THE TURK AND THE TARTAR.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1088, 24 December 1877, Page 3

THE TURK AND THE TARTAR.

An interesting lecture entitled "The Turk and the Tartar, in Peace and in War," was lately delivered in South Yarra by Dr. Bird, formerly surgeon on the sraff of Omar Pasha. Mr Justice Fellows occupied the chair. Dr. Bird, after describing the principal incidents of military life which came under his own personal observation during the Crimean campaign, proceeded to observe that the Turkish rank and file possessed every quality necessary for good soldiers. They were physically muscular and well-made, and as the majority of them came from mountainous districts, they had an activity which the dwellers on plains had not. The Turk had an intelligence and perception of new ideas which had enabled him to rapidly acquire the use of the Martini-Henry breechloaders, which had caused the present struggle to be probably the most sanguinary on record. The self-reliance and independence of the Turk resulted mainly from his political and religious training, and should command the sympathy of a democratic community like ours. The Turk was essentially conservative and tolerant; the Russian aggressive and proselytising. After a residence of six months in Bulgaria, he could not deny that there was misgovernment and oppression, but not to anything like the extent that Mr Gladstone and his followers would have us believe. The nonsense that had been talked about the " unspeakable Turks" and their atrocities was most aggravating to those who knew that nine-tenths of all this was gross exaggeration and injustice, while the Russians were quietly rubbing their hands with delight at the readiness and simplicity with which Mr Gladstone played their game for them. The fact was, the Porte, in spite of all its detractors might say, had been steadily instituting reforms in its European states. The errors and prejudices of centuries could not be done away with in a few years, but steady progress in that direction was being made. The very fact of the large Christian population of ' Turkey, and their wealth and prosperity and general well being, proved conclusively that they were not a down-trodden, oppressed, and overtaxed race. If the Greeks and Armenians, and even the Jews, in Constantinople were asked about Turkish oppression, and whether they were " groaning under the yoke of the Moslem," they would laugh, and he (Dr. Bird) coidd truthfully say that there was very little syrnjfiij&ry' with the Russians amongst the Greeks in Turkey during the Crimean war. On the other hand it was a matter of history that it has been constantly the policy of Russia to keep organised bands of agents in Wallachia, whose business it was and is, as Lord Strangford said, to hatch and force into existence spurious insurrections in Turkey, with the deliberate object of establishing a sufficient show of anarchy and bloodshed. The wily Ignatieff, finding that under the firm but beneficial rule of Midhat Pasha the Bulgarians were so happy and contented that it was difficult to raise any feeling of discontent amongst them, managed with Russian gold and his personal influence over the weak-minded Sultan to get that good man recalled, and then the vile plot matured itself unopposed. The war was avowedly a crusade for the purpose of exterminating the Turk from Europe, and it was well known that such a war could not be carried out without frightful cruelties on both sides. Let the blood of the victims be on the head of Ignatieff, and on the heads of those foolish and ignorant people who from the safe retreat of English platforms had been hounding on the Cossack to a crusade against they knew not what. In conclusion, Dr. Bird stated that no one could predict how the present struggle would end, but from his knowledge of the courage, vitality, and tenacity of the Turkish soldier, who seemed to combine the dash of the French with the stubborn firmness of the British, he foresaw that the Russians would not, at all events, make a quiet military promenade through Bulgaria. Russia had found that the " sick man " had got a good many hard kicks left in him yet, and would find, if ever her troops crossed the Balkans, that the Tartar had " caught a Tartar," and that the Porte would shed the last drop of its purple blood in repelling her invading hordes. Whether England would be drawn into the struggle it was difficult to say. But England, if not assisting the Turks to repel the Russians, was engaged in the more humane business of supplying money, surgeons, and stores for the help of the wounded. So far from judging that Turkey had no place or part in the Europe of the' future, all thinking men saw that every year found her of a higher level politically and socially, and made her more fitted to be an honorable bulwark against that implacable foe who for the last 140 years had never lost an opportunity of attacking her. With a firm hand at the head of affairs in Turkey, the vast resources of the country might support a trebled population of happy and contented people, and Constantinople, safe in her own strength and the patriotism of her inhabitants, might be —as she was in situation, and deserved to be in arts, education, architecture, and commerce—the Queen City of the Eastern World. The lecture was attentively listened to throughout, and at the close of his remarks a vote of thanks was passed to Dr. Bird.