It must be admitted that the results were on the whole disappointing.  Certain big reforms were made.  In the period between 1894 and 1904 the developments would have seemed startling to those who knew the land in the early eighties.  There was a modern and well-managed railroad operating between Seoul and the port of Chemulpo, and other railroads had been planned and surveyed, work being started on some of them.  Seoul had electric light, electric tramways and an electric theatre.  Fine roads had been laid around the city.  Many old habits of mediaeval times had been abolished.  Schools and hospitals were spreading all over the land, largely as a result of missionary activity.  Numbers of the people, especially in the north, had become Christians.  Sanitation was improved, and the work of surveying, charting and building lighthouses for the waters around the coast begun.  Many Koreans of the better classes went abroad, and young men were returning after graduation in American colleges.  The police were put into modern dress and trained on modern lines; and a little modern Korean Army was launched.

Despite this, things were in an unsatisfactory state.  The Emperor, whose nerve had been broken by his experiences on the night of the murder of the Queen and in the days following, was weak, uncertain and suspicious.  He could not be relied on save for one thing.  He was very jealous of his own prerogatives, and the belief that some of his best statesmen and advisers were trying to establish constitutional monarchy, limiting the power of the Throne, finally caused him to throw in his lot with the anti-Progressive group.

Then there was no real reform in justice.  The prisons retained most of their mediaeval horrors, and every man held his life and property at the mercy of the monarch and his assistants.

Some of the foreign advisers were men of high calibre; others were unfitted for their work, and used their offices to serve their own ends and fill their own pockets.  Advisers or Ministers and foreign contractors apparently agreed at times to fill their pockets at the cost of the Government.  There is no other rational explanation of some of the contracts concluded, or some of the supplies received.  The representatives of the European Powers and America were like one great happy family, and the life of the European and American community in Seoul was for a long time ideal.  There came one jarring experience when a Government—­it would be unkind to mention which—­sent a Minister who was a confirmed dipsomaniac.  For days after his arrival he was unable to see the Ministers of State who called on him, being in one long debauch.  The members of his Legation staff had to keep close watch on him until word could be sent home, when he was promptly recalled.