The Corean Repository, July, 1896, Published at the Trilingual Press, Seoul. the position of Corea as a factor in the Far Eastern Question did not make the country an interesting study, the Editors of the Corean Repository would make it so by the magazine which they send out monthly. The opening article in-the issue before us is headed The Attack on the Top. Knot," and the author, who signs himself "X.Y.Z.," begins by remarking that, "while there are many things which brought about the overthrow of the so-called Kim Hong-chip Cabinet, and the collapse of the influence behind and upholding it—so sudden and utter that it would have been ludicrous if it had not been accompanied by the tragic deaths of Kim Hong-chip and others—one of those factors certainly was the attack on. the top-knot; the attempt on the part of the Cabinet to force the Corean to change in a day his time-honoured and venerated style of dressing his hair, and to make him by Inw cut off and discard the top-knot which he and his ancestors had worn for centuries." The writer goes on to describe this top-knot, which is essentially different from the Chinese quave and the old Japanese topknot, and represents much more to the Corean than the other personal adornments do or did to their wearers. In the first place, it has the sanctity and commands the veneration of great antiquity. It is believed to have been "worn for ab last two thousand years with the exception of a short interval, a little over five hundred years ago, when a king of the last dynasty, Whose queen was Chinese or Mongolian, in order to please her and his father-in-law, tried to do away with it and to substitute the Chinese. pigtail, but this attempted innovation caused great dissatisfaction and rebellion among the people, and in about a year the top-knot got on top again, and peace and quiet were restored." "The Coreans are so conservative that the antiquity of the top-knot invests it with a sanctity that Occidentals find it difficult to appreciate.
secondly, the top-knot represents manhood, for' the day when the Corean substitutes it for the queue which to that time has made him look like a walled cities. "Those who cut their hair Were often insulted by being called monks. In one case I have heard of, a newly appointed magistrate who had cut his top-knot was met on arrival at his district by a great concourse of the people, and informed that they had heretofore' been ruled over by a Corean man, and would not tolerate a monk magistrate." He discreetly. retired, and luckily succeeded in bring back to Seoul his diminished head upon his shoulders; other magistrates were not 80 fortunate Then, the people hate the Japanese and believed the order to abolish the top-knot to come from them. The assassination of the Queen, the plot for which was hatched in the Japanese Legation by Miura and his Japanese ce-conspirators, was supposed to have been consented to by Kim Hong-chip and his friends. The Queen was considered the mother of all the people, and her murder, greatly exciting and exasperating the masses, made the Cabinet most odious, which odium was by no means lessened by the general opinion that such Cabinet was entirely under the control of and dominated by Japanese influence and dictation." Petty and irritating reforms of all kinds were introduced by Kim and his Cabinet; but the last straw was the attack on the topknot. It drove hundred and thousands into revolt, At last the end came.
"Moved by the troubles in the country and other considerations not less weighty and important, his Majesty, on the 11th of February, took the decisive step of leaving the Palace and going to the Russian Lega: tion. There he was free to act and to resume his hereditary and lawful rights and Royal edicts, among them one saying that prerogatives. He at once issued several the matters of dress and way of wearing the hair were trivial and that in these respects the people could do as they pleased. All the soldiers, police, and
collapsed utterly and instantly. The attack Majesty. and the ist Hong' ip. Cabinet ople rallied loyally in support of his
upon the top-knot had not only been repulsed but its assailants annihilated.
"As in the country the top-knot never abolished, it cannot be said that it has been restored. It simply remains, but in Seoul, where all of them were cut off, the most casual observer will see that all are resuming it as fast as their growing hair will permit... Incipient top-knots, which in time will blossom into full-grown ones, are seen on every side.—Some of the more sensible and advanced Coreans, coollsing thas the foreign fashion of dressing the hair is much more convenient and comfortable, will adhere to it. and I trust that in time the top-knot will disappear—but the recent attack upon it has clearly demonstrated that it is too firmly seated and fixed to be removed by force, and can only be done away with when the people by example, experience, and reason realise its disadvantages and Under the heading "'A Fortune-Teller's Fate" Dr. H. N. Allen contributes five specimens of Corean folk-lore, or rather vociferating, in every musical pitch, the lesson assigned for the day. In contrast with all this movement and din is the Quiet form of the school-master, sitting at the end of the room where the flue: heated floor is the warmest, on his head a crown-shaped, horse-hair hat, his nose surmounted by a pair of scholarly goggles, with a book before him, and in his hand a ging rod; and now and again his. stentorian tones mingle with the shrilling trebles as he hurls in a word or two of correction. This is the ordinary Corean school.
"From early dawn till the sun goes down these lads drone away, now studying aloud, now writing the characters, now reciting to the master the contents of the Chinese classics, filled with the lore of the ancient sages and a pseudo-history, but scarcely an idea to lead them to understand the world in which they live in the year 1896."
As a means either of educating or of imparting useful knowledge these schools are as useless as their counterparts in China. There are, however, three other classes of schools whose influence radiates from the capital, Government vernacular schools, Governmen. schools for the foreign languages, and missionary institutions of learning. Of the two former of these some account is given, and we learn that they are carried on with considerable success, especially the English school, which is under the charge of Mr. W. duff. Hutchison; the missionary schools are reserved for another article. The last. article is by the Rev. W. M. Baird and is the opening of an argument against the admission of polygamists to the Church. Mr, Baird is hot a very strong reasoner. To those who urge that while it is a sin to have an auxiliary wife, it is a greater sin to sever the relation than to continue it, he answers: Then though it is a sin to steal a thousand dollars it would be wrong to restore it;" forgetting that it makes no difference to the dollars what becomes of them, but a very great deal of difference to the unfortunate woman who is ty be sacrificed that the man may be purged of his sin. The Kditorial Department contains some Reminiscences of the 23rd of July, 1894, and a notice of the Seoul-Wiju Railway, which is to be completed by the French contractors in twelve years, and which it is said, will be a decided blessing to the kingdom.
The Messenger, August, 1896. Shang-i: The American Presbyterian Mission The scribbled message left by the man who broke jail: "Excuse the liberty I take," might be the editorial apology for the insertion of the second instalment of the correspondence re 'A Method for improving Education in China," whick opens this month's Messenger. While no liberty may have been taken with the cores. pondent, the general reader may feel a liberty has been taken in giving so much space to Dr. Kung's views. There are, fairy tales; and the Rev. Daniel L. Gifford however, we feel sure, a number of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.