caution to land-lubbers,
especially to those who
did not know what he was up to. Which one of us does not
know the delights of
anchoring in the fog for twenty-four hours, more or
less, when we were almost
in sight of home? If this railway had been completed a
few years sooner we
might still have among us Mr. Appenzeller, one of the
pioneers of Korea, and
others who have gone down on ill-fated steamers on the
Korean coast.
This
railway will give access to many interior points that
are of great interest to the
historian and archaeoogist and affords excellent
opportunities to shake off the
dust of Seoul and get a glimpse of rural life. The tone
of the globe trotter
will change and we shall hear no more about there being
no trees in Korea and
other Munchausen-like descriptions. This railway ought
to bring a solution of
the much mooted question as to a summer resort for
foreigners in Seoul. There
must be plenty of delightfol spots made accessible by
this railway and we hope
the time is not far away when the summer will see a
large mumber of foreigners
gathered about some congenial center instead of being
scattered to the four
winds to practical hermitage. The summers could be made
delightful as they are
in Japan by all sorts of conferences, summer schools and
other divertisements
if only a place were selected where a goodly number
could congregate and find
suitable accommodation.
News Calendar.
There were one
or two minor errors in the account we gave of the attack
by Japanese upon Mr.
Engel of Fusan. His Korean helper did not call out to
the Japanese that the
foreigner would aid him. Mr. Engel was tied to a post as
we stated, but he did
not lose consciousness. The Japanese ran away when they
saw signs of
approaching collapse.
[page
556]The
prefect of Whe-in had a rather unpleasant experience
this month when his town was raided by robbers who
surrounded his residence and
forced him to hand over all the Government money he had
on hand and also called
on all the well-to-do people for money, clothes and
other good things. As soon
as he could, the prefect escaped and made his way to
Seoul.
In spite of
its former condemnation of the various societies that
are being formed, the
Government seems to have changed its mind and about the
middle of December
called up leading members of the Il-chin Society and
congratulated them upon
their organisation, and promised not to interfere with
them.
A great
meeting of the Il-chin Society was held outside the
South gate of Su-won on the
12th inst., at which some 10,000 people were present. Of
these three thousand
had their haircut. The president made a clear statement
of the aims of the
society. Suddenly an aged man on the edge of the crowd
begun applauding
vigorously and declared that this was just what was
needed to awaken the people
and lead the nation to better things.
On December 22
the British Legation guard gave a very successful
entertainment at the guard
house. The songs, jokes, costumes and dialogues were
well gotten up and speak
well for the musical and histrionic ability of the men
of the guard. The
audience was highly entertained and heartily agreed that
if this was a sample
of what the men can do we must have more of it before
the season is through.
The Christmas
season found the children as enthusiastic as usual. The
weather turned cold and
crisp just a few days before the holiday came and gave
us real Christmas
weather. On the afternoon of the 27th a large number of
the Seoul children
gathered at the Seoul Union and had a very jolly time
while the “grown ups”
looked on and applauded. The children sang some pretty
songs which reflected a
great deal of credit on their instructress.
The absence of
snow together with the snapping cold of the past two
weeks has made some
excellent skating,
[page 557]
and several of the Seoul people have taken advantage of
it to do some twirling
on the ice. There ought to be a revival of this most
excellent and healthful
sport among the foreigners of Seoul.
It is said
that Japanese gendarmes have instructed the Police
Bureau to let Japanese
soldiers and post-men go in and out the north east gate
at any hour of the
night but not to open it in the morning for general use
until receiving
instruction from the Japanese.
According to
the native press the Italian Minister renewed his
attempt to obtain through the
Foreign Office a gold-mining concession for his
nationals stating that he had
been instructed by his government to find out why, when
many other foreign
companies are given concessions, the Italians should be
refused.
The British
authorities have also been pressing for a second
concession to be situated in
Suan district in Whang-ha province but so far without
success.
The German
representative has announced to the government that the
gold mining concession
in Kimsung is a failure and requests that another be
given instead.
On the
afternoon of the 29th, inst. a serious affray took place
between members of the
Il-chin Society and the Korean soldiers. It seems that
having been forbidden
the use of the public streets for meeting, the Society
secured the use of a
Chinese building in the rear of the Annex of the Palace
Hotel. There they met
but on the day named some Pyengyang soldiers armed with
brickbats raided the
place and a fight took place in which some twelve of the
Il-chin society
members were or less severely injured. The Japanese
gendarmes hurried to the
place and attacked the Korean soldiers, one of the
latter being killed on the
spot. After the quarrel had been stopped the Japanese
gendarmes went to the
barracks and arrested five Korean officers who should
have held the Pyengyang
soldiers in check. The street in the vicinity afforded
an animated sight all
during the afternoon, being densely crowded with Koreans
among whom Japanese
mounted gmirds were stationed at frequent [page 558]intervals. Two of the Koreans
were so severely hurt that there are fears they will not
survive. This stirred
up a good deal of feeling among the Koreans both in
favor of the society and
against it.
