The administration of justice in an even-handed manner is peculiarly difficult in Korea; and, indeed, until recently no serious attempt at such a thing has ever been made. In the case of this complicated plot for assassinating the entire Korean Cabinet, it should be borne in mind that several of its chief promoters were very highly connected; they were, indeed, connected well up towards His Imperial Majesty on his throne. Considering this fact, the issue when reached showed a marked improvement already established in judicial affairs. It was indeed rumored—and perhaps correctly—that Mr. Min Hyung-sik, the Vice-Minister of Education, underwent preliminary examination, in the old-fashioned Korean style, by being cruelly beaten. And the anti-Japanese press tried to make it count against Marquis Ito’s measures for judicial reform that he had not prevented the traditional Korean mode of torturing suspects! But this way of examining criminals was still legal in Korea. It was also said that Mr. Yi Yon-yung, chief of the Supreme Court, sent in his resignation, on the ground that, as his younger brother was one of the five ministers who were doomed to death by the assassins, it would not be fair for him to try the case. At the time of our leaving Seoul the trial of these conspirators was not finished. But on Wednesday, July 3d, at 4 P. M., the Supreme Court returned judgment upon twenty-nine persons who had been tried and convicted of connection with the plot to assassinate those Korean officials who took part in the Japanese-Korean Convention of November, 1905. Three of the hired murderers who, besides this crime, were found to have been previously guilty of armed robbery, were sentenced to death. The others received sentences of exile (a penalty feared more than death by many Korean officials), for periods of from five to ten years. Among those to whom the longest sentence of exile was measured out, were the notable names of Yi Yong-tai, ex-Minister of the Imperial Household; Soh Chang-sik, ex-Minister Resident, and my auditor at the lectures on education, Min Hyung-sik, Vice-Minister of Education.