My Dear Doxatp,—You want to know all about the Land of the Morning Calm and the politics thereof. This is an extremely tall order, as at the present moment the political aspect of the country is like unto the Peace of God, which passeth all understanding; the ''Land of the Coming Chaos" would best describe the political outlook. The King, who is a most amiable, affable, learned, kind-hearted Prince, is exactly summed up by Parnell's description of Justin McCarthy as a "charming old gentleman for an afternoon tea party." But, unfortunately, this kind of man is not what an Oriental State wants asa helmsman to guide the ship of State through stormy political teas. Ihe sort of mau who naturally feels a Gancing girls trip merrily into his presence low of virtuous satisfaction when his
bearing on chargers the heads of his enemies, has a much better chance to weather the storm; and that a storm is brewing over unfortunate Corea, I think there can be no possible doubt whatsoever, and, if it break, the ancient Hermit Kingdom will be turned into the Cockpit of Asia. When a man gets into a blue funk, even if he is a soldier with discipline and obedience engrafted into his nature, it is an extremely difficult task to control him. If that man happens to be a King, it amounts to almost an impossibility. The spectacle the King resents to my mind at the present moment is that of a very frightened rabbit, takin; protection under the wing of a chain: eagle from a ferocious and bloodthirsty little weasel. You can't help feeling sorry for the poor bunny, but at the same time, slightly contemptuous too. That the King has had ample cause, for a man of his kidney, to excuse his having a fit of the jumps, is undoubtedly true, because through an idiotic rebellion of bucolic bumpkins, who called themselves '*The Eastern Learning Party" (Tonghaks), who neither knew quite what they wanted, nor how to petit, he has had his essentially peaceful kingdom turned upside down by a silly and criminal war, and has now in the immediate future to face the dreadful possibility of having the said kingdom made the bone of contention between two formidable adversaries, armed to the teeth, with the most approved manslaying machines of our glorious civilisation, whose champions claim cary to teach "Peace on earth and good will towards men."
He has had now to mourn twice for his murdered Queen, to whom he is reputed to have been romantically and devotedly attached, and who, undoubtedly, supplied the master mind and qualities necessary for successful kingcraft. His line of direct succession is still not yet assured, and not likely to be, as the Crown Prince is a debauched young epileptic, who has, for an Oriental Prince, the amazing idiosyncrasy of being a confirmed woman-hater, and absolutely refuses to even look at a girl. This may not matter to the Corean nation, so much as it does to the Ring personally, as Lam told a second-class, ife's or concubine's son can legally inherit. He is giving now great offence to hi subjects, and, according to their ideas, T think they are more or less justified in their anger, by persisting in secking refuge in a foreign legation, and being aried by foreiga sailors. For it, must the palace intrigues have run, his own remembered that - iwtateret Jengit particular life has never been assailed, He is almost a god to his people, and he is seriously risking his little tin godship by his present behaviour, because he not only refuses to go back to his old palace, where the late Queen was murdered, but he is building a new one, so to speak, right under the shadow of the Russian, English, and French Legations. Now, when you come to consider that it is a Corean custom for a gentleman not even to send a man to repair his roof without, notifying his neighbours, whose Fooked, and their women folk thereby remises might have to be thus over-
annoyed, I think the objection of his discontented subjects on this point is sound. On the other hand, the King can with justice reply: You have miserably failed in protecting my Palace, you have plotted with foreign assassins to violate the sanctity of my women's quarters, and have foully murdered my wife." (By the way, the sacredness of the women's quarters is something peculiarly especial in Corea, as even an ordinary man cannot be arrested for any but the most grave crimes, as lon: as he remains in his wife's apartment. He can also add: "You have blown up my trusted councillors with gunpowder. You have treacherously murdered my Generals. You have sliced with swords my most experienced statesmen, and driven them out of the count How am I to know that my turn will. not be next?" This also is sound enough argument on his side of the question, and a man has undoubtly the right, if he chooses, to be a live jackass, instead of a dead lion. The late Queen is reputed to have been not only exceptionally learned, witty, and charming, but also a thorough politician, perfectly posted in. all foreign affairs that in any way affected her husband's kingdom. If she had any weaknesses at all, the most serious was a desire to push the fortunes of her own private clan, which, after all, was only natural, considering they were indisputable amongst the most enlightened noles of the nation: and her minor failures were extremely trivial and womanly, such as & partiality for—_ diamonds, and for men that filled the Royal eye. What a thousand pities it is that some brawny British Ulysses did not happen to wander along before these troubles began and persuade Her Majesty to have a bodyguard of Sikhs. Lord, whata perfectly glorious fight there would have been then, had any attempt been made to force the Royal quarters! There would have been wigs on the green with a vengeance, to the everlasting glory of the Burra Sadha Maharani.
