The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-01 00:00:00

TURKISH lIABITS.

The extent to which Abdul Medjid has cast aside the
old repulsive forms of Turkish courtly etiquette has been
amply commented on. It certainly is a startling pheno.
menon to witness the Sultan, whose predecessors never
lent to their hospitality the finishing grace of their per.
sonal presence, receiving in public, and familiarly convers-
ing with, the distinguished Christian guests entertained
in his palace. Still more striking—more suggestive of
thought and far-reaching anticipations—is the scene where
the Sultan placed himself on a sofa., with a French prince of
the blood on one hand, and an English prince of the
blood on the other, examining the pupils of his military
schools. It is alleged that the instruction which the
eleves receive in the military schools of Constantinople,
Adrianople, and Broussa, is more showy than substan-
tial. In Europe it is not easy to obtain data whereby
to test the justice of this censure; nor is the question of
much moment. The pupils of these schools enjoy a
training which elevates them above the mass of their
countrymen ; they have ideas instilled into them which
awaken and liberalise their minds ; they are a new edu-
cated interest called into existence in the Ottoman em-
pire, to counterpoise the hitherto exclusive influence of
one educated class of the Ulemah, whose learning at
least equally superficial had the additional disadvantage
of being as narrow-minded and unfruitful as that of our
European schoolmen of the dark ages. The recent ex-
amination of the military schools by the Sultan presented
the hopeful sight of the Sovereign of the Osmanlee sur-
rounded by a young, ardent, and instructed class, as
anxious as himself to earn their country's admission into
the full brotherhood of the system of European States.
It may not unnaturally be feared by the less san-
guine that the Sultan and his military and civil
officials and students are too much in advance of
their nation, —that they may do more harm than
good by too hastily adopting European customs and
habits of thought, still repellent to the great body of
Turks. But the accounts received from Constantinople
of the rapid decline of the old habits of Mussulman isola-
tion from social intercourse with Franks since the arri-
val of the French and English troops go far to allay this
apprehension. The cordiality with which the European
and Turkish soldiers fraternise is remarked with astonish-
ment by the professional reporters, and by the officers
who have recently arrived iu Constantinople. And pri-
vate letters from intelligent and observant Europeans
and Americans, who have been long resident in Constan-
tinople, and who have hitherto laboured in vain to eats-
blish intimate social relations with the inhabitants, speak
in undisguised astonishment of the progress that has
been made since the arrival of the troops in breaking
down the wall of partition which formerly excluded all
Franks from anything like the establishment of a friendly,
familiar position in the domestic circles of the Turks.
The numbers of the military guests, and their rattling,
unconstrained, soldier-like fashions, have proved too
much for even Turkish reserve to resist ; and in many
houses of private Turkish citizens tke Franks are now
received with as frank a hospitality as the native burgh-
ers. This is important. It is only necessary to consult
the interesting account lately published by Mr. Smith
of his wanderings in Asia Minor and Salonike to the
Danube, to see that the Turkish country gentlemen are
noways averse to such familiar intercourse. But in all
nations the citizen—the industrious townsman—class
have always been found the last to abandon their preju-
dices against foreigners, and even with them it is now
apparent that these prejudices are giving way.
True, the pages of history are rife with examples which
prove that the emancipation of a people from even a
bigoted and exclusive nationality may let in corruption
and dissolution of national morals instead of ameliora-
tion. But there is something in the present position of
the Turkish people and state to warrant hopes of better
results. The pressure of a foreign war upon the orderly
and industrious class of citizens is favourable to their
cherishing earnest, not frivolous, views of passing events.
And there are important reforms in progress in the ad-
ministrative Government. This opinion is not irrecon-
cileable with the admission that there is too much truth
in the complaints that are heard of local departmental
corruption and oppression in.therTurkish magistracy.
Generations must pass away before the taint contracted
under the old system can disappear. But the enor-
mously augmented influx of Europeans into Turkey,
occasioned by the war, is bringing a healthier public
opinion to bear upon public functionaries. The merest
soldier, the most reckless adventurer, attracted to
Turkey by the present commotions, has learned in
Europe to pay homage in his language, and to a cer-
tain extent in his actions, to higher principles of mo-
rality than obtained in the Ottoman empire under the
oc‘ld,eeren m
regime.
ssuleagnrsowainndg facmhirliisatriiatnysofwiniitlerctoeauerhse
tbhee-
tformer to test by these principles the conduct of
their rulers in the first place, and of their neighbours
in private stations in the second. Here is a powerful
element of social purification and popular political con-
trol over magistrates. Nor is its influence likely to be
confined to those Turkish provinces which are now the
resort of foreigners : if there be truth in the news (and
there appears no reason to doubt it) that the energetic
and intelligent Colonel Youssouf, himself a Mussulman
and distinguished by his services in Algeria, is to have
a principal charge in the attempts to reform and dis-
cipline the Bashi•buzuks, even out of these desperadoes
may be trained efficient missionaries of law and order
for their own remote pr vinces.

One thing is certain—that in such an infusion of a
better and more elevated spirit into the existing estab-
lished ipstitutions of Turkey appears to consist the best
hope for the future of that empire. Such hopes have
been built on the emancipation of some of the dependent
races or nationalities in Turkey, but experience has
dissipated [them. Even in Servia, its all but indepen-
dence has only led to the establishment of :s local Govern-
ment servilely framed upon the models of Austria and
Russia, with their debasing and enfeebling systems of
finance, passports, pedantic restrictions, and political es-
pionage. As for the Greeks, it is but too obvious that
they have been taught no more by their centuries of
bondage, than the Bourbons by their years of beg-
gary and exile. What was said of the Bourbons on
their restoration—that they had forgotten nothing ana
learned nothing—may with equal truth be said of the
Greeks. They are now the same plausible, quick-
witted, insincere, fickle, short-sightedly selfish race that
the Latin crusaders found them, in all their negotia-
tions with the court of Byzantium. Vain of their tradi-
tional glories and inherited intellectual culture, they are
bent upon exercising a despotic authority over ptanoe9
more rude it may be, but of a more robust physical and
moral constitution than their own. The p
settled industry, of moral and intellectual enbliPogrihdt:numustenoat
among all the races subject to the Porte. holds
upon
prospect of their ultimate equalisation and
They
whoa o n e
look
epermanentk
forsuch
a final
resultindependents and
from
mc can nt
easilyh peebased.
present
turmoils must not be too impatient--too
destructive dis-
couraged by p occasionalpulur
passion. outburstsoldreaoanf
fttsi
eperna
antipathies
sesofaeradceevaerne
not obliterated in a day ; rulerosta
wh rose-water."
eemere fallible
men ; and " revolutions are n
co m m o ta ,
him when he
oßutut inof Turkey, as
discouraging
e, poeur madesince
torderi
ts maynow grow
clear
that the Czar's eager wishesdeceived
flat-
terednturtiBl.iimself that the Ottoman empire was in artiouli

DEATH (of WILLIAMS, THE SCRIPTURE READER.—
Poor Williams, the Scripture-reader, beaten some
months ago at Aghada, died on Saturday, at Milltown,
county of Kerry, his medical attendant ca Roman Catho-
lic) stating, as we are informed, then he died of the in-
juries then received. With what feelings the intelligence
will be read by those whose consciences admonish them
of the share they bore in the assault we know not ; but
the man is dead—dead in consequence, it is medically
stated, of the cruelties inflicted by their hands, or at
their instigation ; and if they deem killing him " a ser-
vice to Gcd," they may exult, if they like, over the suc•
cess of the means they employed to accomplish lt.!—
Cork Constitution.