Gissip.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 411, 24 March 1904, Page 7

Gissip.

THE AVERAGE TUBK, fsjKJ ENOW that it is usual to denounce telej the Sultan as a monster of the gag deepest dye; he may be, too, for all 1 know, or care. A single casual view of him at Selamlik does not qualify one to speak of his character, which, if but half said of him be true, must be. very black indeed. Bat I must Bay that the average Turk is not half a bad fellow, and that he worships the Sultan as the Bussian worships the Czar. When I first reached the fairy-like city on the Golden Horn I thought to find every Turk a ruffian, but though I found plenty of ruffians, few of them were Turks. The hired men who did the killing were not really Turks, and although, it seems likely that the massacres'were planned at Yildiz the average Turk did not think so. Certain is it that the Armenians looked a very bad lot and were of evil repute; the Greeks, too, were reckoned to be thieves one and all, unjustly no doubt but surely, and the tension between them and the Turks was strained, although Colonel VaBBCS had not 'entered Crete and war was apparently fax off. It waß easy to see that the average Turk held his life cheaply, that he felt sure of Paradise if he fell fighting for his Sultan and country, that he was tired of the Armenians, and did not regret the massacres, and that he' was still more tired of the reports of foreign pressure. . The Turk, in short, was bo ill-mannered aa to be opinion that however ill or well, he managed his own affairs, it waß no concern of his neighbours; and his was, after all, a feeling that really exists among all nations, and has led Spain into her present position. England was not all popular; an educated Turk told me that the outcry against his nation in England was very much resented. 'You fought for us in the olddays,': said he,. * and now the worst that you can say is good enough for us. It is not right, and on account of a fewArmenians, too!' The truth is that in the West of Europe we do not quite realise how blood is shed in the East. Life here is a very serious thing—no man may destroy it without paying very dearly. Out in the East things are very different, Sucb sights as followed the Armenian attack upon the Ottoman Bank would drive the average man out of his mind. lam pleased to say I did not see them, but one oi my friends was caught in the city and (ould not get away. Coming from the West he has never quite recovered fromj the sights, it waß a terrible time, and When all was over, ana the dead bodies of the Armenians were piled up on thja road to be taken away, the young Turkish boys went about sticking their knivtfs into the corpses. To us it is terto them it was a joke % the sight of so much blood did nut disturb them in the opposite to one of my friend's office! there was a huge warehouse into which tome of the Armenians rushed on the day of the St&mhoul massacres. They were:hunted higher and higher up until at last they were driven by the Bashibazouka on to the fiat roof, There they made no further fight. Their assailants were armed with thick stioks, but the sport cf smashing heads had tired them and they wanted a change. So they seised the Armenians one by one, and tossed them over tbe parapet, whence they'feJl from a terrible height on to the pavement and were smashed out of shape. There were plenty of people, and it did not strike them with the horror that comes to me as I recall the event. They do not, and did not regard the Armenians as human beings worthy of human treatment. And yet the Turks seemed to be for the most part simple, kind after their fashion, and frugal and temperate in their habits. The officials might have been all that is bad; the rank and file of the people were not. I would give something worth having to hear about Turkish affairs from Sir Phillip Currie's ■ point of view.— B, Pain