The Belgian
authorities have also repeated their request for a gold
mining concession,
citing the concessions made to the subjects of other
powers. The unanimity with
which foreigners are attempting to secure mining
concessions here should settle
for all time the question whether there is “pay dirt” in
Korea.
A Korean
hunter recently shot a huge tiger in the town of
Pu-p’yung only eighteen miles
from Seoul. He sold the skin to a Japanese in Chemulpo
but the magistrate of
Pup’yung was highly incensed at this, since according to
immemorial custom all
tigers must be handed over to the local magistrate, and
it should be added that
in such case the hunter gets little or nothing for the
risk he has run and the
labor expended. The man was seized and beaten but the
people out of pity
subscribed enough money to buy him off. It would be a
pleasure to see such a
magistrate forced to face a live tiger with an old
Korean matchlock and get a
taste of it himself. He then might see things in a
different light.
The Il-chin
gentry met a warm reception the other day in Kong-ju
when several hundred
residents of the town came at them with clubs. The
doughty defenders of their
country’s honor turned and fled precipitately, throwing
down their guns and all
other impedimenta. They reached the Keum River and
dashed in, some to be
drowned and others to effect a very wet escape. They
lost their baggage, their
clothes, their money and what little reputation they may
have had about them.
The Japanese
have asked that in the districts which border upon the
Seoul-Fusan Railway and
along the road to Ham-gyung province, magistrates be
placed who understand the
Japanese language. The suggestion is an excellent one
and one that the
government would do well to follow.
In many
districts there has been a recrudescence of the old time
Righteous Army who
have made it their [page 559]
business to combat the Il-chin Society. The latter say
that the Righteous Army
has been stirred up by the corrupt officials in Seoul
and urge that the
adherents of the Il-chin Society all flock to Seoul to
press their claims.
Ten o’clock on
the morning of Dec. 29th a distinguished company was
gathered in the Cathedral
in Seoul to witness the wedding ceremony of Mr. Adhemar
Delcoigne and Miss Anna
Irene Eckert. The ceremony was an imposing one and it
was enhanced by
appropriate music by the Imperial Band under the
directorship of the bride’s
father. After the completion of the ceremony the company
adjourned to an
adjoining apartment where the newly wedded pair were
heartily congratulated and
a score or more of witnesses signed the register. At
eleven o’clock a reception
was held at the residence of Miss Sontag where
congratulations were renewed and
healths were drunk. An adequate description of the
simple but elegant dress of
the bride lies just beyond the tip of our pen and so we
must forego this
important part of a full description of the occasion.
The Review joins with all
other friends in wishing long life and happiness to Mr.
and Mrs. Delcoigne.
On the third
of December a new society was organized under the name
of the Chin Myung
Society or “Progress and Enlightenment.” The moving
spirits in the new
organization are former members of the Peddlar’s Guild
of malodorous memory.
They have not followed recent precedents in the matter
of hair cutting, but the
lion has lain down with the lamb, for the general aims
of these exponents of
sweetness and light are the same as those of the
Chin-bo, Il-chin and Kuk-min
societies. But in addition to the advanced principles of
the other societies it
advocates a radical improvement in commercial matters.
How such improvement is
to be effected does not yet appear.
It seems that
the Japanese authorities are asking the Korean
Government to turn over to them
the right to cut timber on the Yalu, which the Russians
formerly enjoyed, but
so far as we can hear no compensation has been promised.
[page
560] Koreans
say that a patriotic native named Kyong Kwang-guk was so
disgusted with the
condition of affairs that he retired to a lonely
mountain retreat but when he
heard of the organization of the Kuk-min or National
People’s Society he came
forth and became its president,
A Korean, who
was listening to the appeal for the new Severance
Memorial Hospital which Mr.
T. H. Yun made at the Seoul Y. M. C A. rooms, arose and
stated that though he
was not a member of the Y. M. C. A. and was only just in
from the country, he
could not think of allowing people in other lands to
send such large sums of
money here to help Koreans without doing something
himself. He thereupon
subscribed one hundred dollars toward the fund.
The Governor
of North Ham-gyung Province reported lately that the
prefect of Pu-ryung while
on his way from Seoul to his post had to pass through
Kyong-sung. The Russian
soldiers stopped him there and held him a prisoner in
his own inn and would
listen to no remonstrances. They allowed him, however,
to return to Seoul. The
prefect of Tan-ch’un was also stopped by the Russians
and so he returned to his
own home.
We regret to
have to announce the death of the infant son of.Rev. and
Mrs. C. A. Clark. It
occurred very suddenly after only two days of scarlet
fever. The funeral took
place on the 23rd inst.
