las and alack! for the degeneracy of our times. The Yang-bans in
Korea have been deprived of their ancient {67} privileges, and I fear
that even their fellows in America are by no means treated with the
ancient deference and respect due to persons of such exalted merit and
blue-blood.

What with the arbitrary and oppressive system of tax-robbery and the
extortions of the Yang-bans it is not surprising that the Koreans here
became disinclined to labor, while those who went to Manchuria, where
there has been "proper security for the gains of industry" are said to
be quite a different folk--energetic because there has been
encouragement to be energetic. The old Korean system of taxation being
arbitrary, the only way to escape a raid by the tax-gatherer was to
appear not to have anything worth raiding, and with the coinage
confined usually to the copper "cash" (each "cash" worth a small
fraction of a cent), it was difficult for a man to have much money
without everybody knowing it. If a man had much he needed a warehouse
to store it in. Mrs. Bishop in her book, already referred to, speaks
of a time when it took 3200 "cash" to equal a dollar in our money,
making each coin worth 1-32 of a cent, and it took six men or one pony
to carry $50 worth of coin! Another instance is mentioned in the
Japanese official Year Book on Korea. The Japanese army bought $5000
worth of timber in the interior, where the people were not used to any
other currency, with the result that "the army had to charter a small
steamer and fill her completely with this copper cash to finance the
transaction!" I bought a few long, necklace-like strings of this old
Korean money at ten cents a string, and even then probably paid too
much.

When I bought my ticket for Korea it was nominally an independent
monarchy under a Japanese "protectorate," but the day before I sailed
from San Francisco, Japanese aggression took another step and the
country was formally annexed as a part of the Japanese Empire. There
is little doubt, I suppose, that the Japanese will give the Koreans
better government than the old monarchy gave them, but one {68} cannot
excuse all the methods by which Japan fastened her rule on the island.
Yesterday morning I went out to the Old North Palace, a deserted and
melancholy memorial of vanished power, stood on the throne where
Korean kings once held audience, and saw the royal dwelling in which
the Japanese and their aids killed the Queen in 1