Of the killing of Koreans, unprovoked and without the excuse of self-defence, by Japanese, there have been at no time any considerable number of cases. Indeed, the murders of men and women of the other nationality, while in the quiet discharge of their official duty or in their homes, have been far more numerous. This was especially true while the country was stirred to riot and bloodshed by the abdication of the Emperor in July, 1907, and by the disbandment of the Korean army, when mistaken or feigned “patriotism” was showing itself in the customary Korean way. But that there is nothing new about all this, a reference to chapters which have sketched (IX and X) the history of the relations of the countries in the past centuries will abundantly show. Of serious and unprovoked assaults of Koreans by Japanese there have been, doubtless, a considerable number. It would be impossible to tell just how many, even as a result of the most patient and candid investigation;—if for no other reason, because the Korean habit of exaggeration and lying renders almost all the uncorroborated testimony of the natives untrustworthy. This experience with official lying to cover their own countrymen against the demands of foreigners for justice, or to enforce indemnity in cases of false charges made against foreigners for assault on Koreans, is not confined to the Japanese. It is the common experience with all Korean judicial procedure.[85] Among the more serious unproved charges against Japanese officials was that of torturing Korean prisoners by Japanese gendarmes at the time of the so-called “cleansing” of the Palace. Mr. Hulbert published this charge and specified, on the authority of “numerous witnesses,” the exact character of the torture—namely, by a kind of iron instrument designed to squeeze the head. Immediately Marquis Ito took up the matter and sent a messenger to Mr. Hulbert to express his earnest desire to probe the matter thoroughly; and his intention, in case the charge was proved, to punish the offenders severely. This request implied, as a matter of course, the pledge of protection to the witnesses; and Mr. Hulbert agreed to furnish the evidence. But when this could not be done, the excuse was first offered that the witnesses were afraid to come forward; and next, the “numerous witnesses” resolved themselves into one person, who had “gone into the country.” When still further pressed to furnish the promised evidence, the story of the iron head-rack was altogether abandoned, and for it was substituted the charge that a certain eunuch had been arrested and beaten by the police. But this, if it occurred, is only according to the Korean custom of judicial procedure, still to be allowed, after the torture of criminals had been legally abolished under Japanese influence. Nevertheless, this confessedly false charge was afterward included in a pamphlet by the same authority as another instance of Japanese outrages in Korea.[86]