| Show for ate aft paw DIPLOMATS copyrighted by frauk frank G Oa carpenter menter amk HE P PRESENT R war has increased the importance ot 0 our mission to cor corea e a T that a t country from now on will be the wedge between betwee im japan china chi na and russia and our minister there will be an important character c I 1 there is a large american colony now in seoul the americans are doing most of the mission work of the country and there are a number of american officials connected with the government the climate is a good one and the place is by bv no means so black as it has been painted you remember what gen haldeman the lath late american minister to siam said aid r about I 1 it he was asked whether he wished a reappointment appointment re to siam or whether he would not prefer togo to go locorea to corea he I 1 replied if I 1 were told that I 1 must go to siam or to hades I 1 would I 1 suppose answer that I 1 would go to siam but it ii the corn coin mand was that I 1 must go to hades or corea I 1 certainly would not choose corea cea AN AM ASIATIC SOFT SNAP gen haldeman had evidently not been bee to curea the minister there has a much better position than our minister at bangkok he hs his better quarters and corea is one ot of the countries in which uncle sam owns his own house the king I 1 think donated th the it land an and d the home of the american minister is in a commodious one story guilda guilding ruil ding dang cover ing considerable ground an and decide decidedly div comfortable though I 1 was told that thai at it was wasi slightly yand that the secretary of the legation who had last lived ig ia it had nearly died of fever in consequence thiis nothing however for to a consul or a diplomat as to which witness the number of consuls who die every effry administration at vera cruz from yellow fever and the others who xe are taken off by miasma in other countries of the world A few repairs would make the legation bull ing in seoul all right and our minister has something like five acres inside the brick walls which surround his home he has a one story building which forms his office the king hits has riven given him a guard of soldiers and he has five times as many servants as he be ever had in america when he goes about the he city he is toted along in a sedan chair by four men and his officials stand at the gate and are ready to open it whenever he comes into his yard the place pays a year and this on a silver basis is ib equal to iS tere ere is a readi reading room which is kept by missionaries and M ai other foreigners within a stones throw of the Je legation gation where american and periodicals and newspapers oae every month and a little further mp the same street there is a club claib house w where ere one can if he will get a vermouth or a manhattan cocktail and can amuse himself with billiards in company with players irom from a dozen different parts of the world MINISTER J B SILL I 1 think our minister spends the greater chrit part ol of his time in the reading room the tac act is is I 1 never saw him in the club and I 1 dont know that he frequents it he is more of a student than a club man and his life has been spent in teaching school he is now sixty three and he was born near buffalo his father died when he was eleven and he had to look out for himself he got an education and in some way drifted to michigan lie he was now for a time superintendent of the detroit schools and then for ten years was the head of a female seminary rw ar some years he be was connected with the university of michigan and he went school work to corea dur iop ing his youth he had distinguished himself i as a farmer being the champion raker and binder of the neighborhood in which he livel lived and when lie he was appointed as minister to corea he concluded that he would benefit the country by improving its stock he bought I A bull and several cows in california had and took them over with him on the tt eamer I 1 dont know whether he ex r pecked fated them to go along as a part of t t hf I 1 2 pe personal effects but 1 I 1 was told in yokohama japan that when he arrived there the steamship company charged bia boo for extra baggage at any late gate lie be took his cattle to corea and was surprised to find there a better cade e of beet than that watch he had ilvried aed over six thousand miles of sea me is rewarded however by having food milk and butter though in case he s in the country the extra bag bae make his bis coffee cost from 1 afe ate bill will I this is in item alone about a dollar a day I 1 y alte in seoul at the time mr S sill ill arrived and I 1 called at the legation only few hours hours afterward an absolutely staked corean boy was s swinging ginging on the aate osute and I 1 found the house turned up A nithe ide down with the ministers effects curing my cay stay the minister was pre dented emed to the king his majesty giving 1 1 we aft the honor of an Rudi audience ence the same I 1 t ly day M mr r sill made a very verv good im ion sion and his bib majesty told him that j Hress bession tes S was glad that the president had ent such a distinguished scholar to depre sent ent him in corea the king spoke at 5 time in the highest terms of dr H t N V allen alien the secretary ot of the legation who yno I 1 had ial acted as minister