Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1896. The Turk.

Manawatu Herald, 14 July 1896, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1896. The Turk.

• IIW IUI l\l ♦ In 1896 the Turk, in spite of all his troubles, remains master of the situation, not on account of his strength, but from the want of it. He remains in power because tbe other Powers cannot agree among themselves how to distribute his estate among themselves. We have before us a copy of the old London Examiner newspaper of the year 1822 and the leader of that date would answer in every respect for to day, except that we have Scio as the scene instead cf Armenia. The T?stamine> says :— The accounts from the Continent oontinue to be of a more warlike character, and it ap> pears to be certain that the Turks have not even began to evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia. What effect their atrocious doings at Constantinople and -at Soio may have in determining the course of the Em peror Alexander, cannot yet be ascertained ; but his subjects must be brutalized indeed, if their sympathies are not roused at barbarities, the bare recital of which almost make one blush for human nature. It appears that all the women at Scio were sent into slavery, — the men, 25,000 in number, and male children above 12 years of age, were massacred,—and the children of the tenderest age, and the most beautiful from among the young women; were reserved for particular purposes. Those who escaped from the savages were lurking about the mountains without food, or clothing, and must soon fall a prey to famine." Again a later number, November, the above extract being from a July paper, says :— " The Turkish Empire is hastening to its end (1822 1) at least in Eorope. Never was a greater combination of the elements of destruction arrayed against so illconstructed and barbarous an edifice. Invaded and defeated by the Persians in the East, jinable to oope even i with the insurgent Greeks, threatened by the Russians, their finances ruined, their commerce destroyed; their souroes of revenue out off, their principal means of defence, those janissaries who are ever more formidable to their masters and fellowcountrymen . than to the enemy, the Turks are now in so deplorable a oondition that the long-oherished project of driving them into Asia, admits of rapid and easy execution. The Ottoman Empire has indeed been preserved for centuries past, not so much by its own strength, as by the quarrels and jealousies of its neighbours." As it was nearly a hundred years ago so it is to-day.