The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-15

ican girl has been the central figure in so picturesque a ceremony. Three great powers were there, and it must have been a proud moment for the American Empress when she saw that two of them were England and the United States with Japan at their side At the close of the ceremony the new Empress rode by her husbands side through the streets of Seoul
 No detail that would add to the pictur- sequences of the procession was lost. It has not yet been forgotten how the Elm peror of Korea refused to see a British Consul. who, having packed up his uni form called upon His Majesty in evening dress, and all the love of pomp which marks the Emperor's life was apparent at the coronation of his second wife The houses of the capital were closed by royal decree, and the people of Seoul knelt at their doors as the procession passed, a new broom in each hand marking their subjection to VI Hi and the Empress Om. Two closed sedan chairs bore their mai esties' sacred persons through the strets, and above them waved banner with a flying dragon fourteen feet long, and a red parasol indicating to the people that the monarch had shared his throne and power with his bride The installation of the Empress came about quietly, and to the surprise of those who read one day in the official Gazette that the ceremony was to mark the for tleth anniversary of the imperial acces- sion. But Lady Emily had to wait up- on tragic events. before she could reap her promised inheritance. The women of the Korean courts have not lived easy hves' and the first wife of the Emperor came to an end which might have warned l Emily Brown of the step she was taking She had been omnipotent in the Kingdom ana every corner of the palace, every street in Seoul, was watched by her spies
 It was said that she was too favorable to Russia, and there were other reasons why she should be hated and one day twenty years ago, during trouble with Japan, the empress disappeared, and Xo- req was ordered to go into mouring for twelve months. Then the dead" empress appeared again at court, and it trans pired that she had been smugsxed from the palace disguised as a soldSer's wife. another lady having been killed in her place Mack from the dead she reign ed for thirteen years beside her husband. until one tragic day there happened at Seoul the like of what has happened this year at Belgrade. Tai wen Kun, the rather of the emperor, the man with
 bowels of iron and heart of stone. {" stage-managed an assassination which I once more to flight Whe nthe crisis was over the king came back to Seoul. was quietly married to Emily Brown. assumed the title of emperor, and early this year. on the. fortieth anniversary of his accession, announced his marriage to his people.
 No monarch in the world, Lord Curzon has said, influences its affairs less than the Emperor of Korea, but the American girl has generous share of the pomps and vanities of kings. She lives in a pal ace 400 years old, and might have been living in an older palace still if a snake had not fallen from one of its ceilings and frightened VI Hi. Rive hundred guards protect her, 2,OO0 retainers reside In the grounds, and just outside the roy al residence is the entire standing army of the ---ngdom. She has probably for gotten that she once sang in the choir at the mission church, or that she came to Korea simple girl of 15, but the mem ory may come back to her now, when the dogs of war seem likely to be let loose outside her kingdom. It will be scant l consolation then, if the thunders of the war should reach Seoul, that for little while she shared the life of a man who has been called the most disconsolate living occupant of a throne"