[page
561]
KOREAN HISTORY.
Chapter XXVII.
The Battle of
Chemulpo . . . .Russian survivors on neutral boats. . .
. Blowing up of the
Koryetz . . . . sinking of the Variak . . . .Russians
leave Korea . . . .
hospital in Chemulpo . . . . skirmish at Pyong Yang . .
. . Korean Japanese
Protocol . . . . end of Peddlar’s Guild . . . . Marquis
Ito . . . . Yi Yong Ik
retires . . . . Japanese conservative policy in Korea .
. . . skirmish at
Chong-ju . . . . suffering of Koreans in north . . . .
apathy of Korean
Government . . . . burning of palace in Seoul . . . .
Korean currency.
It was a
cloudless but hazy day and from the anchorage the
Japanese fleet was all but
invisible, for it lay at least eight miles out in the
entrance of the harbor
and partly concealed by Round Island which splits the
offing into two channels.
The two boats made straight for the more easterly of the
channels, their course
being a very little west of south. When they had
proceeded about half the
distance from the anchorage to the enemy’s fleet the
latter threw a shot across
the bows of each of the Russian boats as a command to
stop and surrender, but
the Russians took no notice of it. The only chance the
Russians had to inflict
any damage was to reduce the firing range as much as
possible for the Variak’s
guns were only six inches and
four-tenths in caliber and at long range they would have
been useless. This was
at five minutes before noon. The Japanese fleet was not
deployed in a line
facing the approaching boats and it was apparent that
they did not intend to
bring their whole force to bear upon the Russians
simultaneously. We are
informed that only two of the Japanese vessels, the Asama and the Chiyoda,
did the work. It was not long after the warning shots
had been fired that the
Japanese let loose and the roar that went up from those
terrible machines of
destruction tore the quiet of the windless bay to
tatters and made the houses [page
562]
of the town tremble where they stood. As the Variak advanced she swerved to the
eastward and gave the Japanese
her starboard broadside. All about her the sea was
lashed into foam by striking
shot and almost from the beginning of the fight her
steering-gear was shot away
so that she had to depend on her engines alone for
steering. It became evident
to her commander that the passage was impossible. He had
pushed eastward until
there was imminent danger of running aground. So he
turned again toward the
west and came around in a curve which brought the Variak much nearer to the Japanese. It was
at this time that the
deadly work was done upon her. Ten of her twelve
gun-captains were shot away. A
shell struck her fo’castle, passed between the arm and
body of a gunner who had
his hand upon his hip and, bursting, killed every other
man on the fo’castle.
Both bridges were destroyed by bursting shell and the
Captain was seriously
wounded in the left arm. The watchers on shore and on
the shipping in the
harbor saw flames bursting out from her quarter-deck and
one witness plainly
saw shells drop just beside her and burst beneath the
water line. It was these
shots that did the real damage for when, after three
quarters of an hour of steady
fighting, she turned her prow back toward the anchorage
it was seen that she
had a heavy list to port which. could have been caused
only by serious damage
below the waterline. As the two boats came slowly back
to port, the Variak
so crippled by the destruction of
one of her engines that she could make only ten knots an
hour, the Japanese
boats followed, pouring in a galling fire, until the
Russians had almost
reached the anchorage. Then the pursuers drew back and
the battle was over. The
Koryetz was
intact. The Japanese had
reserved all their fire for the larger vessel. The Variak was useless as a fighting machine,
for her heavy list to
port would probably have made it impossible to train the
guns on the enemy, but
all knew that the end had not yet come. The Russians had
neither sunk nor
surrendered. The threat of the Japanese to come in at
four o’clock was still
active. As soon as the Variak dropped anchor the British
sent four hospital
boats to her with a surgeon and a nurse. Other vessels
also sent offers of aid.
But it was found that the Russians had [page 563]
decided to lie at anchor and fight to the bitter end and
at the last moment blow up their vessels with all on
board.What else was there
for them to do? They would not surrender and they could
not leave their ships
and go ashore only to be caiptured by the enemy. They
would play out the
tragedy to a finish and go down fighting. Upon learning
of this determination
the commanders of the various neutral vessels held
another conference at which
it was decided that the Russians had done all that was
necessary to vindicate
the honor of their flag and that, as it was a neutral
port, the survivors
should be invited to seek asylum on the neutral vessels.
The invitation was
accepted and the sixty-four wounded on board the Variak were at once transferred to the
British cruiser Talbot
and the French cruiser Pascal. As the
commanders of the neutral
vessels knew that the Variak and Koryetz were to
be sunk by the Russians
they paid no particular attention to the reiterated
statement of the Japanese
that they would enter the harbor at four and finish the
work already begun. The
passengers, crew and mails on board the steamship Sungari had already been transferred to
the Pascal and an attempt had been made to
scuttle her but she was
filling very slowly indeed. It was about half-past three
in the afternoon that
the officers and crew of the Koryetz
went over the side and on board the Pascal.
