Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/220

 were also many cases in which it was a genuine hardship. Literally, hundreds of men were haled before a court and made to pay over large sums of money, in default of which their property was seized as well as that of their relatives. In exact proportion as the huge sums thus extorted paved his way to favour in high places, in that same proportion it drove the people to desperation. The taking off of Kim Yung-jun, so far from warning this man, only opened a larger door for the exercise of his peculiar abilities, and it may be said that the official career of Yi Yong-ik began with the opening of 1901.

In March a Japanese resident of Chemulpo claimed to have purchased the whole of Roze Island in the harbour of Chemulpo. The matter made a great stir, for it was plain that someone had assumed the responsibility of selling the island to the Japanese. This was the signal for a sweeping investigation, which was so manipulated by powerful parties that the real perpetrators of the outrage were dismissed as guiltless, but a side issue which arose in regard to certain threatening letters that were sent to the foreign legations was made a peg upon which to hang the seizure, trial and execution of Kim Yung-jun, as before mentioned. Min Yung-ju was the man who sold the island to the Japanese, and he finally had to put down thirty-five thousand yen and buy it back.

Russia made steady advances toward her ultimate goal during the year 1901. In the spring some buildings in connection with the palace were to be erected, and the Chief Commissioner of Customs, J. McLeavy Brown, C. M. G., was ordered to vacate his house on the customs compound at short notice. Soldiers even forced their way .into his house. This affront was a serious one, and one that the Koreans would never have dared to give had they not felt that they had behind them a power that would see them through. The British authorities soon convinced the government that such tactics could be easily met, and it had to retreat with some loss of dignity.

Many of the French gentlemen employed by the