# Korea & Her Neighbours/Chapter XXXVI

SEOUL IN 1897$^1$
It was midnight when, by the glory of an October full moon, I arrived from Chemulpo at the foot of the rugged slope crowned with the irregular, lofty, battlemented city wall and picturesque double-roofed gateway of the Gate of Staunch Loyalty which make the western entrance to the Korean capital so unique and attractive. An arrangement had been made for the opening of the gate, and after a long parley between the faithful Im and the guard, the heavy iron-bolted door creaked back before the united efforts of ten men, and I entered Seoul, then under the authority of Ye Cha Yun, an energetic and en- lightened Governor, under whose auspices the western part of the city has lost the refuse heaps and foulness, with their con- comitant odors, which were its chief characteristic. In the streets and lanes not a man, dog, or cat stirred, and not a light glimmered from any casement ; but when I reached Chong- dong, the foreign quarter, I observed that the lower extremity of every road leading in the direction of the Russian Legation was irregularly guarded by several slouching Korean sentries, gossiping in knots as they leaned on their rifles.
The grounds of my host's house open on those of the King's new palace, and the King and Crown Prince, attended by large retinues, were constantly carried through them on their way from their asylum in the Russian Legation to perform the customary rites at the spirit shrine, to which the fragmentary remains of the murdered Queen had been removed, to wait until the geomancers could decide on an "auspicious" site for her grave, the one which had been prepared for her at an enormous expense some miles outside the city having just been pronounced "unlucky."
A few days after my arrival the King went to the Kyeng-wun Palace to receive a Japanese prince, and courteously arranged to give me an audience afterwards, to which I went, attended, as on the last occasion, by the British Legation interpreter. The entrances were guarded by a number of slouching sentries in Japanese uniforms. Their hair, which had been cropped at the time of the abolition of the "topknot," had grown again, and hung in heavy shocks behind their ears, giving them a semi -barbarous appearance. At the second gate I alighted, no chair being permitted to enter, and walked to a very simple audience hall, then used for the first time, about 20 feet by 12 feet, of white wood, with lattice doors and win- dows, both covered with fine white paper, and with fine white mats on the floor.
The King and Crown Prince, both of whom were in deep mourning, i.e. in pure white robes with sleeveless dresses of exquisitely fine buff grass-cloth over them, and fine buff crino- line hats, stood together at the upper end of the room, sur- rounded by eunuchs, court ladies, including the reigning favorites, the ladies Pak and Orn, and Court functionaries, all in mourning, the whole giving one an impression of absolute spotlessness. The waists of the voluminous white skirts of the ladies, which are a yard too long for them all round, were as high up as it is possible to place them.
The King and Crown Prince bowed and smiled. I made the required three curtseys to each, and the interpreter adopted the deportment required by Court etiquette, crouching, looking down, and speaking in an awe-struck whisper. I had not seen the King for two years, a period of great anxiety and vicissitude to him, but he was not looking worn or older, and when I congratulated him on his personal security and the assumption of his regal functions he expressed himself cordially in reply, with an air of genuine cheerfulness. In the brief conversation which followed the Crown Prince took part, and showed a fair degree of intelligence, as well as a much improved physique.
Later I had two informal audiences of the King in his house in the centre of the mass of the new buildings of the Kyeng- wun Palace. It is a detached Korean dwelling of the best Korean workmanship, with a deep-eaved, tiled roof, the carved beams of which are elaborately painted, and their terminals decorated with the five-petalled plum blossom, the dynastic em- blem. The house consists of a hall with a kang floor, divided into one large and two small rooms by sliding and removable partitions of fretwork, filled in wdth fine tissue paper, the win- dows which occupy the greater part of both sides being of the same construction. The very small rooms at each end are in- dicated as the sleeping apartments of the King and his son by pale blue silk mattresses laid upon the fine white mats which cover the whole floor. The only furniture was two ten-leaved white screens. The fastenings of the windows and partitions are of very fine Korean brasswork. Simplicity could not go further.
