"EVIDENCE HASTENED BY TORTURE IN KOREA," Toronto Globe. January 9, 1913. Page 9. --- Rev. J. McP. Scott Arraigns Japanese Justice ---- 106 PERSONS SENTENCED ---- Pastor of St. Jolin's Presbyterian Church, Who is on a World's Missionary Tour, Writes of the Alleged Plot Against Count Terauchi. ---- Rev. J. McP. Scott, B.A., pastor of St. John's Presbyterian Church, Broadview, in a letter from the East, has thrown some lurid light upon the Japanese administration in Korea. The injustice and undeserved suffering that has come to some of the native Christians for an alleged plot to assassinate Count Terauchi, the Governor-General of Korea, is bound to result in the discredit of the Japanese Administration in Korea. The court pronounced judgment of 106 prisoners, and sentences ranged from ten years down to five years penal servitude. One hundred and fifty-nine men were altogether arrested, and of this number 86 were connected with the American Presbyterian Church, 8 Methodists, 2 Congregationalists, 10 Roman Catholics, 22 unbelievers and 4 unknown. Several were banished without trial.
The particular evidence upon which these men were convicted were confessions alleged to have been made by the prisoners when they were examined by the police. The evidence was hastened by torture in many cases, although some of them held out for two and three months, and one man said he was tortured 22 times. The falsity of the confessions and the general weakness of the Government's case was shown in some of the alibis established by the prisoners. Several of them were proven afterwards to have been miles away at the time. An elder of the church accused of joining in the shooting of Terauchi was proved by the minutes of the church to have been present at the elders' meeting.
Altogether Mr. Scott's letter is a strong arraignment of the way justice is meted out in Korea by the Japanese Administrators, and he states that the popular respect for Japan has suffered decline. The Japs them- selves have taken little or no notice of the proceedings, either in the press or by meetings, and the writer very pertinently asks whether the civilizaation of Japan is in question, much less the courts of justice.
