HORRIBLE ALLEGATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 133, 23 October 1912, Page 7

HORRIBLE ALLEGATIONS.

JAPAN AND.TIhE "PLOT" IN KOREA. ENGLISH MISSIONARY'S AMAZING ; /';/ ( ' / , 'jSTORY, \ . . , London, September 1. Evidence in support of the serious charges which have been brought against the Japanese administration, of Korea in connection with the conspiracy trials now proceeding ;is:,afforded by a letter from an English missionary at Seoul, the Korea capital, written on July 15, and afterwards posted in China. After declaring that, the charge of plotting against the-life of Count Terauchi, the 'Governor-General of Korea, has been merely devised as an excuse for persecuting, the Korean Church, the writer proceeds: "The arrests began last year, and have been, continuously going on ever since. In one church (Presbyterian) all the deacons, leaders and teachers were arrested., and as soon as, new men were elected to fill their .places, they were also thrown into prison. ...

TO EXTRACT .CONFESSIONS. "The men and boys who are in prison are tortured in ev.ery conceivable way in order to force from them confessions aliout this alleged plot, and also to implicate other Christians and missionaries. The chief man over the prisoners, General Akashi (Japanese) has spent years studying Russian methods in Poland, and has introduced the most scientific methods of torture into the Korean prisons. "These tortures take place in a central room in the prisons, and at night, so that all the other prisoners may hear the screams of the man suffering. The victims are hung up by the thumbs till they faint, then revived and hung up again and again— J burnt with red-hot irons, hnir pulled out of their heads, stabbed with swords, beaten on the soles of their feet, fried on hot slabs, with almost every kind 1 of fiendish torture that the mind can think of "SOME DEAD-OTHERS MAD." "At present 130 men are being tried—amongst them Baron Yun Chi Ho, one of the speakers at the Edinburgh Conference, and a man whom the Japanese hate and will never rest till they have killed. Some have already died as a result of the treatment they received in prison, and others have gone mad. . . . "So far I have only told you about Syenchun, but the same things are true about Yyeng Yang, where last week every teacher, preacher and Christian worker was arrested. So far Seoul has escaped, but we do not know where the next blow will fall. ..... "We want this made known, but our names not to be publicly mentioned, because Japanese spies are everywhere, and our lives would not be safe." It will be recalled that counsel for the defence recently moved the impeachment of the court on the ground of prejudice, but that the Supreme Court has given a decision in favor of resuming the trial ori the former lines.