Opposite is the much-adorned spirit shrine of the late Queen, connected with the house by a decorated gallery. The inner palace enclosure, where these buildings are, is very small, and behind the King's house rises into a stone terrace. Numerous as is the King's guard, it is evident that he fears to rely upon it solely, for of two gates leading from his house one opens into quarters occupied by Russian officers, who arrived in Seoul in the autumn of 1890, at the King's request, for purposes of mili- tary organization ; and the other into small barracks occupied by the Russian drill instructors of the Korean army. Through the former he could reach the grounds of the English Legation in one minute, and after his former experiences possibilities of escape must be his first consideration. The small buildings of this new palace were already crowded like a rabbit warren, and when completed will contain over i,ooo people, includ- ing the bodyguard, eunuchs, and Court officials innumerable, writers, readers, palace ladies, palace women, and an immense establishment of cooks, runners, servants, and all the supera- bundant and useless entour ge of an Eastern Sovereign, to whom crowds and movement represent power. This congeries of buildings was carefully guarded, and even the Korean soldier who attended on me was not allowed to pass the gate.
The King had given me permission to take his photograph for Queen Victoria, and I was arranging the room for the pur- pose when the interpreter shouted "His Majesty," and almost before I could step back and curtsey, the King and Crown Prince entered, followed by the Officers of the Household and several of the Ministers, a posse of the newfangled police crowding the veranda outside. The Sovereign, always cour- teous, asked if I would like to take one of the portraits in his royal robes. The rich crimson brocade and the gold embroid- ered plastrons on his breast and shoulders became him well, and his pose was not deficient in dignity. He took some trouble to arrange the Crown Prince to the best advantage but the result was unsuccessful. After the operation was over he examined the different parts of the camera with interest, and seemed specially cheerful.
At a farewell audience some weeks later the King reverted to the subject of a British Minister, accredited solely to Korea; and the interpreter added, as an aside, "His Majesty is very anxious about this." He hardly seemed to realize that even if a change in the representation were contemplated, it could scarcely be carried out while Sir Claude Macdonald, who is accredited to both Courts, remains Minister at Peking.
The King was for more than a year the guest of the Russian Legation, an arrangement most distasteful to a large number of his subjects, who naturally regarded it as a national humiliation that their Sovereign should be under the protection of a foreign flag. Rumors of plots for removing him to the Palace from which he escaped were rife, and there were days on which he feared to visit the Queen's tablet-house unless Russian officers walked beside his chair.
Mr. Waeber, the Russian Minister, had then been in Korea twelve years. He is an able and faithful servant of Russia. He was trusted by the King and the whole foreign community, and up to the time of the Hegira had been a warm and judi- cious friend of the Koreans. His guidance might have pre- vented the King from making infamous appointments and arbi- trary arrests, from causelessly removing officials who were working well, and from such reckless extravagances as a costly Embassy to the European Courts and a foolish increase of the army and police force. But he remained passive, allowing the Koreans to "stew in their own juice," acting possibly under orders from home to give Korea "rope enough to hang herself," a proceeding which might hereafter give Russia a legiti- mate excuse for interference. Apart from such instructions, it must remain an inscrutable mystery why so excellent a man and so capable a diplomatist when absolutely master of the situation neglected to aid the Sovereign with his valuable ad- vice, a course which would have met with the cordial approval of all his colleagues.
Be that as it may, the liberty which the King has enjoyed at the Russian Legation and since has not been for the advantage of Korea, and recent policy contrasts unfavorably with that pursued during the period of Japanese ascendency, which, on the whole, was in the direction of progress and righteousness.
