The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-30 00:00:00

The Standard, of Tuesday, publie•hes the following
from their Special Correspondent at Constantinople :

SUNDAY AFTERNOON.
"I have just returned from driving through Stamboul to
witness the preparations for the reception of Osman P..icha,
who is to arrive this afternoon. No victorious General in the
full tide of triumphant success could ever receive a warmer
welcome from his countrymen than will be given to the
vanquished hero of Plevna. You must not suppose from
this that any ostentatious parade awaits him. There is not
in the streets any empty show of banners and triumphal
arches, but instead thereof there is a vast crowd of sympa-
thising human beings ardently longing to see the man who
fought so long and so gallantly for them and their country.
"Throughout the long line of road which he is to traverse
from Reketatch, where he is to land, to the Seraskierat,
where Suleiman Pacha, to whom the loss of Plevna is due
Is awaiting his trial, there is no good point of view which
is not already taken up by an expectant group. The
jalousies of the Turkish houses, which in ordinary times,
screen the occupants of the harem from a vulgar curiosity,
are to day thrown open, so that the imprisoned beauties
may gaze upon the man who so nearly saved Turkey.
"In the streets every ruined wall, every raised mound,
every terrace, every roof is covered with a crowd of Turkish
women and children, attired in dresses which rival the rain-
bow in colour. But ills not only the rich who have come
forth to welcome Osman Pacha. From all the haunts in
which the poverty-stricken fugitives have found shelter a
vast crowd of refugees has poured into the streets. The
excitementof the day has apparently enabled them to shake
off something of the depression which naturally weighs upon
them. For one day misery has put off its gloom ; for one
day sickness has put on a semblance of strength.
"There are in the streets some thousands of refugees
from the scenes of Osman Pacha's exploits. The women and
children of Plevna, Loftcha, Selvi, and Widdin have come
forth to see the man who fought so bravely to save their
homes. In the crowd, too, are many Russian officers in
plain clothes, who have come in to look at their stoutest
enemy, and in the scenes which they will witness there is
enough to make them anxious for the future, for the city is
not only full of troops, but many large regiments of recruits
partially equipped and drilled are continually marching
through the streets, as if to show to Turkey's best General
that he may yet have large armlet' to command._

SUNDAY EVIINLNG.

"The crowd which has patiently waited all day in
Stamboul has not yet enjoyed the expected sight, for Osman
Pacha.'s entry is unavoidably deferred until to-morrow. The
steamer which brought him from Odessa did not enter the
Bosphorus until four o'clock, and did not arrive at Tophane
until five.

"On disembarking the Ghazi proceeded to Dolmabagtche,
where he was received by the Ministers, and whence he was
to proceed to Yildiz Kiosk to have an audience with the
Sultan. After the audience was over it would be much too
dark for him to proceed to Stamboul, and his visit was,
therefore, deferred. I waited in Stamboul until six o'clock,
when the vast multitude very reluctantly dispersed."

Writing again from Constantinople on Monday
evening, the correspondent of the Standard sass :

"It was announced that Osman Paoha was certainly to
make his public entry into Stamboul to-day, so at eleven
o'clock this morning I took my post at a window of a
tobacconist's shop in a street leading from Sirkedji Isdelese
to the Porte, for I knew that at this place I must see the
hero of Plevna, whether he came by water or by land.

'• The crowd was much denser than it was yesterday, and
as I gazed on it from the window it seemed wonderfully
curious. In the broad space before me were many-tinted
groups of Turkish women in their wonderfully gaudy cloaks
and very transparent yashmaks, from above which their
black eyes gleam full of fun and excitement. Then there
were Arab women hideously masked in dark face-cloths,
with only two holes in them for their eyes. There were
plenty of Circassians in caps of sheepskin, dervishes in
brown flower-pot caps, and Persians in black flower-pot
caps. There were many Greek, Armenian, and some Russian
priests, each in his distinctive canonicals. There were
turbans of all hues aud forms, and the red fezzes gleamed
out like DOPPi"iaualug MULL.

