Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-20

| ia $alI kingdom, prophesied the ruin
| IlSM Nj of Korea IN the event of the
llH XGl failure of the Koreans to eX-
lAsA14sl clude all foreigners, he mere
ly voiced the sentiment then felt by the
yellow races of eastern Asia toward
the Uitlander. Yet, in the light of
what has transpired since that time.
the words of Taiwonkun are not with
out interest. They were engraved upon
tablets erected at the gtaes of the
walled city of Seoul, and We're as fol-
lows:
"The barbarians beyond the sea rve
invaded our land and violated our wa
ters. If we do not fight them we must
make treaties with them. Those who
are in favor of a treaty sell their coun-
try. Let this be a warning to 10000
generations"
Here spoke the yellow ruler who con-
sidered all foreigners devils" His
ideas We're those that formerly OBJ
tained in both China and Japan. A
later and more statesmanlike prophecy,
and one which this generation has seen
fulfilled, was made by the remarkable
Chinese, Lii Hung Chang.
At the time of the Taiwonkun's warn
ing little was known of Korea by the
outside world. Every year certain
number of Koreans journeyed to Pc
king by land and paid tribute to the
Chinese empire. The tribute having
been collected, China cared little about
Korea and interfered but little in her
affairs. For centuries the policy o4 the
country had been to hold little or no
communication with the outside world.
When a ship went upon the rocks
along the coast of the peninsula the
mariners who succeeded in getting
ashore were Hospitality received and
assisted in getting home. Persons who
landed voluntarily were expelled or
killed. Those who escaped to enter
Korea by the north frontier, and they
were few, usually fell into the hands
of the half-wild inhabitants of the hills.
who were tiger hunters and bandits as
occasion for adventure presented itself
Generally speaking, they were muir
dered.
About $50 years ago an effort was
made by Roman Catholics to penetrate
Korea and convert it's inhabitants to
the Christian faith. Although the
country had been described as one in
which crimes were few and the life of
the inhabitants ideally happy, the
spread of Christianity among the Ko-
reans was bitterly fought by methods
as harsh as those of the Spanish inquisi-
ton. The missionaries were French, u
part of the great ARMY of fearless and
self-sacrificing men who were at that
time risklng and often losing their
lives among the savages of the Ameri-
can *ilds. They underwent unheard of
privations and hardships of every kind
in entering Korea in disguise and maxi
ing converts in secret. Often these fell
victims, with their converts, to the
wrath of the official classes. A favor
ite mode of punishment was to bind a
priest and infiict many strokes with q
heavy paddle. He was next taken to
the public decapitation ground and tor
mented until the beheading ended his
sufferings.
France undertook early in the. nine
teenth century to discipline the Hermit
kingdom for the wholesale slaughter of
the last of the priests then in Korea,
and q French feet was dispatched to
put into effect the statement of the
emperor of France that the action of
the king of Korea in numbering French
priests marked the beginning of the
end of his power. The French burned
the city of Kangwha, but the natives
made the interior too hot to hold the
French when they sought to advance
and the expedition returned without
having overthrown the king.
AS late as the close of the American
civil war Korea was so little known
that the most fantastic tales of the
strange customs of the people, the
fabulous wealth of the king and no
bles and the boundless mineral re-
sources of the country were readily be-
lieved in the United States. In 1866 the
schooner General Sherman, under
Captain Preston, with a crew of Ma
lays, ready for any adventure, set out
to Korea from the China coast upon
buccaneering expedition. The Taiwon-
kun ordered that the attempt of the
foreigners to land from their vessel in
the Tai Tong river should be frustrat-
ed at any cost in blood. The people of
Peyng-Yang turned out with many
strange varieties of weapons, including
fire arrows that exploded in the air,
and wearing armor made of many
thicknesses of cloth. They dragged
few ancient cannon to the river banks
and began an attack which ended after
several days in the burning of the Gen
eral Sherman by means of floats sent
down the stream saturated with oil
and set aflame. The invaders who were
not killed on the schooner met death on
shore, and the anchor chains of the
General Sherman were hung up at the
gates of PeyngYang as a warning to
foreigners. They hang there today.
The story that the General Sher-
mans secret object was to secure
large quantities of priceless jewels in
the royal tombs of Peyng- Yang, the
ancient capital, fired other adventurers
with desire to visit Korea. A year
later there sailed from Shanghai an
expedition in which Germans, Ameri-
cans and French, with a crew of Chi
nese and Malays, took part. They
reached Peyng- Yang and had dug
down to the granite covering Of
royal tomb when they were driven off
by the natives. The only result of the
venture was a book written by Ernest