. To counteract this movement, the
Conservative party revived and called to its aid an old secret society, the
Pedlars' Guild, which had in the past been a useful agent for reaction. The
Cabinet promised fair things, and various nominal reforms were outlined.
The Independents' demands were, in the main, the absence of foreign
control, care in granting foreign concessions, public trial of important
offenders, honesty in State finance, and justice for all. In the end,
another demand was added to these--that a popular representative tribunal
should be elected.

When the Pedlars' Guild had organized its forces, the King commanded the
disbandment of the Independence Club. The Independents retorted by going
_en bloc_ to the police headquarters, and asking to be arrested. Early in
November, 1898, seventeen of the Independent leaders were thrown into
prison, and would have been put to death but for public clamour. The people
rose and held a series of such angry demonstrations that, at the end of
five days, the leaders were released.

The Government now, to quiet the people, gave assurances that genuine
reforms would be instituted. When the mobs settled down, reform was again
shelved. On one occasion, when the citizens of Seoul crowded into the main
thoroughfare to renew their demands, the police were ordered to attack them
with swords and destroy them. They refused to obey, and threw off their
badges, saying that the cause of the people was their cause. The soldiers
under foreign officers, however, had no hesitation in carrying out the
Imperial commands. As a next move, many thousands of men, acting on an old
national custom, went to the front of the palace and sat there in silence
day and night for fourteen days. In Korea this is the most impressive of
all ways of demonstrating the wrath of the nation, and it greatly
embarrassed the Court.

The Pedlars' Guild was assembled in another part of the city, to make a
counter demonstration. Early in the morning, when the Independents were
numerically at their weakest, the Pedlars attacked them and drove them off.
On attempting to return they found the way barred by police. Fight after
fight occurred during the next few days between the popular party and the
Conservatives, and then, to bring peace, the Emperor promised his people a
general audience in front of the palace. The meeting took place amid every
surrounding that could lend it solemnity. The foreign representatives and
the