CONSTANTINOPLE AS IT IS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2477, 26 May 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

CONSTANTINOPLE AS IT IS.

Behind Time in Everything.

The Turk (writes " .T. II," in the Melbourne Argus, describing a recent visit to Constantinople) is behind tin:e in everything. Our year ISBS is his 1301, the d.-ite of Mahomet's inspiration or flight from Jleeca, from which the Turks count, oennving 58i years after the commencement of our era. He is behindhand with his clock also beginning his reckoning of the hours from sunset, whenever they may happen, and calling that the twelfth hour. Such time is told to the public by gunfire, as bedtime was formerly told in England by the curfew bell. An hour after sunset is here I a.m. and wo get on thus for eleven following hours, when the count begins again. By tho watch it is half-past, seven when sunset is annonneed, and I have to put the hands four hours and a-half forward, and so regulate ray timekeeper nightly. Such Turkish newspapers as exist announce the time of day in their items of intelligence, much as I noticed that the Times daily gives tho hour of high water at London Bridge. At sunset everybody in Turkey is supposed to go to rest with the birds, and to awake to the day's work at cockcrow. The Government is altogether of the nld-f ishioned, patriarchal style. The head of tho tribes of Turks is the Sultan, called commonly " Padishah," or King of Kings. His rulo is indisputable oxcept by his mother—the Sultan Valideh— who«o power is something greater, and to whom appeals aro generally made by petitioners, as in the Romish Church they would be to the Virgin. The Sultan has an absolute power over tho lives and property of his subjects, and this autocratic Government is imitated in every household, even to matters of life and death. Infanticide, therefore, is as prevalent as with tho Chinese, and not, in practice, punishable as a crime. The antiquated feudal system of England yet prevails here. There are Pashas, or governors, and judges, who do their best, for themselves, during their short terras of office. In weighty in vtters a favourable decision is often asked for on tho equivalent of a blank cheque—the amount of the bribe being left to the conscience of the cadi. The German poet who asked, " Whereunto is money good ?" would get his answer here. All tho old London night watchmen— tho " Charlies " or their representatives— are here. Every private house of any consequence appears to have one to itself. Ho announces that he is awako and watchful by thumping his iron-shod staff on tho stones throughout the night. This would bo a nuisance to a light sleeper, if I had not been put up four stories high. Here are the old snuffers and extinguishers, and hero tho bakers do their baking in night of their customers, in ovens which one can see from t.ho streets at the end of their shallow little shops. Here, also, are water sellers, wholesale and retail, you may buy by tho barrel of the one or by the glassful of tho other.

For such small service as the latter tho little coins come in useful, and here are

tho half-farthings, or eights of a penny, that were common in Queen Anne's days. Here street advertising is unknown, and may be so for another century. In business matters Providence is waited upon, and thoro is no pushing of trade as elsewhere. No advertisements appear in the papers except tho English or American

ones of some cure-all medicine. The walls and hoardings are without posters. When I think I am given a handbill in

the street, I find tho giver following me for five paras, as the equivalent of a farthing. I have taken from him the description of somo holy place at Mecca, which he is spiling and not distributing gratis. I took no more Turkish handbills after this experience of them. Here, on the Golden Horn, are seemingly all the old paddle-wheel steamers which have, been put aside elsewhere in favour of the screw ones. Here also are all the old red tiles for house-roofing, sent away from Britain on the introduction of slates, of which not one is to be 3een in Constantinople. Here the materials are conveyed upon horses and donkeys which are seen carried in carts in other places. It looks antiquated, indeed to see bricks roped or netted up and so hanging to the number of fifty on each side of a horse. A dozen donkeys in procession, with half a score of !)iu. deals 12ft. long to either side of then, and coming to a junction in front of their heads, is a common and a comical sight. The stone in blocks or in a broken state is carried in tho same way as the bricks, Mere is seon the old idea of men dressing in grey-coloured clothing and dandified fashions. Here it is shoes, and not boot 3, that are commonly worn ; and here the shoes are put off upon entering vehicles, as they are upon entering mosques. Folks sit in their stocking feet in tho public conveyances, but never, anywhere, upon any occasion, do I see the men without their turbans or tightlyfitting skull caps. As a counterpoise to this the yonng girls are mostly seen with no head covering whatever beyound their pretty hair. When married and obliged —as are those of the lower class—to show out of doors, tlioy cover up their faces, but not their ancles. I asked once of a barefooted Irish girl at Killarney why sho wore a dress so short in the skirt. She said that it was because she wore it high in the neck. Here is the old-world fashion of distributing property, of which relics survive in Knghnd in the customs of copyhold manors. Exceptionally so there, it is general here, that the State takes—as docs the lord of the copyhold mannr—a slice of the deceased's estate as ;i fine for his deserting this world for a better one. In tho Turk's idea that everything must havo a money payment made for it, is included this heavy charso for an escape from hero to one of tho seven heavens of his faith. Here those not keeping within tho house after gun-fire go about with lanterns of a night in tho way our ancestors wenrhome from the Globe Theatro after seeing the first night's performance of " Hamlet," 11 King Lear," or " Macbeth." Here, with the lanterns, turn up also all the old fashioned sedan chairs. These are carried about hero by two men nt the equivalent of a shilling an hour. That I may know of tho experiences of my grandfathers I have a shilling's worth of this way of {retting 1 over tho stones, but have had enough of it at the end of ten minutes. Here exists the treatment of women in tho olden fashion, before Married Women's Property Acts —to say nothing of women's rights—were heard of. The Turkish wife is treated as a chattel with an inferior soul, having access hereafter only to the lowest heaven of tho seven—a sort of out-house. There is little neod, therefore, for her going to worship, and she w is never seen by mo to enter a mosque, while in older faiths it is the women who always crowd the churches. Having l said " wives," it may bo as well to recall that ■the very ancient eu-foms exists here of a man being allowed as many as he can keep. Ho is popularly supposed to be restricted to the legal four, but as the Sultan may hive hundreds, the Turks are like other nations in imitating the doiugs of royalty.