I have never yet met a man, English, American or Japanese, acquainted with the case, or who followed the circumstances, who believed that there had been any plot at all.  The whole thing, from first to last, was entirely a police-created charge.  The Japanese authorities showed later that they themselves did not believe it.  On the coronation of the Japanese Emperor, in February, 1915, the six prisoners were released as a sign of “Imperial clemency.”  Baron Yun Chi-ho was appointed Secretary of the Y.M.C.A, at Seoul on his release, and Count Terauchi (whom he was supposed to have plotted to murder) thereupon gave a liberal subscription to the Y. funds.

There was one sequel to the case.  The Secretary of the Korean Y.M.C.A., Mr. Gillett, having satisfied himself of the innocence of Baron Yun and his associates, while the trial was pending, sent a letter to prominent people abroad, telling the facts.  The letter, by the indiscretion of one man who received it, was published in newspapers.  The Japanese authorities, in consequence, succeeded in driving Mr. Gillett out of Korea.  Before driving him out, they tried to get him to come over on their side.  Mr. Komatsu, Director of the Bureau for Foreign Affairs, asked him and Mr. Gerdine, the President, to call on him.  “The Government has met the demands of the missionary body and released ninety-nine out of the hundred and five prisoners who stood trial at the Appeal Court,” said Mr. Komatsu.  “It is to be expected that the missionary body will in return do something to put the Government in a strong and favourable light before the people of Japan.”  Mr. Komatsu added that Judge Suzuki’s action was in reality the action of the Government-General, a quaint illustration of the independence of the judiciary in Korea.

The Administration made a feeble attempt to deny the tortures.  Its argument was that since torture was forbidden by law, it could not take place.  Let we quote the official statement: 

“A word should be added in reference to the absurd rumours spread abroad concerning it (the conspiracy case) such as that the measures taken by the authorities aimed at ‘wiping out the Christian movement in Korea,’ since the majority of the accused were Christian converts, and that most of the accused made ‘false confessions against their will,’ as they were subject to ‘unendurable ill-treatment or torture.’  As if such imputations could be sustained for one minute, when the modern regime ruling Japan is considered!...  As to torture, several provisions of the Korean criminal code indirectly recognized it, but the law was revised and those provisions were rescinded when the former Korean law courts were reformed, by appointing to them Japanese judicial staffs, in August, 1908....  According to the new criminal law (judges, procurators or police) officials are liable, if they treat accused prisoners with violence or torture, to penal servitude or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years.  In reply