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114 inheriting the properties of the family and of attending to the ancestral and funeral rites. Great stress is laid by the upper classes upon purity of descent; among the middle and lower orders there is more indulgence. Save in the lowest classes, it is usual to maintain a separate establishment for each concubine. The fact that among the lower classes concubine and wife share the same house is responsible for much of the unhappiness of Korean family life. In every case the position of the children of concubines corresponds with the status of the mother.

Within recent years, considerable changes have taken place in the Government and in the administration of the law. Under the old system the despotic thesis of divine right was associated with many abuses. Justice was not tempered by mercy, and, in the suppression of crime, it was not always the guilty who suffered. The old system of government was modelled upon the principles of the Ming rule in China. The power of the sovereign was absolute in theory and in practice. He was assisted by the three principal officers of State and six administrative boards, to whom, so soon as the country was brought into contact with foreign nations, additional bureaux were added. Modifications in the spirit, or in the letter of the law have taken place from time to time at the instance of reformers. Before the ascendency of the Japanese came about, the principles and character of Korean law presented no very marked deviation from that which had been upheld in China through so many centuries. For a long time the intense conservatism of China reigned in Korea. The authority of the sovereign is more restricted to-day; but in the hands of a less enlightened monarch it would be just as effective as ever against the interests of the country. Happily, however,