The herald., 1896-01-14
Facts More Strange Than the
Widest Fiction
THE PLOT OF FOREIGNERS
To Seize the Ministers and Restore
the Queen
The Miscarriage Of the Plot Still Forces the
Unfortunate Woman to Remain
in Concealment

Associated Press Special Wire
NEW YORK, Jan. 13.-A dispatch to the
World from Shanghai says:
romance equaling anything which
Rider Haggard wrote comes from Scout,
the capital of Corea, relating to the con-
spiracy which broke out there last Novem-
ber.
The facts are known only to few per-
sons, one being the king, and all have the
strongest motives for concealment.
1t will be remembered that on November
2S an unsuccessful plot ended in an attack
on the palace by number of Coreans be.
longing to the queens party. M. Weber.
the Russian charge d'affairs, and Drs AL
len and Underwood mericans, were ac-
cused, on apparently good grounds, of
being privy to the plot. They were, in fact,
said to have been on the ground simulta-
neously with the abortive attempt. They,
however, denied all completely. The king
and the Japanese, being warned before
hand, posted extra guards and foiled the
conspiracy. Your correspondents inform
alton now shows that M. Weber and the
English consul shared the secret, the
object being to seize the ministers, exp ell
ter's influence and restore the queen, who
was reputed to be dead, but VINO was
in reality alive. The Russian secretary of
the legation was the leading spirit of the
conspiracy, and was deputed to conduct
The queen from her place of hiding to the
palace. The failure of the attempt neces-
STATED the keeping of the secret of the
queen being still alive, which is now for
the first time divuged.
When, in October, the Coreans and jap
anese broke into the palace, the queen,
scentng danger, hid hastily. without
speaking to her women, in an obscure
clubhouse, saw the bodies of her ladies-iu-
waiting dragged to the pyre prepared for
them outside. and watched the compile
ton of the tragedy from her hiding place.
The queen was concealed for an hour and
half, every moment expecting discov-
cry. She fled at last through secret
passage to the old palace, and there, after
changing her dress, made her escape out
side of the walls of the citv. where she
reached place of safety. When the Jap
anese and Coreans examined the charred
bodies of the women that had been burned
the king and some others shrewdly feigned
that they had discovered the identity of
the queen in one of the victims, lest a
search should reveal her whereabouts and
lead to her murder. The Japanese accept
ed the accounts of the queens death as
true. NJ. Weber and Hilder. the latter be-
ing the German consul, must have been
privy to the secret, which was, however.
we'll kept Three Coreans were strangled
last week as the queens murderers. while
the trial of Viscount Muru and other Jap.
anese officials is proceeding at Hiroshima
for the murder of a woman who still lives.
Ii Han Shin, the leader of the last abortive
plot, is in hiding here. An American
friend, who came here on the Russian cruis-
er Otvajny, says that Russia is using the
supposed murder of the queen as weapon
against the Japanese, although we'll know
ing its falsity. The queen has been killed
by rumor twice before.