We have already mentioned that the most important matter in the March issue of the Corean Repository is the translation of the "Official Report on Matters connected with the Events of October 8th, 1895, amd the Death of the Queen." This report has since been issued as a pamphlet, copies of which are to be obtained at the store 607 of Messrs. Kelly and Walsh, Ld.; and any one who is interested in the current history of Corea should obtain and read it. Meanwhile our readers will, we are sure, be glad to have a short summary of it; it confirms the accounts that we have given in these columns of the coup d'état of the 8th of October last, a blow which, while it was intended by the Japanese Minister, Miura, to consolidate the supremacy of Japan at Seoul, resulted in destroying that supremacy. If the Japanese Emperor. did not choose to punish his Minister for plotting and carrying out the murder of the Queen of Corea, he should have punished him for doing it so clumsily that it produced entirely the opposite result to that which was intended. An Exitorial note to the Report assures us that the investigation was thorough and impartial; it was attended, at the special request of the King, by his foreign adviser, Mr. Greathouse, whose integrity is above suspicion, who himself examined the witnesses and supervised the proceedings, and who saw that the witnesses were not subjected to torture, "It appears to us," the note concludes, "and we base our opinion on information furnished us by others in addition to that of Mr. Great-house, that these trials have not only been free from the gross faults that frequently disfigure the proceedings of Eastern courts, but that for purity and honesty of procedure, for patient and thorough-going investigation, and for general approximation to Western notions of justice and integrity, they are in every way remarkable." The Report is illus: trated by a plan of the portion of the King's palace in which the events of the 8th of October took place, including the spot where the Queen's body was burut, and, no doubt in reference to the report that has been circulated that the Queen is still alive, the Editors say: "After a full survey of the grounds, the several gates through which the assailants entered, and the rooms occupied by their Majesties, it is difficult to see how the poor Queen could have escaped from the murderous band that rushed into and surrounded the building where she was. They hounded her into 9 small room sixteen feet long, eight feet wide, and seven feet high, avd there killed her, as stated in the report."
The Report opens with a sketch of events at Seoul before the 8th of October, the occupation by Japanese troops of the barracks at the entrance to the palace, formerly oceupial by the Corean Palace Guard, and the appointment of Viscount Miura, who took official charge of the Japanese Legation at Seoul on the 8rd of September last. It is noted that up to the fatal day the relations between the Corean and Japanese governments were most amicable; the Japanese Ministers virtually controlled the Corean Cabinet, and a large number of Japanese were employed as instructors and advisers in the various departments of the administration, The judgment of the Court of first instance at Hiroshima on Viscount Miura and his associates is then given in full, the important point of it being that the judge,, while finding the charge against Viscount Miura not proven, distinctly says that "Miura told them (the conspirators) that on the success of the enterprise depended the eradication of the evils that had done so much mischief to the Kingdom for the past twenty years, and instigated them to despatch the Queen when they entered the palace." 'I'he report shows how these instructions were carried out. The building occupied by the King and Queen on the 8th of October is about a quarter of a mile from the front gate of the palace, and to this the Japanese soldiers repaired immediately, killing on the way some Corean soldiers who tried to resist them. When they arrived at the building occupied by
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.