pless state, he is made to swing from one side of
the road to the other with the slightest push, or else is pulled along
mercilessly by people who seize the plank and begin to run. He is poked
in the ribs with sticks, and gets his head smacked and smeared with dirt;
yet has to bear it all patiently, until, twirled round, knocked about,
and with his neck skinned by the friction of the heavy plank, he
sometimes falls down in a dead faint.

[Illustration: THE PLANK-WALK]

Little or no compassion is shown to criminals by the Coreans. Rather than
otherwise, they are cruel to them; and children, besides being cautioned
not to follow their bad example, are encouraged to annoy and torture the
poor wretches.

A more severe punishment still is the square board, a piece of wood too
heavy to allow of the man standing for any length of time, too wide to
allow of his arms reaching his face, too big to allow of him resting his
head on the ground and going to sleep, and too thick to allow of his
smashing it and getting rid of it. Instances are on record of people thus
punished having become lunatics after the fourth or fifth day. During the
fly season I should think such an occurrence cannot be uncommon. Imagine
half a dozen flies disporting themselves in a tickling walk on a man's
nose, eyelids and forehead, without his being able to reach them, owing
to this huge square wooden collar! It must be dreadful! Merely the
thought of it is enough to give one the shivers.

This last mode of punishment has, I think, been imported from China, for
I have also seen it frequently in the Empire of Heaven. The other, which
I first described, may also be a modification of this one, but I do not
remember having seen it, as I have described it, anywhere except in
Corea, at Seoul. There is also in Corea another machine of torture, in
which the head and feet are tied between heavy blocks of wood.

The principal, and most important, of all the lesser punishments,
however, is flogging. It is that which has most effect on the people, and
it is certainly by far the most painful. It is carried out in many ways,
according to the gravity of the crime committed. The simpler and milder
form is with a small bamboo rod, the strokes being administered on the
hands, on the bare back or on the thighs, a punishment mostly for young
people. Next in severity, is that with the round stick--a heavy
implement--by which it was always a marvel to me, that all the bones o