during the i and who by the way has done S amore for america and american inter eats in corea than any other foreigner THE KINGS CLOSEST FRIEND dr allen alien is today the must most powerful jr foreigner in the country he is a modest 0 T retiring young man of about forty years 01 ol of age who was sent out to aia as a f missionary doctor and who after spend ing a short time in china went to corea core at this time the missionaries missionaries narie s were held in low esteem by the comeans Co reans and they were working hard to get a foothold about twelve or thirteen years ago a gre great a t rebellion occurred in which kim ok diun and others seized S the che king and in which the conspirators nearly killed one of the kinles kings family prince min yong ik he was almost cui cut s f i to pieces with swords and his life was despaired of when dr alien was called in he appreciated the situation he knew that he would be charged with killing the prince if he failed to cure him and that the princes chances of life and death hung upon a hair dr allen alien however concluded to risk it on his own skill and prince min yon yong iks vitality he sewed up his wounds wounds and nursed him for days inch by inch and atom by atom he drew the prince away from the grave and finally made him a well man this gave dr allen alien a great reputation throughout the whole land he was called to art prescribe scribe for the corean nobles and during the years of his mission in corea he actually turned in to the mission funds 5 a year which he got from his outside practice the king and queen took his advice on many matters of foreign policy and when they sent their embassy to washington he went along as their confidential foreign adviser he stayed with them for some time in washington winning friends everywhere and after ward went back to corea as our secre tary of legation today when any matter of interest to foreigners is is to be carried through in corea dr allen alien is always appealed to through him the missionaries have found access to the best classes ot of the country and their work is not confined to the coolies as it is to a large extent in china dr allen alien has not been connected with the mis in any official way for years and his work has been practical and diplomatic rather than religious he is a man of high education a born bom diplomat a and nd thoroughly efficient in every res respect hect OUR AMERICAN GENERALS IN COREA there are a number of americans connected with the corean government general clarence greathouse is the foreign adviser to the king and his majesty consults him on all matters oi foreign policy his salary is I 1 believe about a year and he be has a magnificent ent establishment with numerous servants he spends a great deal ot 01 his time in the palace and he is connected with many ot of the modern re forms not long ago the king gave him a rank and I 1 believe he has now the right to wear a gold button under his ear he is a california man who was at one time owner oi of the examiner and who went to japan years ago as consul general to yokohama he is a fine lawyer a man of good education and oue one ot of the best storytellers story tellers in public b we general william ahila m ace nye dye who went over to corea to reo reorganize the army some years ago is still in the service of the king he took part in iii the late war in this country and then w went ent to egypt where he served with great ais distinction in the army of the iche khedive dive he has now been in corea core a about eight years and during that time his hair and beard have become as white as snow another american conne connected acted with wilh the army is ii colonel F 1 H who aided in drilling the troops and who is now at the head of the kings imperial school he is a bright fellow and like the other americans who are connected with his majesty seems to be willing to wait for nis salary without very much fuss about its non payment I 1 suppose this matter has been changed now and the loan which the ki king kin has made or is trying to malte make will 1 ealer enable all of the official salary debts to be promptly paid when I 1 was in co rea however the king owed the american officials about dollars and nearly every foreigner in his service WAS from one month to a year behindhand HE BLUFFED THE KING the only american who was paid up up promptly at this time was the kings electrician mr thomas W power a young washington man who was just about completing the putting of an electric light plant into the palace his majesty is very much afraid of assassination he has two great palace cities each of which contains between five hundred and a thousand acres of buildings and which are about two miles apart mr power had put two thousand incandescent lights into these palaces and hundreds of them are kept blazing irom from five in the evening until six in the morning his majesty does all of his business at night and he never sleeps in the dark he goes almost crazy it he have light and his situation is really so dan berous that he cant afford to do without it the light plant which has had been put in in is is one of the finest in the east it came from america and was so well put up by mr power that one of the dancing girls could have run it the comeans Co reans in fact had been