Old abuses cropped up daily. Ministers and other favorites sold offices unblushingly, and when specific charges were made against one of the King's chief favorites, the formal demand for his prosecution was met by making him Vice-Minister of Education ! The King, freed from the control of the muti- nous officers and usurping Cabinet of 8th October, 1895, from the Queen's strong though often unscrupulous guidance, and from Japanese ascendency, and finding himself personally safe, has reverted to some of the worst traditions of his dynasty, and in spite of certain checks his edicts are again law and his will absolute. And it is a will at the mercy of any designing person who gets hold of him and can work upon his fears and his desire for money — of the ladies Pak and Om, who assisted him in his flight, and of favorites and sycophants low and many, who sell or bestow on members of their families offices they have little difficulty in obtaining from his pliable good nature. With an ample Civil List and large perquisites he is the most impecunious person in his dominions, for in common with all who occupy official positions in Korea he is surrounded by hosts of grasping parasites and hangers-on, for ever clamoring "Give, Give."
Men were thrown into prison without reason, some of the worst of the canaille were made Ministers of State, the mur- derer of Kwi Ok-yun was appointed Master of Ceremony, and a convicted criminal, a man whose life has been one career of sordid crime, was made Minister of Justice. Con- sequent upon the surreptitious sale of offices, the seizure of revenue on its way to the Treasury, the appointment of men to office for a few days, to give them <'rank" and to enable them to quarter on the public purse a host of impecunious re- lations and friends, and the custom among high officials of resigning office on the occasion of the smallest criticism, the administration is in a state of constant chaos, and the ofttimes well-meaning but always vacillating Sovereign, absolute with- out an idea of how to rule, the sport of favorites usually un- worthy, who work upon his amiability, the prey of greedy parasites, and occasionally the tool of foreign adventurers, paralyzes all good government by destroying the elements of permanence, and renders economy and financial reform difficult and spasmodic by consenting to schemes of reckless ex- travagance urged upon him by interested schemers. Never has the King made such havoc of reigning as since he regained his freedom under the roof of the Russian Embassy.
I regret to have to write anything to the King's disadvantage. Personally I have found him truly courteous and kind, as he is to all foreigners. He has amiable characteristics, and I believe a certain amount of patriotic feeling. But as he is an all-important element of the present and future condition of Korea, it would be misleading and dishonest to pass over without remark such characteristics of his character and rule as are disastrous to Korea, bearing in mind in extenuation of them that he is the product of five centuries of a dynastic tra- dition which has practically taught that public business and the interests of the country mean for the Sovereign simply get- ting offices and pay for favorites, and that statesmanship con- sists in playing off one Minister against another.
Novelties in the Seoul streets were the fine physique and long gray uniforms of Colonel Putiata and his subordinates, three officers and ten drill-instructors, who arrived to drill and discipline the Korean army, the American military ad- viser having proved a failure, while the troops drilled by the Japanese were mutinous and rapacious, and the Japanese drill- instructors had retired with the rest of the regime. This ** Military Commission " was doing its work with characteris- tic vigor and thoroughness, and the flat-faced, pleasant-look- ing, non-commissioned officers, with their drilled slouch, serviceable uniforms, and long boots were always an attraction to the crowd. A novelty, too, was the sight of the Korean cadet corps of thirty-seven young men of good families and seven officers, marching twice daily between the drill ground of the Korean troops close to the Kyeng-pok Palace and their own barracks behind the Russian Legation, with drums beat- ing and colors flying. These young men, who are to receive a two years' military education from Russian officers, are under severe discipline, and were greatly surprised to find that servants were a prohibited luxury, and that their training in- volved the cleaning and keeping bright of their own rifles and accoutrements, and hard work for many hours of the day. The army now consists of 4,300 men in Seoul, 800 of whom are drilled as a bodyguard for the King, and 1,200 in the provinces, in Japanese uniforms, and equipped (so far as they go) with 3,000 Berdan rifles presented by Russia to Korea. The drill and words of command are Russian.
A standing army of 2,000 men would have been sufficient for all purposes in Korea, and as far as her need goes an army of 6,000 is an unblushing extravagance and a heavy drain on her resources. It is most probable that a force drilled and armed by Russia, accustomed to obey Russian orders and ani- mated by an intense hereditary hatred of Japan, would prove a valuable corps d'armee to Russia in the event of war with that ambitious and restless empire.