The commonest thing to hear from any educated Corean who can speak English, and there are many more than you would imagine, is that the country is very poor, and that the peasantry are lazy and won't work. The first is palpably untrue, and Idon't believe the second. For this reason. Exactly the same thing has always been said of the Burmans, and the Coreans are exactly in the same boat as the Upper Burmans were before we deposed Thebaw. Give them " good government, means of communication, anda market to sell their plus productions, their mode of life will immediately improve. They will have spare cash to spend on what would now be undreamed-of luxuries, and life will immediately become worth living, and worth working for. Buta good government without any official squeeze-pidgin is absolutely aside que non. At the present a a thrifty peasant, painfully struggling to amass the first basis of capital, is immediately the marked prey for that. most ferohis cious of all tyrants, the tty. official, only one step removed in: social scale from the man to whom he practically demonstrates the axioms that riches are a snare, and filthy lucre a vain thing. The peasant finds he is working more or less for a man's benefit whom he naturally hates, and he gradually relapses into the Gull spathy that just keeps his own and his wife's and children's mouths filled. Now what I have remarked casually is that the Coreans are extremely fond of good food, and plenty of it. They drink liquor, and as much as they can get. They smoke bad tobacco, but immensely appreciate good. They take great pride in having fine cattle and ponies, and if they could get decent weapons, I believe many of them would be ardent sportsmen, and work themselves to their marrow-bones to get a fair modern rifle. They and their women folk would dress well in their own way if they had the means, and I think this is shown by the sing-song girls, who are drawn from the very, lowest class of peasants, and whose families set aside their good-looking girls, in their infancy, for this profession. "And last, but not least, they have a very strong and keen sense of humour. Now I take it that any peasantry with this trait in their character, has strong latent desires to be amused, and if amusement is put in their way it would spur them on to the means to gratify themselves. In fact, I am inclined to think that there must be, although they certainly do not show it in their appearance, a profound depth of dry humour amongst all Coreans, yet to be discovered. Take this for instance as an example. The law for minor debts, principally applying to peasants, runs as follows:—''A man who fails to liquidate his debt, or to redeem his written bond, shall, two or three times a month, be severely emitten on the shins. And should the man die, the treatment shall be continued on his heir-at-law." Did Gilbert and Sullivan ever invent anything more vividly humorous than this?
The women of Corea, my dear Donald, would cause great grief to that fastidiously artistic taste of yours. There are no rural Phyllises like there used to be in Upper Burma, whom you used to think good enough to go and sketch, at the risk of having bullets of telegraph wire pumped into you. Tt is one of the odd points that immediately trikes a new comer, that one scarcely ever sees in the villages 'a pretty girl or a good-looking young matron. The reason is what Thave already told you about the singsong girls. The peasants are so miserably poor, and with no inducement to be otherwise, that directly a daughter shows signs of eventually developing physical beauty of any kind, a family council assembles and deliberately considers whether it. will be better for her to be trained. as a singsong girl, or else to risk the chance of her becom ming the second class wife of some official rich man. If the firat is decided on, she is turned over at a very early age to a professional teacher, who develops whatever talent the girl may happen to possess, and also teaches her to have a ready tongue at repartee, and being an experienced woman, does her work thoroughly and well. Besides these points, the girl is taught to be amiable and good-tempered, to be a deft handmaiden at serving a cup of wine,
above all to study and know the weak-or gracefully filling " pipe of tobacco, and nesses of men, and how to catch them on their soft points. Your most estimable memsahib will, I know, when she reads this be angry, and say that this is only Gordon the Goth's generalization, but the thing is true, and is a distinctive and peculiar feature of the lifo of longe rural towns, and has a much more important effect than any one would casually imagine, For: this reason. The country abounds in spies of the Court, of the ex-Regent's party, of the provincial Governor, and of the Japanese. They are called fancy names, such a8 "Couriers of the jungle paths," but still they are common or garden spies all the same. They haunt these places on the principle of in vino veritas, and you must remember that it is the money of the rich men that keeps up these places, and a rich Corean is generally a very much married man, so that I think it is only charitable to imagine, that in the great majority of cases, they frequent these
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.