WILY WOMEN IN TURKEY.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2805, 9 February 1878, Page 3

WILY WOMEN IN TURKEY.

(CONSTANTINOPLE COBHESPONDENCB OP THE PHILADELPHIA PRESS.) It was the boast of General Ignatieff that nothing could be discussed or determined in the Privy Council of the Sultan or the grand Council of State, or any important State paper be drawn up, that he was hot made cognisant of within an hour or so afterwards. His information flowed through both Mussulman and Christian channels. One of his most intimate confidants on Ottoman statecraft was the Princess Aristarchi. Her husband is governor of the Island of Cos, and hence the title of princess. For a score or more of years she has played the part of the nymph of Egeria; Her modest dwelling in Peria has been a place of rendezvous for all kinds of high personages—Christian ambassadors, secretaries of legations, Turkish pashas, and persons of lesser note, who come under shadow of night to communicate important intelligence. It was the centre of all the political intrigues of this high capital of political double-dealing and mystification—Pera. Like many others in the uppermost circles, the princess was much aggrieved at the violent manner in which Abdul Aziz was dethroned and hurried into the Mohammedan paradise. She has always kept up relations with the family of the murdered Sultan, for murdered he was, and has been suspected of intriguing for the elevation of Izedden, the eldest son of Abdul Aziz, to the throne. She was, moreover, in this affair, believed to be in a plot, to which the Russians were a party, and to be in correspondence witlf General Tgnatieff. She has been passing the summer at Prinkipo, one of the prince's islands in the sea of Marmora, an hour and a half from Constanti- j noble, resorted to exclusively by her fellow-countrymen, the Greeks, in the gay season. It is a charming spot, surrounded by. one of the most beautiful seas in the world, with a delicious balmy and salubrious, atmosphere. There has been a good deal of mysterious coming and going, between the princess' residence there and the capital, and her ladyship's voluminous correspondence has not all passed through the post-office. Dull and inerVhs the Turks are, and mean as is their opinion of women in general, they have not beenblimd to the princeßs' oapacity for mil chief, nor to her activity in the midst . of h#rls»duestered island retreat. Without a wofcPot warning one evening recently, a detachment of police suddenly surrounded her villa. The, officer in command entering, informed her that he had come to search the premises; that she was believed ~w be engaged in a harem plot for the deposition of Abdul Hamid, and the substitution of Prince Izeddia in his stead; of-treasouable correspondence with the.enemy,-&c, and that he must seize her papers and take possession of her person. The princess protested, and protested in vain—she was the victim of insidious enemies, of the falsehoods of Bpieß,and then, woman-like, she went off into-a' swoon. In the meanwhile the house vat, r^asaeked from top to bottom, everything >ih the shape of a letter or writing }>acked up and sealed, and then Mme. a Priucesse was led down to a steamer in waiting, and carried into exile at Tchesme, on the coast of Asia Minor, opposite to the Island of Scio. All kinds of accusatory evidence are said to have been found in the confiscated correspondence, and the clue to a perfect labyrinth of intrigues, involving a legion of people, high and low. Sudden disappearances and sacks with human bodies in them floating in the Bosphorus may tell us who is compromised. There will be no public trials. The Turks don't believe in making a fuss, or going through the form of a judicial trial, when they have proof of guilt in their hands. How far the princess is guilty, or whether her arrest is a politic stratagem, it is impossible to say. At all events, the Turks think it is well that such a fascinating mischief' maker, of such extensive relations with the inner Mussulman world and the outside barbarians, had better be out of harm's reach.