It
was generally known throughout the town that the Koryetz would be blown up before four
o’clock and everyone sought
some point of vantage from which to witness the
spectacle. Scores of people
went out to the little island on which the light-house
stands, for this was
nearest to the doomed ship. It was thirty-seven minutes
past three when the
waiting multitude saw two blinding flashes of light one
following the other in
quick succession. A terrific report followed which
dwarfed the roar of cannon
to a whisper and shook every house in the town as if it
had been struck by a
solid rock. The window-fastenings of one house at least
were torn off, so great
was the concussion. An enormous cloud of smoke and
debris shot toward the sky
and at the same time enveloped the spot where the vessel
had lain. A moment
later there began a veritable shower of splintered wood,
torn and twisted
railing, books, clothes, rope, utensils [page 564]
and a hundred other belongings of the ship. The cloud of
smoke expanded in the upper air and blotted out the sun
like an eclipse. The
startled gulls flew hither and thither as if dazed by
this unheard of
phenomenon and men instinctively raised their hands to
protect themselves from
the falling debris, pieces of which were drifted by the
upper currents of air
for a distance of three miles landward where they fell
by the hundreds in
peoples’ yards.
When
the smoke was dissipated it was discovered that the Koryetz had sunk, only her funnel and some
torn rigging appearing
above the surface, if we except her forward steel deck
which the force of the
explosion had bent up from the prow so that the point of
it, like the share of
a huge plow, stood several feet out of water. The
surface of the bay all about
the spot was covered thickly with smoking debris and
several of the ship’s
boats were floating about intact upon the warter.
The
Variak was
left to sink where she
lay. The fortyone dead on board were placed together in
a cabin and went down
with her. She burned on till evening and then inclining
more and more to port
her funnels finally touched the water and with a
surging, choking groan as of
some great animal in pain she sank. As the water reached
the fire a cloud of
steam went up which illuminated by the last flash of the
fire formed her signal
of farewell.
It
was arranged that the British and the French boats
should carry the Russians to
a neutral port and guarantee their parole until the end
of the war.
This
wholly unexpected annihilation of the Russian boats
naturally caused
consternation among the Russians of Chemulpo and Seoul.
The Russian Consulate
was surrounded by the Japanese troops and the Consul was
held practically a
prisoner. The Japanese Minister in Seoul suggested to
the Russian Minister
through the French Legation the advisability of his
removing from Seoul with
his nationals, and every facility was given him for
doing this with expedition
and with comfort. A few days later all the Russians were
taken by special train
to Chemulpo, and there, being joined by the Russian
subjects in Chemulpo, they
all went on board the Pascal. This
vessel must have been crowded, for it is [page 565]
said
that when she sailed she had on board six hundred
Russians, both civilians and military men.
Twenty-four
of the most desperately wounded men on board the neutral
ships were sent ashore
and placed in the Provisional Red Cross Hospital. For
this purpose the English
Church Mission kindly put at the disposal of the
Japanese their hospital at
Chemulpo. Several of these wounded men were suffering
from gangrene when they
came off the Pascal
but with the most
sedulous care the Japanese physicians and nurses pulled
them through.
After this battle at
Chemulpo there was no more question about landing Korean
troops further down
the coast; in fact as soon as the ice was out of the
Tadong River, Chinnampo
became the point of disembarkation. But meanwhile the
troops which had landed
at Chemulpo were pushing north by land as rapidly as
circumstances would permit
and within a few weeks of the beginning of the war
Pyeng-yang was held by a
strong force of Japanese. At the same time work was
pushed rapidly on the
Seoul-Fusan Railway and also begun on the projected
railway line between Seoul
and Wiju.
As
for the Russians they never seriously invaded Korean
territory. Bands of
Cossacks crossed the Yalu and scoured the country right
and left but their only
serious purpose was to keep in touch with the enemy and
report as to their
movements. On February 18 a small band of Cossacks
approached the north gate of
Pyeng Yang and after exchanging a few shots with the
Japanese guard withdrew.
This was the first point at which the two belligerents
came in touch with each
other.
It
was on the night of February 23rd that Korea signed with
Japan a protocol by
the terms of which Korea practically allied herself with
Japan and became, as
it were, a silent partner in the war. Korea granted the
Japanese the right to
use Korea as a road to Manchuria and engaged to give
them every possible
facility for prosecuting the war. On the other hand
Japan guaranteed the
independence of Korea and the safety of the Imperial
Family. It is needless to
discuss the degree of spontaneity with which Korea did
this. It was a case of
necessity, but if rightly used it might have proved of
immense benefit to
Korea, as it surely did to Japan. It [page
566]
formally did away with the empty husk of neutrality
which had been proclaimed and made every seaport of the
peninsula belligerent
territory, even as it did the land itself.
