good deal
of trouble to comply with the Court etiquette in all its minutest
details.

Corean law is very lenient to women and children, or unmarried men, which
latter class, as we have seen, are classified in the same category as the
former. The head of the family is supposed to punish smaller offences as
he thinks fit, either by rod or fist, the law only providing the severer
forms of punishment for the bigger crimes.

The administration of the law in general is very strange. Some people are
responsible, others are not. Certain tradesmen, like butchers,
plasterers, innkeepers, carpenters, hatters, etc., have formed themselves
into guilds, and in the case of offences committed by a member of one of
these guilds he is held responsible to the head of the guild and not to
the magistrates of the country. The same holds good in the case of the
_mapus_ (horsemen) and the coolie-carriers who constitute, probably, the
best-formed and best-governed guild in the country. It has thousands of
members all over the kingdom, and not only is the postal system carried
on by them, but also the entire trade, so to speak, between the different
provinces and towns of the realm. The chief of this guild, until late
years, had actually the power of inflicting capital punishment on the
members; now, however, the highest penalty he can inflict is a sentence
of flogging. Thus it is, that a good deal of the justice of the country
is administered by the people themselves, without the intervention of the
legal authorities, in which respect they show themselves very sensible.
The nobles, too, have the power of flogging their servants or followers,
and this is usually done in their own _compounds_. Very often on passing
a house the strokes of the paddle may be heard, the howls and screams of
the victim testifying to the nature of what is going on. In other cases
flogging is generally done in public, for then it is supposed to have
more effect. If done in a private enclosure, then all the servants,
soldiers and followers are summoned to witness it.

This patient submission to these personal punishments is no doubt one of
the last remains of feudalism. In not very remote times, serfdom which
bordered on slavery was still in existence in Cho-sen. Men and women
became private property either by the acquiring of the land on which they
lived, or, by purchase, or by way of execution for non-payment of debts,
for under this convenient law creditors could b