" "The people who were riding or driving were not so
curious. At one time there passed by me an Egyptian
Sheikh on a tall, white donkey with a crimsoa saddle and
trappings; then came an old Turk on horseback, with his
little son of six years old. Dressed in full military uniform
and mounted behind his father on the crupper, the boy
looked like a Lilliputian Turk in a Drury-lane children's
pantomime. As I looked at him I wished that 1110 with
me a costumier or scene painter of some great London
theatre. lie would have found a mine of wealth in the
scene before me.

"The throng of people and their eagerness and excitement,
were such as to remind me of Shaliespe ire's well-known de-
scription of the entry of Coriolanus into Rome; but I must
add, however, that our 'veiled dames' cannot Va as the
Roman ladies did, though I dare say they would if they
could.

"At noon the crowd began to thicken. It was a very good-
natured crowd, assembled under very trying circumstances.
Almost every one carried some article which he stuck into
some one else, and hurt him dreadfully, but no one com-
plained. A hamal came along with a load of iron rods on
his shoulders at right angles to the sides of the street. He
was as bad as a charge of cavalry. A man with a very long
roll of India-matting on his shoulders knocked off the hat of
every one whom he approached. Little Turkish women
about five feet high insisted on holding their parasols close
down to their heads, so that as they pressed through the
crowd they entangled the wires of the frames in the fezzes
or beards of the men. But nobody complained. The crowd
was uniformly sober and good-tempered.

"About half-past twelve o'clock there came along some
other inconvenient adjuncts to the crowd, namely, a Govern-
ment waggon drawn by two huge buffaloes; then an araba,
drawn by two white bullocks, full of Turkish women, and
driven very badly indeed by one of the Turkish women;
then a string of talegas, the country carts of ltoumelia, with
a motley crowd of passengers and lugcoge ; then a carriage
from Missies Hotel, with Russian ladles and gentlemen;
then two men carrying a brancard, on which the dead body
of a refugee whom they were taking to the waterside that
he might be carried over to Scutari; then came a Turkish
coffin, carried high on the shoulders of four men and with
the dead man's fez placed on the foremost end of the coffin

"Now there came a little lull. The Turkish women in
front of my window began to get tired of looking at the
crowd, and turned to look at my party. A young lady who
was with me had an eye-glass, which interested them greatly.
They pointed it out to one another and talked about it.
Presently their curiosity got the better of them, and they
pushed back a swinging panel of the window and begged that
they might be allowed to try the, eye-glass. It was
handed to them, and they tried it one after another.
But the young lady is near-sighted, and they are long-
sighted, so that they could make nothing out of the eye-
glass, and handed it back again, with plain reflections on
the folly of the Frank women. Then a happy thought'
,struck me, and I caused it to be explained to them that,
whereas Turkish husbands do not like their wives and
daughters to be seen, Frank husbands do not like their
wives and daughters to see, and make them look at men as
' through a glass darkly.' This proof of the superior artful-
ness.of Christian men gave them great satisfaction.

-
"At one o'clock there was a hum that the hero of Plevna
was coming. The crowd closed up from all sides. The men
who had been selling cakes and sweets, and flowers, and
water were compelled to hold the trays en which their goods
were spread high above their heads. There was a man in
front of me with an enormous tray of daffodils, which
blazed in the bright sun like a sacrificial flame in honour of
the coming man. The four men who were carrying the
Turkish coffin were set fast in the crowd, and held their
ghastly burden on high as if they were the bearers of a
skeleton to the feast, and were about to say to the warrior
memento snort,

"Now he comes. No music heralds his approach; no
flaunting banners wave on high; no fair hands fling wreaths
to him ;no soldiers prepare his passage. A Turkish crowd
keeps its own lane, and keeps it well ; but, as his solitary
carriage with an escort of EOllll3 twenty soldiers passed along,
and as he lo.,ked out calmly and imperturbably on the eyes
glowing with interest and the faces white with excitement,
there surged up round him a deep hum of sympathy and ap-
-plause which far outweighed the value of the most costly
pageant."