March
saw the end of the Peddlars’ Guild. They had been
organized in Russian
interests but now they had no longer any raison
d’etre. As a final flurry, one of their number
entered the house of the
Foreign Minister with the intent to murder him but did
not find his victim.
Other similar attempts were made but did not succeed.
The
Japanese handled the situation in Seoul with great
circumspection. The notion
that they would attack the proRussian officials proved
false. Everything was
kept quiet and the perturbation into which the court and
the government were
thrown by these startling events was soon soothed.
Marquis
Ito was sent from Japan with a friendly message to the
Emperor of Korea and
this did much to quiet the unsettled state of things in
Korea. At about the
same time the northern ports of Wiju and Yongampo were
opened to foreign trade.
This was a natural result of the withdrawal of Russian
influence. It was not
long before Yi Yong-ik who had played such a leading
role in Korea was invited
to go to Japan and thus an element of unrest was removed
from the field of
action. It was believed that the Japanese would
immediately introduce much
needed reform; but it seemed to be their policy to go
very slowly, so slowly in
fact that the better element among the Koreans was
disappointed, and got the
impression that Japan was not particularly interested in
the matter of reform.
It is probable that the energies of the Japanese were
too much engaged in other
directions to divert any to Korea at the time. They had
been complaining
bitterly about the monetary conditions, but when they
suddenly stepped into
power in Seoul on February 9th they seemed to forget all
about this, for up to
the end of 1904 they failed to do anything to correct
the vagaries of Korean
finance. But instead of this the Japanese merchants in
Korea and other Japanese
who were here for other reasons than their health
immediately began to make
request and demands for all sorts of privileges. The
Board of Trade in Fusan
asked the Japanese government to secure the Maritime
Customs service,
permission for extra territorial privileges, [page 567]
the establishment of Japanese agricultural stations and
other impossible things.
Meanwhile the Japanese were
steadily pushing north. At Anju a slight skirmish
occurred but there was
nothing that could be called a fight until the Japanese
reached the town of
Chong-ju where a small body of Russians took a stand on
a hill northwest of the
town and held it for three hours, but even here the
casualties were only about
fifteen on either side. The Russians evidently had no
notion of making a
determined stand this side the Yalu. Already, a week
before, the Russian troops
had withdrawn from Yongampo and had crossed to Antung.
This fight at Chong-ju
occurred on March 25th and a week later practically all
the Russian forces had
crossed the Yalu and Korea ceased to be belligerent
territory. It is not the
province of this history to follow the Japanese across
that historic river and
relate the events which ocurred at the beginning of May
when the first great
land battle of the war was fought.
The
whole north had been thrown into the greatest confusion
by the presence of
these two belligerents. Cossack bands had scurried about
the country, making
demands for food and fodder, a part of which they were
willing to pay for with
Russian currency quite unknown to the Korean. From
scores of villages and towns
the women had fled to the mountain recesses at a most
inclement season, and
untold suffering had been entailed. But these are things
that always come in
the track of war and the Koreans bore them as
uncomplainingly as they could.
Throughout the whole country the absorption of the
attention of the government
in the events of the war was taken advantage of by
robbers, and their raids
were frequent and destructive. As soon as the government
found that the
Japanese did not. intend to rule with a high hand it
sank back into the former
state, of selfcomplacent lethargy, and things went along
in the old ruts. It
was perfectly plain that Korean officialdom had no
enthusiasm for the Japanese
cause. It is probable that a large majority of the
people preferred to see
Japan win rather than the Russians, but it was the fond
wish of ninety-nine out
of every hundred to see Korea rid of them both.
Whichever one held exclusive
power here was certain to become an object [page 568]
of hatred to the Korean people. Had the Russians driven
out the Japanese the Koreans would have hated them as
heartily. Whichever horn
of the dilemma Korea became impaled upon she was sure to
think the other would
have been less sharp. Few Koreans looked at the matter
from any large standpoint
or tried to get from the situation anything but personal
advantage. This is
doubtless the reason why it was so difficult to gain an
opinion from Korean
officials. They did not want to go on record as having
any decided sympathies
either way. The people of no other land were so nearly
neutral as were those of
Korea.
The
month of April was comparatively quiet. The Japanese
were struggling north
through frost and mud combined to rendezvous on the
banks of the Yalu. On the
14th occurred the great fire in Seoul which in a few
hours swept away almost
the whole of the Kyong-un Palace, the one recently
completed and the one
occupied by the Emperor at the time. He was forced to
vacate it in haste and
take up his abode for the time being in the detached
Imperial Library building.
A strong effort was made by the Japanese to induce him
to return to the
Chong-dok Palace, which was his place of residence at
the time of the emeutes
of 1882 and 1884, but this was combatted with all the
means available, and the
burned palace was rebuilt as quickly as possible.
