Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/327

Rh long continued, as that which has burdened and degraded the Korean populace from the beginning of their obscure history as a complex of kingdoms down to the present time. What their vices and crimes are can be learned even better from the lips of their professed friends than from those whom they regard as their open or secret enemies. Of the average Korean Mr. Hulbert affirms: "You may call him a liar or a libertine, and he will laugh it off; but call him mean and you flick him on the raw." "In Korea it is as common to use the expression, 'You are a liar' as it is with us to say, 'You don't say. ' . . . A Korean sees about as much moral turpitude in a lie as we see in a mixed metaphor or a split infinitive." As to his good nature: "Any accession of importance or prestige goes to his head like new wine and is apt to make him offensive." The same author, after saying of the Korean bullock, "This heavy, slow-plodding animal, docile, long-suffering, uncomplaining, would make a fitting emblem of the Korean people," goes on to describe his own disgust at the frequent sight of the drunken, brutal bullock-driver, venting his spleen on some fellow Korean by cruelly beating his own bullock. Torturing animals is a favorite pastime for both children and adults. The horrid brutality of the Korean mob, to which reference has already been repeatedly made, has been more than once witnessed by those now living in Seoul; it would speedily be witnessed again, if the hand of the Japanese Protectorate were withdrawn. For the Korean, when angry, is recklessly cruel and entirely careless of life, and resembles nothing else so much as a "fanged beast." When combined with the superstition and the incredible credulity which prevail among the populace, this brutality constitutes a standing menace to the peace and life of the foreign population residing in the midst of them.