Note 77 — Chapter XIV · EDUCATION AND THE PUBLIC JUSTICE

Among the many falsehoods told by the Koreans and their “Foreign Friends,” in their endeavors to excite pity for themselves, and, possibly, interference with the Japanese Administration in Korea, none is more ridiculous than that the latter were reviving the use of torture. It should be borne in mind that, previous to the Convention of July, 1907, which followed upon the promulgation of this and other more important false charges by the commissioners to The Hague Conference, the Japanese Residency-General’s power did not extend to the interference with the execution of the Korean law upon Korean criminals. Preliminary examination by beating with a stick was then legal; according to credible current report it was practiced upon the vice-Minister of Education, when, during my visit to Korea, he was accused of having contributed money toward effecting the assassination of the Ministry (see p. 51). All this is quite different from the retort which might be made to critics from the United States to remember the practice of “water-cure” in the Philippines, etc.