Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/325

Rh expected. The one judicial principle universally recognized is that justice is worth its price; the side which can offer the largest bribe of money or  influence will uniformly win its case. Of justice in Korea, to quote from Mr. Hulbert again, there is "not much more than is absolutely necessary to hold the fabric of the commonwealth from disintegration." Until the Chino-Japan war, when Japanese influence made itself felt in a controlling way, the brutal spectacles were not infrequent of men having their heads hacked off with dull swords, or their bones broken by beating with a huge paddle. Death by poison with extract made by boiling the centipede was administered to prisoners. It was not till 1895 that the law was abolished which required the poisoning of mother, wife, and daughter for the man's treason, the poisoning of wife for his crime of murder or arson, and the enslaving of wife for his theft. When the reformers of 1894 ordered the restoration to their lawful owners of the lands and houses which had been illegally seized, numerous officials—some of whom were well known in foreign circles as partners of concessions obtained through influence—lost large fractions of their wealth because of the decree.

After describing the Yang-ban as one sees him upon the streets or meets him in social gatherings at Seoul in the following terms a "dignified, stately gentleman, self-centred, self-contented, naively curious about the foreigner, albeit in a slightly contemptuous fashion" a writer well acquainted with the Korean gentry goes on to say: "Experience teaches that this fine gentleman is not ashamed to live upon his relatives, to the remotest degree; that he disdains labor and knows nothing of business; that he is not a liar from malice, but that he is a prevaricator by instinct and habit. Even when he wishes to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, it leaves his lips so embroidered with fanciful elaborations