authorities, and Japanese companies of infantry
hurried out and surrounded their barracks. One party attacked the front
with a machine-gun, and another assaulted from behind. Fighting began at
half-past eight in the morning. The Koreans defended themselves until noon,
and then were finally overcome by a bayonet charge from the rear. Their
gallant defence excited the greatest admiration even among their enemies,
and it was notable that for a few days at least the Japanese spoke with
more respect of Korea and the Korean people than they had ever done before.

Only one series of incidents disgraced the day. The Japanese soldiers
behaved well and treated the wounded well, but that night parties of
low-class bullies emerged from the Japanese quarter, seeking victims. They
beat, they stabbed and murdered any man they could find whom they suspected
of being a rebel. Dozens of them would set on one helpless victim and do
him to death. This was stopped as soon as the Residency-General knew what
was happening, and a number of offenders were arrested.

Late in August the new Emperor of Korea was crowned amid the sullen silence
of a resentful people. Of popular enthusiasm there was none. A few flags
were displayed in the streets by the order of the police. In olden times a
coronation had been marked by great festivities, lasting many weeks. Now
there was gloom, apathy, indifference. News was coming in hourly from the
provinces of uprisings and murders. The Il Chin Hoi--they call themselves
reformers, but the nation has labelled them traitors--attempted to make a
feast, but the people stayed away. "This is the day not for feasting but
for the beginning of a year of mourning," men muttered one to the other.

The Japanese authorities who controlled the coronation ceremony did all
they could to minimize it and to prevent independent outside publicity. In
this they were well advised. No one who looked upon the new Emperor as he
entered the hall of state, his shaking frame upborne by two officials, or
as he stood later, with open mouth, fallen jaw, indifferent eyes, and face
lacking even a flickering gleam of intelligent interest, could doubt that
the fewer who saw this the better. Yet the ceremony, even when robbed of
much of its ancient pomp and all its dignity, was unique and picturesque.

The main feature of this day was not so much the coronation itself as the
cutting of the Emperor's topknot.

On the abdication of the old Emperor