The old kesit or gens d' amies with their picturesque dresses and long red plumes are now only to be seen, and that rarely, in attendance on officials of the Korean Government. Seoul is now policed, much overpoliced, for it has a force of 1,200 men, when a quarter of that number would be sufficient for its orderly population. Everywhere numbers of slouching men on and off" duty, in Japanese semi-military uniforms, with shocks of hair behind their ears and swords in nickel-plated scabbards by their sides, suggest useless and extravagant ex- penditure. The soldiers and police, by an unwise arrange- ment made by the Japanese, and now scarcely possible to alter, are enormously overpaid, the soldiers receiving five dol- lars and a half a month, "all found," and the police from eight to ten, only finding their food. The Korean army is about the most highly paid in the world. The average Ko- rean in his great baggy trousers, high, perishable, broad- brimmed hat, capacious sleeves, and long flapping white coat, is usually a docile and harmless man ; but European clothes and arms transform him into a truculent, insubordinate, and ofttimes brutal person, without civic sympathies or patriotism, greedy of power and spoil. Detachments of soldiers scattered through the country were a terror to the people from their brutality and marauding propensities early in 1897, and unless Russian officers are more successful than their predecessors in disciplining the raw material, an overpaid army, too large for the requirements of the country, may prove a source of weak- ness and frequent disorder.
Seoul in many parts, specially in the direction of the south and west gates, was literally not recognizable. Streets, with a minimum width of 55 feet, with deep stone-lined channels on both sides, bridged by stone slabs, had replaced the foul alleys, which were breeding-grounds of cholera. Narrow lanes had been widened, slimy runlets had been paved, roadways were no longer "free coups" for refuse, bicyclists "scorched" along broad, level streets, "express wagons" were looming in the near future, preparations were being made for the building of a French hotel in a fine situation, shops with glass fronts had been erected in numbers, an order forbidding the throwing of refuse into the streets was enforced, — refuse matter is now removed from the city by official scavengers, and Seoul, from having been the foulest is now on its way to being the cleanest city of the Far East !
This extraordinary metamorphosis was the work of four months, and is due to the energy and capacity of the Chief Commissioner of Customs, ably seconded by the capable and intelligent Governor of the city. Ye Cha Yun, who had ac- quainted himself with the working of municipal affairs in Washington, and who with a rare modesty refused to take any credit to himself for the city improvements, saying that it was all due to Mr. M'Leavy Brown,
Old Seoul, with its festering alleys, its winter accumulations of every species of filth, its ankle-deep mud and its foulness, which lacked the redeeming element of picturesqueness, is being fast improved off the face of the earth. Yet it is chiefly a restoration, for the dark, narrow alleys which lingered on till the autumn of 1896 were but the result of gradual encroach- ments on broad roadways, the remains of the marginal chan- nels of which were discovered.
What was done (and is being done) was to pull down the houses, compensate their owners, restore the old channels, and insist that the houses should be rebuilt at a uniform distance behind them. Along the fine broad streets thus restored tiled roofs have largely replaced thatch, in many cases the lower parts of the walls have been rebuilt of stone instead of wattle, and attempts at decoration and neatness are apparent in many of the house and shop fronts, while many of the smoke-holes, which vomit forth the smoke of the kang fires directly into the street, are now fitted with glittering chimneys, constructed out of American kerosene tins.
Some miles of broad streets are now available as promenades, and are largely taken advantage of; business looked much brisker than formerly, the shops made more display, and there was an air of greater prosperity, which has been taken advantage of by the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank, which has opened a branch at Chemulpo, and will probably erelong appear in the capital.
It is not, however, only in the making of broad thorough- fares that the improvement consists. Very many of the narrow lanes have been widened, their roadways curved and gravelled, and stone gutters have been built along the sides, in some cases by the people themselves. Along with much else the pungent, peculiar odor of Seoul has vanished. Sanitary regulations are enforced, and civilization has reached such a height that the removal of the snow from the front of the houses is compulsory on all householders. So great is the change that I searched in vain for any remaining representative slum which I might photograph for this chapter as an illustration of Seoul in 1894.
