The hat is made of fine “crinoline” so that the Top Knot may be seen very plainly through it, and weighs only an ounce and a half. It is a source of ceaseless anxiety to the Korean. If it gets wet it is ruined, so that he seldom ventures to stir abroad without a waterproof cover for it in his capacious sleeve, and it is so easily broken and crushed, that when not in use it must be kept or carried in a wooden box, usually much decorated, as obnoxious in transit as a lady’s bandbox. The keeping on the hat is a mark of respect. Court officials appear in the sovereign’s presence with their hats on, and the Korean only takes it off in the company of his most intimate friends. The _mang-kun_ is a fixture. The Top Knot is often decorated with a bead of jade, amber, or turquoise, and some of the young swells wear expensive tortoise-shell combs as its ornaments. There is no other single article of male equipment that I am aware of which plays so important a part, or is regarded with such reverence, or is clung to so tenaciously, as the Korean Top Knot. On an “institution” so venerated and time-honored, and so bound up with Korean nationality (for the Korean, though remarkably destitute of true patriotism, has a strongly national instinct), the decree of the 30th of December, 1895, practically abolishing the Top Knot, fell like a thunderbolt. The measure had been advocated before, chiefly by Koreans who had been in America, and was known to have Japanese support, and had been discussed by the Cabinet, but the change was regarded with such disgust by the nation at large that the Government was afraid to enforce it. Only a short time before the decree was issued, three chief officers of the _Kun-ren-tai_ entered the Council Chamber with drawn swords, demanding the instantaneous issue of an edict making it compulsory on every man in Government employment to have his hair cropped, and the Ministers, terrified for their lives, all yielded but one, and he succeeded for the time in getting the issue of it delayed till after the Queen’s funeral. Very shortly afterwards, however, the King, practically a prisoner, was compelled to endorse it, and he, the Crown Prince, the Tai-Won-Kun, and the Cabinet were divested of their Top Knots, the soldiers and police following suit. The following day the _Official Gazette_ promulgated a decree, endorsed by the King, announcing that he had cut his hair short, and calling on all his subjects, officials and common people alike, to follow his example and identify themselves with the spirit of progress which had induced His Majesty to take this step, and thus place his country on a footing of equality with the other nations of the world! The Home Office notifications were as follows:-- _Translation_