HARD TIMES IN DAMASCUS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 203, 5 October 1878, Page 4

HARD TIMES IN DAMASCUS.

Vice-Consul JagO, reporting to the British Foreign Office on fheVade of Ditnascus during the ye«r 1877} «ives a very gloomy account of if. Local Christian and Jewish capital's 8 have been i-edUcttil io penury hy the failure C? ttie city to pay interest on its bonds for ihe debt (»ith arrest s) of £600,000, aod extra war taxes, forced loans, nnd voluDlary subscriptions in aid of (he war have well nij/h exhausted the resoourcee of both rural and urban populations. The VicF-eonsul says thnt taxes are levied in most cases in proportion to lhe supposed means of the contributor. The consuming fosvers of the people are restrict 1 to articles of absolute opcepsity. Imports ol foreign manufactures are confined chiefly to English pHufs of the cheapest ih-scriptioi.s. Two of the three European houses established at. D-imas-cus retired from the fi 2 ld in 1870, au.J the number of European residents all told cau be counted ou the finders. The Bagdal overland tta le is virtually extinct. Tho Suez caoal has turned aside^ the formerly large consignments of Europeau manufactures purchased in Damascus and sent, to Bagdad. The war has led Persian pilgrims to Mecca to go by the eea route via the Persian Gulf. A few years ago as mauy as 3000 of thfee brought with them to Damascus large quantities of merchandise for sale, and purchased there for traffic in the holy cities much goods aod ware, and the like commercial operations attended their return. Thos a succession of blows has struck down the prosperity of Dimaseu?, and neutralised the gifis of nature which abound po profusely on every aide. Damascus is the seat of the Government of Syria, the head-quarters of the ' 5 h Army Corps of the Empire, and the population is estimated afc from 100,000 to 140,000 ; aud now the trade aud industry are limited to providing for the scanty wants of an impoverished people in the sole matter of t'ood and articles of strict necessity, and tor the rude requirements of ,the Bedouins and of the dei.izens of the unsettled and lialf-?U7oge districts around. The Vice-Consul says that ifc is difficult to discover in what manner the greater portion of tha inhabitants manage to subsist. Household effects and articles of value have been disposed of, end a loan of a few pounds is an impossibility, even amoDg the sc-called rich. The streets are filled with beggars, both Moslem and Christian, and that too in a city where, two years ago, a be«gar was a rarity. Debts are no louder pu"id, the present circumstances being held an oil sufficient excuse for deferring payment. The iotroduatiou of caime, or paper money into monetary transactions, with its ever increaaiug depreciation (50) per cent, at the closa of last year, has had a most disturbing influence ; the Govern neat payments were thus reduced in value to halt their nominal amount. Still the Vic:-Cousul apprehends that, perhaps, his report is cot moio gloomy than those irom mauy other parts of tha Ottomin domiuions under existing circumstauces.