It must be remarked, however, that the capital is being reconstructed on Korean lines, and is not being Europeanized.
Chong-dong, however, the quarter devoted to Foreign Le- gations, Consulates, and Mission agencies, would have nearly ceased to be Korean had not the King set down the Kyeng- won Palace with its crowded outbuildings in the midst of the foreign residences. Most of the native inhabitants have been bought out. Wide roads with foreign shops have been con- structed. The French have built a Legation on a height, which vies in grandeur with that of Russia, and the American Methodist Episcopal Mission has finished a large red brick church, which, like the Roman Cathedral, can be seen from all quarters.
The picturesque Peking Pass, up and down whose narrow, rugged pathway generations of burdened baggage animals toiled and suffered, and which had seen the splendors of successive Chinese Imperial Envoys at the accession of the Korean Kings, has lost its identity. Its rock ledges, holes, and boulders have disappeared—the rocky gash has been widened, and the sides chiselled into smoothness, and under the auspices of the Russian Minister a broad road, with retaining walls and fine culverts, now carries the traffic over the lowered height.
Many other changes were noticeable. The Tai-won Kun, for so many years one of the chief figures in Korean politics, was practically a prisoner in his own palace. The Eastern and Western Palaces, with their enormous accommodation and im- mense pleasure-grounds, were deserted, and were already be- ginning to decay. The Japanese soldiers had vacated the barracks so long occupied by them close to the Kyeng-pok Palace, and, reduced to the modest numbers of a Legation guard, were quartered in the Japanese settlement ; parties of missionaries who had hived off from Chong-dong were occupy- ing groups of houses in various parts of the capital, and there was a singular "boom" in schools, accompanied by a military craze, which affected not the scholars only, but the boys of Seoul generally.
But it must be remarked in connection with education in Korea that so lately as the close of 1896 a book, called Confucianist Scholars^ Handbook of the Latitudes and Longitudes, had been edited by Sin Ki Sun, Minister of Education, prefaced by two Councillors of the Education Department, and published at Government expense, in which the following sentences occur : —
P. 52 : "Europe is too far away from the centre of civilization, i.e. the Middle Kingdom; hence Russians, Turks, English, French, Germans, and Belgians look more like birds and beasts than men, and their languages sound like the chirping of fowls."
Again: "According to the views of recent generations, what westerners call the Christian Religion is vulgar, shallow, and erroneous, and is an instance of the vileness of Barbarian customs, which are not worthy of serious discussion. . . . They worship the heavenly spirits, but do not sacrifice to par- ents, they insult heaven in every way, and overturn the social relations. This is truly a type of Barbarian vileness, and is not worthy of treatment in our review of foreign customs, especially as at this time the religion is somewhat on the wane.
"Europeans have planted their spawn in every country of the globe except China. All of them honor this religion (!), but we are surprised to find that the Chinese scholars and people have not escaped contamination by it."
On p. 42 it is said: "Of late the so-called Ye Su Kyo (Cliristianity) has been trying to contaminate the world with its barbarous teachings. It deceives the masses by its stories of Heaven and Hell : it interferes with the rites of ancestral worship, and interdicts the custom of bowing before the gods of Heaven and Earth. These are the ravings of a disordered intellect, and are not worth discussing."
P. 50 : " How grand and glorious is the Empire of China, the Middle Kingdom ! She is the largest and richest in the world. The grandest men of the world have all come from the Middle Empire."
This tirade from an official pen was thought worthy of a remonstrance from the foreign representatives.
The graceful Pai-low, near the Peking Pass, at which generations of Korean kings had publicly acknowledged Chinese suzerainty by awaiting there the Imperial Envoy who came to invest them with regal rights, was removed, and during my sojourn the foundation of an arch to commemorate the as- sumption of Independence by Korea in January, 1895, was laid near the same spot, in presence of a vast concourse of white- robed men. An Independence Club, with a disused Royal Pavilion near the stumps of the Pai-low for its Club House, had been established to commemorate and conserve the national autonomy, and though the entrance fee is high, had already a membership of 2,000.