The
temporary effect of the war upon the Korean currency was
to enhance its value.
Imports suddenly came to a standstill because of the
lack of steamships and the
possible dangers of navigation. This stopped the demand
for yen. The Japanese
army had to spend large sums in Korea and this required
the purchase of Korean
money. The result was that the yen, instead of holding
its ratio of something
like one to two and a half of the Korean dollar fell to
the ratio of one to
only one and four tenths. When, however, the sea was
cleared of the Russians
and import trade was resumed and the bulk of the
Japanese crossed the Yalu the
Korean dollar fell again to a ratio of about two to one,
which it has preserved
up to the present time, i.e. December, 1904.
From
the time when the Russians retired beyond the Yalu
warlike operations between
the two belligerents was [page 569]
confined to northeast Korea though even there very
little was doing. The
Vladivostock squadron was still in being and on April 15
it appeared at the
mouth of Wonsan harbor. Only one small Japanese boat was
at anchor there, the Goyo Maru, and
this was destroyed by a
torpedo boat which came in for the express purpose. Of
course this created
intense excitement in the town and there was a hurried
exodus of women and
children, but the Russians had no intention of
bombarding the place and soon
took their departure. Only a few hours before, the Kinshin, a Japanese transport with upwards
of 150 troops onboard,
had sailed for Song-jin to the north of Wonsan but
meeting bad weather in the
night the torpedo-boats that accompanied her were
obliged to run for shelter
and the Kinshin
turned back for
Wonsan. By so doing she soon ran into the arms of the
Russian fleet and refusing
to surrender she was sunk, but forty-five of the troops
on board effected their
escape to the mainland.
It
was only a few days before this that a force of Cossacks
had made a dash down
the eastern coast as far as Ham-heung which they entered
after a two hours’
skirmish with Korean troops. They burned about 300
houses in the suburbs of the
town and also fourteen kan of the celebrated “Ten
Thousand Year Bridge,” the
longest in Korea. After this they retired to the north.
But from that time on
the whole northeast has been scoured by parties of
Russians and the Japanese
have paid no attention to them except to place troops at
Wonsan and Ham-heung
to hold these places. On August 8th a small Russian
force penetrated south to
the very suburbs of Wonsan but were speedily repulsed by
the Japanese who had
thrown up intrenchments and were quite ready to meet any
assault. The Russians
worked with great energy in repairing the road from the
Tuman River down to
Sung-jin, and even south of that place. They even built
good graded roads
across two of the high passes south of Sungjin until
they came in contact with
the Japanese outposts twenty miles above Ham-heung.
Neither side seemed to
desire to assume the offensive and so matters stood
until the end of the year,
and the coming of the northern winter put a stop to
active operations. The only
other incident worthy of mention in this connection was
the wanton attack [page
570]
upon the town of Wonsan by the Russian fleet on the last
day of June. On that
morning seven Russian torpedo-boats entered the harbor
and after inquiring
where the Japanese barracks and other public buildings
were situated began
shelling the town. In a panic the peaceful denizens of
the place fled to the
shelter of the hills. The Russians gave no warning of
the attack even though
many foreigners of various nationalities resided there
and might easily have
been injured. After firing over 200 shells without doing
any considerable
damage the torpedo boats withdrew.
We
must now go back and inquire into important civil
matters. We have seen that no
strong attempt was made by the Japanese to secure
reforms in the administration
of the Korean Government and for this reason many of the
best Koreans were
dissatisfied with the way things were going. Therefore
it was doubly
unfortunate that on the seventeenth of June the Japanese
authorities should
make the startling suggestion that all uncultivated land
in the Peninsula as
well as other national resources should be thrown open
to the Japanese. This
appears to have been a scheme evolved by one Nagamori
and broached by him so
speciously to the powers in Tokyo that they backed him
in it; but there can be
no question that it was a grave mistake. There is no
other point on which the
Korean is so sensitive as upon that of his land. He is a
son of the soil, and
agriculture is the basis of all his institutions. The
mere proposal raised an
instant storm of protest from one end of Korea to the
other. The Koreans saw in
this move the entering wedge which would rive the
country. It was the beginning
of the end. This excessive show of feeling was not
expected by the Japanese and
it is probable that their intentions were by no means so
black as the Koreans
pictured them. The very general terms in which the
proposal was worded and the
almost entire lack of limiting particulars gave occasion
for all sorts of wild
conjectures and, it must be confessed, left the door
open to very wide
constructions. The time was unpropitious, the method was
unfortunate and the
subject-matter of the proposal itself was questionable.
