ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE SULTAN.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1804, 2 December 1879, Page 4

ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE THE SULTAN.

On the first day of the celebration of the Bairam festival a Greek attempted to assassinate the Sultan, and was himself murdered in prison a few days afterwards. Ho was endeavouring to pass the second gate leading to the Imperial apartments, when he was stopped by the porter and the sentries, and after wounding three of these with a yataghan he was himself wounded and arrested. When conveyed to the guardhouse, ho obstinately refused to give any explanation of his strange conduct, and replied briefly to the official who examined him, “ Tell them I despise and loathe them all, and they may do their worst.” The official investigation showed that his name was Constantine Karayanopoulo, or Karayani, and that he was a Greek rayah enjoying the protection of the Roumanian Government. His relations are respectable tradespeople, and he himself had been for some time in an office in Galata, Some years ago his friends had noticed in him symptoms of madness and had placed him in a lunatic asylum, but the doctors considered that his mania was not of a homicidal kind, and he was accordingly released. A letter found on him at the moment of his arrest, dated 2277 years from the death of Socrates, and containing detailed instructions as to how his body should be embalmed and buried, gave strong evidence of mental derangement, but when under examination he displayed great calmness and determination. In reply to one of the chamberlains, who was endeavouring to discover whether he had any accomplices, he answered firmly : —“ It is to use asking me questions, for I will say nothing. Remember that among the Greeks even the women bit off their tongues when your people tried to force them to speak. If you have a law, apply it. Here is my body, but after mo there are others.” His wounds wore not very severe, and it was generally supposed that he would recover, when, two days after the incident at Yildiz Kiosk, a rumour got afloat that he had been assassinated by a soldier, the brother of one of the wounded sentries. Inquiries in the proper quarter showed that the rumour had some foundation. The Roumanian Legation had been officially informed of the incident, and at the post-mortem examination it bad been found that the unfortunate man had been killed by wounds from a sword bayonet or some similar instrument. In addition to the four wounds which he had received during the scuffle at Yaldiz Kiosk, seventeen new ones, it is said, bad been inflicted. Perhaps there is in this statement some exaggeration, but there is no doubt that the man was murdered after his arrest and examination, and the question is, how the murder was perpetrated. Some people say that it was done while he was being conveyed from the guardhouse to the Palace for the purpose of being re-examined ; others declare that it took place in the prison.