After a number of patriotic speeches had been made on the occasion of the laying of the foundation of the independence arch, the Club entertained the Foreign Legations and all the foreign residents at a recherche "collation" in this building; speeches were made both by Koreans and the Foreign Representatives, and an extraordinary innovation was introduced. Waiters were dispensed with, and the Committee of the Club, the Governor of Seoul, and several of the Ministers of Stale themselves attended upon the guests with much grace and courtesy.
One of the most important events in Seoul was the establish- ment in April, 1896, by Dr. Jaisohn of the Independent ^ a two- page tri-weekly newspaper in English and the Korean script, enlarged early in 1897 to four pages, and published separately in each language. Only those who have formed some idea of the besotted ignorance of the Korean concerning current events in his own country, and of the credulity which makes him the victim of every rumor set afloat in the capital, can ap^ predate the significance of this step and its probable effect in enlightening the people, and in creating a public opinion which shall sit in judgment on regal and official misdeeds. It is already fulfilling an important function in unearthing abuses and dragging them into daylight, and is creating a desire for rational education and reasonable reform, and is becoming something of a terror to evil-doers. Dr. Jaisohn (So Chia P'il) is a Korean gentleman educated in America, and has the welfare of his country thoroughly at heart.
The sight of newsboys passing through the streets with bun- dles of a newspaper in En-miin under their arms, and of men reading them in their shops, is among the novelties of 1897. Besides the Independent, there are now in Seoul two weeklies in En-miin the Korean Christian Advocate, and the Christian News; and the Korean Independence Club publishes a monthly magazine. The Chosen, dealing with politics, science, and foreign news, which has 2,000 subscribers. Seoul has also a paper, the Kanjo Shimbo, or Seoul News, in mixed Japanese and Korean script, published on alternate days, and there are newspapers in the Japanese language, both in Fusan and Chemulpo. All these, and the admirable Korean Re- pository, are the growth of the last three years.
The faculty of combination, by which in Korea as in China the weak find some measure of protection against the strong, is being turned to useful account. This Kyei, or principle of association, which represents one of the most noteworthy features of Korea, develops into insurance companies, mutual benefit associations, money-lending syndicates, tontines, mar- riage and burial clubs, great trading guilds, and many others.
With its innumerable associations, only a few of which I have alluded to, Korean life is singularly complex; and the Korean business world is far more fully organized than ours, nearly all the traders in the country being members of guilds, powerfully bound together, and having the common feature of mutual helpfulness in time of need. This habit of united action, and the measure of honesty which is essential to the success of combined undertakings, supply the framework on which various joint-stock companies are being erected, among which one of the most important is a tannery. Korean hides have hitherto been sent to Japan to be manufactured, owing to caste and superstitious prejudices against working in leather. The establishment of this company, which brought over Japa- nese instructors to teach the methods of manufacture, has not only made an end of a foolish prejudice, in the capital at least, but is opening a very lucrative industry, and others are following.
As may be expected in an Oriental country, the administra- tion of law in Korea is on the whole infamous. It may be said that a body of law has yet to be created, as well as the judges who shall administer it equably. A mixed Committee of Re- vision has been appointed, but the Korean members show a marked tendency to drop off, and no legal reform, solely the work of foreigners, would carry weight with the people. Mr. Greathouse, a capable lawyer and legal adviser to the Law De- partment, has been able to prevent some infamous transactions, but on the whole the Seoul Law Court does little more than ad- minister injustice and receive bribes. Of the two Law Courts of the capital the Supreme Court, under the supervision of the Minister and Vice-Minister of Justice, and in which the foreign adviser sits with the judges to advise in important cases, is the most hopeful ; yet one of the most disgraceful of late appoint- ments has been in connection with this department. The out- rageous decisions, the gross bribery, and the actual atrocities of the Seoul Court are likely to bring about its abolition, and I will not enlarge upon them.