The all-important
matter of water supply and control, the difficulties of
jurisdiction on account
of the extraterritorial rights implied in the [page 571]
proposal and other allied questions immediately
presented themselves to the minds of Koreans and they
recognized the fact that
the carrying out of this plan would necessarily result
in a Japanese
protectorate if not absolute absorption into the Empire
of Japan. The Japanese
do not seem to have followed the logic of the matter to
this point or else had
not believed the Koreans capable of doing so. But when
the storm of protest
broke it carried everything before it. The Japanese were
not prepared to carry
the thing to extremes and after repeated attempts at a
compromise the matter
was dropped, though the Japanese neither withdrew their
request nor accepted
the refusal of the Korean Government. It is a matter of
great regret that the
Japanese did not quietly and steadily press the question
of internal reforms,
and by so doing hasten the time when the Korean people
as a whole would repose
such confidence in the good intentions of the neighbor
country that even such
plans as this of the waste lands could be carried
through without serious
opposition; for it is quite sure that there is a large
area of fallow land in
Korea which might well be put under the plow.
During
the weeks when the Japanese were pressing for a
favorable answer to the waste
land proposition the Koreans adopted a characteristic
method of opposition. A
society called the Po-an-whe was
formed. The name means “Society for the Promotion of
Peace amd Safety.” It had
among its membership some of the leading Korean
officials. It held meetings at
the cotton guild in the center of Seoul and a good deal
of excited discussion took
place as to ways and means for defeating the purpose of
the Japanese, At the
same time memorials by the score poured in upon the
Emperor, beseeching him not
to give way to the demands. The Japanese determined that
these forms of
opposition must be put down, so on July the 16th the
meeting of the society was
broken in upon by the Japanese police and some of the
leading members were
forcibly carried away to the Japanese police station.
Other raids were made
upon the society and more of its members were arrested
and its papers
confiscated. The Japanese warned the government that
these attempts to stir up
a riot must be put down with a stern hand and demanded
that those who persisted
in sending in memorials [page 572]
against the Japanese be arrested and punished. If the
Korean government would
not do it the Japanese threatened to take the law into
their own hands. The
Japanese troops in Seoul were augmented until the number
was fully 6,000.
The
agitation was not confined to Seoul, for leading Koreans
sent out circular
lettters to all the country districts urging the people
to come up to Seoul and
make a monster demonstration which should convince the
Japanese that they were
in dead earnest. Many of these letters were suppressed
by the prefects but in
spite of this the news spread far and wide and the
society enrolled thousands
of members in every province.
The
effect of this was seen when, early in August, the
Japanese military
authorities asked for the services of 6,000 Korean
coolies in the north at
handsome wages. The number was apportioned among
different provinces, but the
results were meager. Disaffected persons spread the
report that these coolies
would be put on the fighting line, and it was with the
greatest difficulty that
two thousand were secured. There were sanguinary fights
in many towns where
attempts were made to force coolies to go against their
will. It was perfectly
right for the Japanese to wish to secure such labor, but
the tide of public
sentiment was flowing strong in the other direction
becatise of the attempt to
secure the waste land and because of the suspension of
the right of free
speech.
The
cessation of Japanese efforts to push the waste land
measure did not put an end
to agitation throughout the country, and the Il-chin
society continued to carry
on its propaganda until on August 22nd a new society
took the field, named the
Il-chin Society. This was protected by the Japanese
police who allowed only
properly accredited members to enter its doors. This
looked as if it were
intended as a counter-move to the Il-chin Society, and
as the latter was having
very little success a third society took up the gauntlet
under the name of the
Kuk-min or “National People’s” Society. The platforms
promulgated by all these
societies were quite faultless but the institutions had
no power whatever to
carry out their laudable plans and so received only the
smiles of the public.
[page 575] During
the summer the Japanese suggested that it would be well
for Korea to recall her
foreign representatives. The idea was to have Korean
diplomatic business abroad
transacted through Japanese legations. Whether this wa»
a serious attempt or
only a feeler put out to get the sense of the Korean
government we are unable
to say, but up to the end of the year the matter was not
pushed and the
nomination by the Japanese of Mr. Stevens, an American
subject, as adviser to
the Foreign Office would seem to indicate that the
existing diplomatic
arrangements will be continued for the time being.
The
various societies which had been formed as protests
against existing conditions
stated some things that ought to be accomplished but
suggested no means by
which they could be done: The difficulty which besets
the country is the lack
of general education, and no genuine improvement can be
looked for until the
people be educated up to it. For this reason a number of
foreigners joined
themselves into the Educational Association of Korea,
their aim being to
provide suitable text books for Korean schools and to
help in other ways toward
the solution of this great question. About the same time
the Minister of
Education presented the government with a recommendation
that the graduates of
the Government schools be given the preference in the
distribution of public
offices. This had no apparent effect upon the Government
at the time, but this
is what must come before students will flock to the
Government schools with any
enthusiasm. Later in the year a large number of Koreans
also founded an
Educational Society. It made no pretensions to political
significaoce but went
quietly to work gathering together those who are
convinced that the education
of the masses is the one thing needed to put Korea upon
her feet, in the best
sense.
