Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1907-07-20
KOREA'S TRAGEDY.
By WILLIAM T. ELLIS,
Personal Repre- sentative, the Philadelphia Press.

We do not treat street ours In
America as the lowest Japanese COO
lie feels free to treat a Korean gem
tleman. Only this morning, the
Japanese porter carrying my bag
lKoreans are not allowed to ply any
lucrative occupations on or near the
railways or steamboat landings)
wanted to pass an elderly Korean
who stood with his back toward us,
IN the railway station. Did the COO
lie turn to one side, and ask the
other to move? Not he; with an inn
precation he gave the man shove
that knocked him out of the way.
That sort of thing is so general that
the sixty thousand Japanese now in
Korea are feared by the twelve mil
lions Koreans to the point of abject-
ness; for an appeal to japanese
official justice seems to bring moth
ing but increased trouble.
A Japanese broke into the house
of an English-speaking Korean whom
know, because the latter would not
sell his property at the Japanese
figure, and smashed the furniture,
ornaments and a hanging lamp. The
Korean, with the help of another,
tied the offender to a chair and sent
for a policeman. When the latter
came the only crime he would con-
slider was that of "a barbarian tying
up q civilized man." and he took
away as evidence the rope with which
the Korean had committed this
honIvus Uueuse!
Is it any wonder, as one of the
leading natives in all Korea said to
me, that the villagers throughout the
country would rather see the black
death enter their community than a
Japanese?
So much of this sort of thing have
seen with my own eyes, and so
thinly yelled has been the hostility
and insolence of the lower class
Japanese toward myself and all for
eigners, that, bearing in mind the
repeated assaults upon white men
known to me, have armed daily for
the first time in my life. Yet the
word that is ever passing among the
foreigners Is, Don't pay any atten-
ton to insolence and insults, and
do not hit back unless your life is
endangered"
The self-conceit, arrogance and
license of the Japanese in Korea
knows no bounds. Nor can the gov
eminent, which so completely con-
trolls the people in Japan, truthfully
disclaim responsibility for this state
Of affairs.
From all parts of tho country come
reports of the forcible dispossession
of Koreans from their homes in
order that they may be occupied by
the Japanese. Military necessity"
has been the convenient pretext
under which thousands of acres have
been seized without compensation
and thousands of Koreans compelled
to work without pay. And military
operations, on a large scale, really
are in evidence in many parts Of the
land.
have seen small cities where al
most the entire business section has
been taken possession of by the ia
panese. Even the wealthy have eX-
hibited to me the same terror which
possesses the poor, namely, that the
Japanese will seize their lands and
homes. One American friend of the
natives showed me a bundle of deeds
to houses and lands that was three
feet in circumference. The deeds
were done up in packages, of which
| counted forty-four; the aggregate
of individual documents must have
been more than 200. These have all
been brought to the American for
safety by alarmed Koreans, and he
has bought them for penny apiece.
Thus far, a foreigners ownership
of real estate has been usually re-
spected, and the natives have turned
over their property in this manner
in order to keep it out of Japanese
hands, hoping for the day when Sc
curity for life and possessions will
come to Korea.
Japan's conduct in Korea, as any
traveller may see it (though tray