CONSTANTINOPLE'S PLIGHT.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 290, 23 September 1915, Page 3

CONSTANTINOPLE'S PLIGHT.

HAVOC BY BRITISH GUNS. Signor Alessandro Negro, a Turin manufacturer, who has just returned from a long visit to Constantinople to Turin, communicates to the Gazetta de; Popola some interesting impressions o-present-day life in the Turkish capital. "The outward aspect of the city," he says, "is normal. The habitual apathy of the Turks makes them more or less indifferent, even in the face of the grievous fate which is at their very doors. This state of feeling is further fostered by the one-sided, optimistic official communiques, the passive conduct of the newspapers, several of which have preferred total suppression to the ruthless scissors of the censorship, and to the fact that the food prices have not gone up by leaps and bounds, as in Germany and AustriaHungary. However, among the more intelligent section of the population dire forebodings underlie apparent calm, and indeed broke out into panic on the occasion when the British submarine penetrated as far as Seraglio Point and did.its deadly work. "In any case, a popular revolt seems out of the question, for the Government has taken stringent steps to sequestrate all private stores of firearms in order to supply the army. Lack of Drinking Water.

''What is the worst felt is the notable shrinkage of the city water supply, consequent upon the shortage of co-1 Drinking water is derived from springs and necessitates a huge consumption of coal for drawing it up into aqueducts. "This lack of coal too, is severely shackling local industries, particularly the electric mills for grain-grinding. Hardly any coal is now getting through from Germany, for ihe simple reason that Bulgaria has not a sufficient number of trucks siv.ai'idble.

"I can testify that enormous quantities of war material generally are reaching the Turkish forces, masked as merchandise for I!cd Cross purposes.

"The Turkish resistance has be<rn reduced to a mere economic problem, for the day when the passage of supplies across the Balkan railways ceases altogether will mean Turkey's deathblow. "When I left, the Government wasinitiating measures to compel all factories and workshops fitted for the purpose to start manufacturing munitions. Nearly all the local garrison have been depleted. All soldiers not actually, at the front, and even the policemen, have had their repeating rifles taken away and have been given the old typ* breech- loaders instead.

"About 20,000 Germans still domineer Constantinople—the bulk of them officers and military men. "Greek subjects of Turkey, with whom I talked on their return from Gal'lipoli, wer unanimous in the description of the terrible havoc wrought by the Brtish artillery. The soil of the war zone is everywhere ploughed by their tremendous projectiles, and Turkish files have literally been mowed

down owing to the Allies' marked su*periority in quick-firing guns. "Despite the ingenuity exercised fw hide the arrival of wounded in the capital and other hopsital centres, it is widely realised that their numbers are far in exeess of the official announcements.

"I remember one day, when 600 were expected, seeing six big steamer* come in crammed with victims. The mortality rate among them is deplorably high. I can name you hospitals sheltering over 1,000 wounded where the medical taff consists of only three doctors^—and what a sorry assortment* "Let me give you an instance. One day a poor fellow was brought iu, frightfully laeerated by a bursting grenade, and a 'specialist' received an urgent summons to come and amputate both legs. "That 'speialSat' was a Greek doctor."