managing the machinery lor for several weeks and the officials thought that th the light elight was comple e and those to whom the king had handed the money for mr power held it back and refused to give ive it to him he protested and waited for for a few days they showed no signs agns of paying his salary until at last one night when the king was in the midst of his state busi ness with his officials about him th the lights went out couriers were at once dispatched to the plant and the comeans in charge were asked what was the matter they could not tell they pointed to the machinery it was running beautifully but there was no light mr power I 1 was told lold had merely disconnected the dynamo by taking out a hidden screw which left the wheels running as usual but which produced no light the king was enraged at his officials but not at mr power he knew nothing about the salary having been kept back but he simply told the high corean noble who had charge of this department that if the light was not at once produced his bis head bead would be chopped off this would also necessitate the cutting oft off of oth r heads and within an hour mr powers money was in in his hand and he had a lot of corean nobles on their knees about him begging him to use his magic and bring the light to the king he held off for a time but was finally persuaded and having turned the comeans out of the light plant he inserted the screw ando andi prestol the palace blazed with the rays of electricity there was no trouble after this about mr powers salary and he steadily grew in influence he had charge ot of the kings armory and repaired his gatling guns he was about to build an electric railroad from seoul to the han river when the present rebellion broke out and everything stopped THE missionaries there is a large colony of missionaries in seoul and there are missionary sta eions at the leading seaports of the country the field is taken up almost entirely eu by the presbyterians rians and moth meth ts and and both churches are doing ex eq cement nt work in addition to these the french catholics and the church of jaen england land have a number ot of missionaries ant and the methodists have a corean school or college under the charge of the rev H G appenzeller I 1 paid some attention to mission work during the tour which I 1 made through japan china and corea last summer I 1 found the missionaries hardworking hard working earnest men and they are doing a vast deal of sod lood though the masses upon whom fy ey have have to work are so many and the missionaries so few that there is not as rapid progress as might be otherwise there are mission stations scattered throughout the chinese empire and there are now 1296 missionaries at work in that country they claim that th they ey have chinese who are regular communicants and the increase has been rapid within late years I 1 it t is eighty six years since protestant mis were started in china and the chief work has been done during the last thirty five years at the beginning ot of which there were only six communicants one of the friends of the ins missions claims that if the same advance continues during the next thirty five years there will be protestant communicants in china and a christian community of one hundred million people As for me I 1 very much doubt this estimate there is a great mission work going on in japan and japan is the paradise of the missionary he is allowed to do as he pleases and the people are more easily converted some of the best work of the missionaries is is through their hospitals which are very much needed and which are now thoroughly appreciated by the the work in this line has been improving every year and the man who tells you that the missionaries are not doing anything in asia has not as a ru rule le been inside of a mission arys house nor looked at all into the real work which they are attempting to accomplish OUR DIPLOMATS IN JAPAN japan is now considered quite as desirable a country by our diplomatic agents ants as england or the continent tte the salaries ot of the consuls are high and our diplomats live much better in japan than they do in europe nearly every one ot 01 them has a large establishment with wilh plenty of servants and they are as i a rule of a higher grade than those ap pointed to the big cities of europe the consul general at yokohama is one of the ablest men who has ever been sent abroad in that capacity his name is nicholas W mcivor and he is an iowa man of about forty years of age he is a fine lawyer and is is a graduate of yale college packed with common sense and a man of business ability he is making a very successful consul general the vice consul general is mr george H who has been for years connected with the service and who has considerable diplomatic ability at osaka and biogo the great commercial centers of western japan the united states is represented by enoch J smith ers who has been connected with our service for a quarter ot of a century and who did good work at shanghai and tien tsin at nagasaki we have W H Abr ombie a rich american who has one of the finest houses in the lar far east bast and who is a man of culture and brains LEGATION AT TOKYO the c consuls however have to do only with the business interests of the country and with the furthering of |
