Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in KoreaUnderwood, Lillias H. (Lillias Horton)
Religion
Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea
Underwood, Lillias H. (Lillias Horton)
Korea -- Description and travel; Missions -- Korea
Mons. Wilhelm replied: “I myself know that these things are not right,
and did them purposely. As far as the book _Chaipan Chang Chung_ is
concerned, I know nothing about it, but I simply relied upon the
previous letter which you had sent. I desired to understand the matter,
and sent you another letter, and because you sent my letter back to me
I still feel very angry.”
The governor replied: “But your saying that you only recognized my
first letter shows you simply know one thing and cannot know two; as
for your letter and my returning it without an answer, it was because,
after the arrest of my Chusa, I had sent by special messenger a letter
to you, and you had given no answer and sent the man back emptyhanded,
I was indignant. As I had no reply to my letter to you in regard to the
Chang Yung affair, why should I only answer letters? Because I thought
it would be wrong for me to keep your letter that I did not answer, I
returned it.”
Father Wilhelm replied: “Because in the governor’s last letter on the
envelope he had written _Saham_ I did not answer the letter.” _Saham_
is written outside of letters which are replies from one slightly
superior in rank.
The governor replied: “Is it right to allow questions to go
unanswered; is it because you have nothing to say that you fail to
answer all these questions?”
Father Wilhelm replied: “When Pak Chang Mou’s wrong-doings had not yet
been punished, is it right that he should have been made one of the
tax collectors? When you have arrested and brought him to Hai Ju and
severely punished him, then only will my wrath be appeased.”
The governor then said: “In the eighth moon of last year when I went to
Whang Ju, I looked carefully into this affair of Pak’s. _Although it
was stated that he had thrown stones, there was no sure proof, and yet
he had been locked up in the local jail and had been punished, during
the investigation_, how, then, can you say that he has gone unpunished?
How can you claim that giving him a petty office several months later
is an injustice? Then, too, you took this man to your church and there
beat him, and still claim that your wrath has not been appeased.
Would you have me arrest him, bring him here and make him and the
complainants face each other?”
Père Wilhelm answered: “Although I did have him beaten with ten
strokes, it was not a punishment for his main crime, but because when
his magistrate sent Pak to confess his sins he was on the contrary
impudent, and therefore I punished him, but his former offence still
existed.”
The governor replied: “When you are not a Korean official, is it right
that you should arrest and beat Koreans?”
Father Wilhelm said: “It is because if I did not beat them I could not
hold my position as superior that I do it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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