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The Green Bag

have been beaten for a long time he is forced by means of a funnel to swallow vinegar, in which has been washed the rotten corpse of his victim, and when

ancestors seem even mild by compari son. “Those who do not pay their creditors," writes Hamel, “within the required time, are beaten on the shins two or three times a month, until they

he is well ﬁlled with it he is beaten on the abdomen until he dies." This may seem incredibly barbarous, but what should be said of the English

find the means of discharging their debts. If they die without having ful

criminal laws of that day? Coin sweaters were boiled in lead or hot water; per petrators of brutal murders were half

to pay for them or else undergo the same chastisement." This method must have been extremely efficacious, for our

hanged and then, while still living, dis emboweled. It was an age of brutal punishments the world over; and Korean justice was no more ﬁendish than that

of other more civilized countries. The severity of the sentence imposed in the case of adultery depended on whether the culprit were married or single. “A married man. . .," our narrator says, “ . is by law con

demned to death, especially when the offence involves persons of distinction. The father of the criminal or his next of kin is compelled to act as executioner.

The criminal is allowed to choose the mode of death: usually, however, men ask to be stabbed in the back, and

women to have the throat cut.” In the case of a single man “his face is smeared with lime, each ear pierced with an arrow, and a bell hung on his back; this is rung at all the cross-roads where he is exposed and this punishment is usually completed by forty or ﬁfty

blows of a stick on the buttocks.” The lives of the miserable slaves, un protected from the rapine and cruelty of their masters, must have been wretched

in the extreme.

“Slaves who kill their

masters are delivered over to cruel tor tures; but a master has the right to

take the life of his slave on the slightest pretext.” The payment of debts was enforced in so harsh a manner as to make the infamous debtors’ prison of our English

ﬁlled their duty their next of kin have

informant then naively remarks, “Thus

no one is in danger of losing what is due him." Death seems also to have been the

penalty inﬂicted even for some of the lesser crimes. “Robbers," Hamel says, “undergo the torture of being beaten on the feet until dead." Those hardy men must have proven more obdurate than did the delinquent debtors for, “Such a terrible chastisement," he adds,

“does not hinder the Koreans from being much addicted to larceny.” It appears from his observations that in those days even the mildest ofﬁcial remedy was of a nature well calculated to secure obedience to the laws. “The

lightest punishment in Korea," he writes, “is the bastinado on the buttocks or on the calf of the leg.

It is not even re

garded as a disgrace, because it is very common there, and a word spoken out

of place is sometimes suﬂicient to merit it." It will be observed that the bastinado was so often the instrument of justice, that it might be interesting to note our author's rather minute description of the four ways in which it was usually applied. “The manner in which the bastinado is applied to the shins is as strange as the torture itself. The criminal's feet are bound to a little bench, about four

inches broad.

Another bench is placed

under the calves, which are attached