One of the most striking changes introduced into the Seoul of 1897 is the improvement in the prison, which is greatly owing to Mr. A. B. Stripling, formerly of the Shanghai Police, who, occupying a position as adviser to the Police Department, is carrying out prison reforms, originally suggested by the Japanese, in a humane and enlightened manner. Torture has disappeared from the great city prison, but there were dark rumors that some of the political prisoners, so lately as Jan- uary, 1897, were subjected to it elsewhere.
My experience of Eastern prisons, chiefly in Asia Minor, China, Persia, and a glimpse of a former prison in Seoul, have given me a vivid impression of the contrast presented by the present system. Surrounding a large quadrangle, with the chief jailer's house in the centre, the rooms, not to be called cells, are large, airy, light, and well ventilated, with boarded floors covered with mats, and plenty of air space below. It is true that on the day I visited them some of the prisoners were shivering, and shivered more vigorously as an appeal to my compassion, but then the mecury was at 18° F., and this is not a usual temperature. They have a large bathroom with a stove on the Japanese plan. Their diet consists of a pint of excellent soup twice a day, with a large bowl of rice, and those who go out to work get a third meal. This ample diet cost i^d. per day.
There were from twelve to eighteen prisoners in each ordi- nary room, and fifty were awaiting trial in one roomy hall. A few under sentence, two of them to death, wore long wooden cangiies, but I did not see any fetters. They are allowed to bring in their own mattresses, mats, and pillows for extra com- fort. On the whole they were clean, cleaner than the ordinary coolies outside. A perforated wooden bar attached to the floor, with another with corresponding perforations above it, secures the legs of the prisoners at night. The sick were lying thickly on the hot floor of a room very imperfectly lighted, but probably the well would have been glad to change with them.
There were 225 prisoners altogether, all men. Classifica- tion is still in the future. Murderers and pilferers occupied the same room, and colonels of regiments accused of a serious conspiracy were with convicted felons, who might or might not be acting as spies and informers ; a very fine-looking man, sentenced for life, the first magistrate in Korea ever convicted and punished for bribery, and that on the complaint of a simple citizen, was in a "cell" with criminals wearing cangues. Some of the sentences seemed out of proportion to the offences, as, for instance, a feeble old man was immured for three years for cutting and carrying off pine brush for fuel, and an old blind man of some position was incarcerated for ten years for the violation of a grave under circumstances of provocation.
Much has been done in the way of prison reform, and much remains to be done, specially in the direction of classification, but still the great Seoul prison contrasts most favorably with the prisons of China and other unreformed Oriental countries. Torture is at least nominally abolished, and brutal exposures of severed heads and headless trunks, and beating and slicing to death, were made an end of during the ascendency of Japan. After an afternoon in the prison of Seoul, I could hardly believe it possible that only two years before I had seen several human heads hanging from tripod stands and lying on the ground in the throng of a business street, and headless bodies lying in their blood on the road outside the East Gate.
To mention the changes in Seoul would take another chapter. Dr. Allen, now U.S. Minister to Korea, said that the last four months of 1896 had seen more alterations than the previous twelve years of his residence in the country, and the three months of my last visit brought something new every week.
As a foil to so much that is indicative of progress, I conclude this chapter by mentioning, on the authority of the Governor of Seoul, that in January, 1897, there were in the capital a thousand viu-tang, or sorceresses, earning on an average fifteen dollars a month each, representing an annual expenditure by that single city of a hundred and eighty thousand dollars on dealings with the spirits, exclusive of the large sums paid to the blind sorcerers for their services, and to the geomancers, whose claims on the occasion of the interment of any one of rank and wealth are simply monstrous.
$^1$I left Korea for China at Christmas, 1895, ^^^ ^^^^^ spending six months in travelling in the Chinese Far West, and three months among the Nan-tai San mountains in Japan, returned in the middle of October, 1896, and remained in Seoul until late in the winter of 1896-97.