JUSTICE IN TURKEY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 274, 26 November 1878, Page 4

JUSTICE IN TURKEY.

In the Chamber of Horrors at a wellknown museum bangs; a collection of coloured prints depicting horrible tortures which are being inflicted by Turks in modern garb upon their countrymen and upon Greeks. These pictures illustrate an era in Turkish history.which, is gone, though it is still near enough foir many living persons to have been witw nesses of its barbarities.". As a fact, ingenu ; ty in giving pain belongs to ail uncivilised communities, and our forefathers, with their thumbscrews, racks, and wedge-boots, were quite as cruel as the Turks of 30 years ago. But it is noticeable that the Turks used to exhibit a grim humour in making the punishment of a criminal in some sort congruous to his offence. A tradesman who had sold short weight was. nailed by the ear to his own door post for half-a day, that all his fellow-townsmen might have a good look at him j a wife who had encouraged gallants was tied up in a sack along with a cat and a monkey, the notion being .that she might try her arts in keeping these companions quiet ; a judge or a commander who had accepted brides was taken to some public place and forced to swallow a spoonful of molten gold ; whilst an unfaithful pasha received a Bilken bow-string, ©n the tacit under-, standing that his own, conscience would suggest to what use the present should be put. These and similar punishments 1 were such as commended themselves to the rough and popular notion of retributive justice ; and to this day Turkish "valis and cadis are wont to draw, rnuch on their imaginations when inflicting penalties. It is only in the European cities and the consular towns of the Levant that the judges confine them- . selves to the halter, the bastinado, and imprisonment ; in the thoroughly Turkish towns they keep up the paternal tradition of chastising an offender according to the methods most likely to reform him. As the power of Cadis is almost unlimited, they may condemn a criminal to do the strangest things, provided they neither maim nor permanently injure him, which would be contrary to law. A man accused of selling sham nostrums to cure disease au to make the beard grow r would certaijalybe invited to swallow a pint or two of his mixtures ; a Bcandal-monger would have to ride through the town with -his >- face turned to an ass's tail, and to read a recantation of his falsehoods in public; and a drunkard would possibly get ducked iu a river or horsepond. There are no prisons in the inland towns of the ..empire. A military guard-house, with some unsavoury cellars, serves the purpose of a lock-up ; and sometimes it may happen that an offender will be allowed to lie here for weeks or monthW But the favourite2way oi dealing with a , thief or ruffian guilty of aggravated,assault is to consign him as, a bondsman to the persons lie has wronged. If the latteEjrhave no need of his service*, they may Hire him outto somebody 'who has ; or if the Government be in * want of hands to execute public works, then the criminal may be drafted into a' labour*' gang, in .which . he will ,p? qbably -re-; main until, the "works in question are finished. -' -Th'erV-are- large prisons ifrStain boul and A'dnanoplef>an'd they are supposed to be conducted on, "Western principles of humanity ; but they are. filthy places, in which the half-starved inmates, having nothing to.do^ are much "worse off than if they- were sent to slavery.— -Fall Mail .Gazette