In
September there was celebrated the twentieth anniversary
of the founding of
Protestant Christian missions in Korea, A great
convention had been arranged
for and leading men were to attend it but the war
interfered with the plan and
the convention was postponed till 1909, when the
quarter-centennial will be
celebrated. In spite of this a memorable meeting was
held and the results of
Christian [page 574]
work in Korea were set forth and discussed. We need say
no more here than that
this field is rightly considered as being one of the
most successful in the
world and as giving promise of great things in the
future.
In
the middle of October the Japanese military authorities
sent Marshal Hasegawa
to take charge of military affairs in Korea. He arrived
on the thirteenth and
shortly after went to Wonsan to inspect matters in that
vicinity. The news of
considerable Russian activity in northeast Korea seemed
to need careful
watching and the presence of a general competent to do
whatever was necessary
to keep them in check.
The
laying of the last rail of the Seoul Fusan Railway was
an event of great
importance to Korea. It adds materially to the wealth of
the country both by
forming a means of rapid communication and by enhancing
the value of all the
territory through which it runs. It also gives Japan
such a large vested
interest here that it becomes, in a sense, her guarantee
to prevent the country
from falling into the hands of other Powers. But like
all good things it has
its dangers as well.
Mr.
Megata, the new adviser to the Finance Department
arrived in the Autumn and
began a close study of Korean monetary and financial
conditions. This was an
augury of good, for Korean finance has always been in a
more or less chaotic
condition since the time when the late Regent flooded
the Country with
discarded Chinese cash and a spurious Korean coinage
whose lack of intrinsic
value gave the lie to its face.
Later
in the year Mr. Stevens, the newly appointed adviser of
the Foreign Department,
took up his duties which, though less important than
those of Mr. Megata,
nevertheless gave assurance that the foreign relations
of the government would
be carefully handled.
As
the year came to a close there were evidences that the
Japanese were about to
begin what should have been begun before, namely a
gradual reform in the
administration of the government. Useless offices are to
be abolished, the army
is to be brought down to its proper proportions,
retrenchment is to be effected
in various other lines and education
[page 575]
is
to be encouraged. On the whole the year closed with
brighter prospects in Korea than any former portion of
the year had shown.
The
termination of an historical survey covering four
thousand years of time
naturally suggests some general remarks upon that
history as a whole. And in
the first place it is worth noting that the Korean
people became a homogeneous
nation at a very early date. Before the opening of the
tenth century they were
so firmly welded together that no sectional difference
has ever seriously
threatened their disruption.
Since the year 700 A. D.
there have been two bloodless changes of dynasty but
there has not been a
single successful revolution, in the ordinary sense of
the word. There have
been three great and several small invasions but none of
these left any serious
marks upon the country either in the line of
inter-mixture of blood or of
linguistic modification. They served simply to weld the
people more closely
together and make the commonwealth more homogeneous than
ever.
In
the second place the power has always been in the hands
of the men of greatest
average wit, and it has uniformly been used to further
personal aims. The idea
of any altruistic service has been conspicuously
lacking, though there have
been brilliant exceptions. The concept of individuality
or personality is
strangely lacking in all Turanian peoples and this it is
which has kept them so
far in the rear of the Indo-European peoples in the
matter of civilization. The
essential feature of true progress, namely the
recognition of the present time
as on the whole the best time, the present institutions
as being the best
institution, the present opportunities as being the best
opportunities, the
present people as being the best people that history has
to show — this feature
is sadly lacking in the Far East. Japan has grafted this
into her life and it
already bears fruit, but Korea stands with China as yet.
Individual
people cannot be sure of getting their just deserts in
this life whether they
be good or evil, but this is hardly true of nations.
They generally get about
what they have deserved. If men lived as long as empires
they too might be
served the same. It is poor philosophy to moan [page 576]
the fate of a decadent empire or of a moribund
civilization. They have served their purpose and are
ready to pass away. Upon
their ruins there are sure to arise edifices that are
worthier of habitation
than were those of the past. In Korea the old is passing
away, is crumbling
about our ears. The new wine is bursting the old
bottles. The question for the
future to answer is whether the Korean people will allow
their ship of fate to
drift upon the Sargasso Sea until the seaweed “rising
strake on strake’’ shall
make her utterly derelict, or whether they will awake
from their lethargy,
clear away the barnacles and jam the helm down hard
a-port until the wind fills
the sails and she can forge ahead toward some desired
haven.
It
is not the province of the historian to play the prophet
nor shall we try to
forecast what the future may bring forth, but it is
permissible to express the
hope that Korea will make herself increasingly worthy of
a continued and
distinguished history.