The Korean method of ironing, the rhythmic _rat-a-tat_ of which may be heard day and night almost anywhere in the peninsula ]
Winding thread before one of the many little machine-knit stocking factories in Ping Yang ]
The graves of Korea cover hundreds of her hillsides with their green mounds, usually unmarked, but carefully tended by the superstitious descendants ]
It is not, of course, quite the same to a Korean to be beaten by the police as it seems to us. Flogging has been practised in Korea as far back as records go, and it is not unnatural that Japanese gendarmes should consider this the only sure way of really reaching the intellect or getting the truth out of some Koreans. But they failed to see that while men punished in this time-honored way by their fellow-countrymen might not feel particularly humiliated, might take it almost like a son from his father, they would deeply resent being so treated by Japanese aliens, little men whom they have always heartily despised. Certainly some ugly stories are still afloat, and all indications point to the probability that the torturing of prisoners—and of witnesses—still goes on in the secrecy of some police stations, the perhaps real disapproval of higher authorities notwithstanding. To say that the same thing sometimes occurs in New York is not to make the practice any less reprehensible.
Once convicted of a crime, it is another matter; but when a man is suddenly arrested without warning and imprisoned for weeks, months and sometimes more than a year without knowing what charge has been made against him, without being allowed to get a word in or out of prison, even to notify some one to communicate with his family or see a lawyer, or to do anything but sit and await the good pleasure of his jailers, which may include being bambooed for two hours daily, the infliction of the “water cure,” the clamping of the fingers, the hanging up by the thumbs, the forced squat, and many other ingenious tortures which are guaranteed to leave no telltale marks on the body, it is not a sign of civilization but a remnant of the barbarism from which Japan tries hard to prove to the world that she has entirely recovered. Once the police get a confession by such methods there is no going back on it, we were told, no matter how innocent the sufferer really may be. His case is turned over at once to the procurator, and only after he has been twice condemned can he have counsel. The French system of considering the accused guilty until he proves his innocence prevails, and the chief of police has often been known to sit behind the judge and virtually to give him his orders as to what is to be done with the prisoner at the bar. Nine months in prison merely as a witness has been the experience of many a Korean Christian. Interpreters, even in important conspiracy cases, where it may be a matter of life and death, are reputed to mistranslate testimony in favor of Japanese or in favor of conviction. There is a classic case of an American missionary arrested during the independence movement on the charge of “harboring prisoners,” simply because he did not drive out of his house convert students whom he knew to be innocent and whom the police were eager to torture. Though he was ill at the time, he was refused permission to have a bed brought from his house to the bedless prison, was not allowed even to send word of his whereabouts to his wife, was kept _incommunicado_ for fifteen days, during which he was grilled by a haughty Japanese official who spoke to him only in “low talk,” such as one uses to coolies, and after four trials his punishment was reduced from one year’s imprisonment to a fine of a hundred yen.