The Minister of Finance has been requested to allow the free and uninterrupted circulation of Japanese bank notes, without regard to the condition of the Korean market. One night recently many valuable jewels and several thousand yen were taken from the home of one of the leading Ministers in the Korean government. Thorough investigation revealed a trusted servant as the guilty party. The goods were returned, and after a lecture in which he was reminded that according to the law of the land he should be imprisoned, the man was given a handsome present and dismissed from service. The Home Department has asked the War Department to despatch soldiers to Choong Chung province to hasten the dispersal of robber bands. Ten thousand boxes of gunpowder for the use of the British mines are just now being imported into Korea. Syn Tai-hu, Chief of Police, has sent identical notes to the police in the five wards of Seoul to the effect that young boys found smoking cigarettes must be whipped, and fathers neglecting to get the boys in school must be punished. The German Minister has requested the government to remove the granite blocks from the compound of the new German Legation being erected outside the West Gate of Seoul, and he also asks that the stones be used in the repair of the city wall in that vicinity. The Vice Minister of the Supreme Court asked for a modification of the Communication agreement so that all officials and postage stamps be put under the control of the Korean government, but the proposition has been refused by the Japanese. On the twenty-second instant nearly three hundred members of the Young Men’s Christian Association went to the Synheung Temple for a picnic. In addition to a splendid luncheon, cooked in foreign style, debates and several unique races were features of the day’s outing. The Vice Minister of the War Department, Mr. Om Chu-ik, has resigned and his resignation has been accepted. More than one hundred post office clerks are said to have been ordered from Japan to Korea to assist in the new postal work undertaken by the Japanese. The regulations requiring examinations in order to secure appointment to any of the Departments, include the Chinese language (reading and composition) international history and international law. Only thirty may pass the examination at one time and the first thirty have already been passed and have received their appointments. The Korean Minister in Washington telegraphs the Foreign Department that Korean immigrants in Hawaii desire a Consul of their own nationality instead of a Japanese subject. When the Japanese officials took possession of the postoffices on the seventeenth instant the Korean clerks and officials were assigned certain duties, which they refused to perform. Resignations were sent in and the Koreans went to their homes, and for several days refused to attend the offices. A few were arrested by the Japanese.