The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-05-24

To welcome the dawn of spring.
GladstOne's Account Of Montenegro
and its Inhabitants.
In popular lecture, delivered recent
ly, Gladstone, the ex-premier OF England,
gave the following terse account of Mon
tenegro:
The history of Montenegro was briefly
this: A portion of the inhabitants of the
northern part of the Adristic Sea were
conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth
century. A certain portion of them did
not accede to any of the three alterna-
tives which, as he had told them before,
were proposed, but went up to the
mountains, which were very high and
very difficult of access, and there re-
manned. This occurred in the year 1885.
For the sake of their religion and free
dom, and everything else that made life
happy or desirable, they abandoned their
property and went to an inhospitable
cline with very limited means of exist
ence, to maintain desperate struggle
against the whole power Of the Ottoman
race, which struggle they had now car
ried on almost entirely without intermis-
sion for about four hundred years. Those
remarkable people were there still, and
it would be observed that in the course
of the last six months, while the Turks
boosted that they had beaten the Servi-
ans, with the aid that they had of three
or four thousand volunteers from the
Russian army, the Montenegrins, with
population of 10000 or 14O, 900 people,
had on every occasion they had met them
beaten the Turks. Applause. They
had nothing to fight with, for the most
part, except old-fashioned weapons that
none of them would like to use; they
had no cavalry or artillery, and any can
non they used were those they had taken
from the Turks. With all these difficult
ties and the vast numbers brought against
them, they had beaten the Turkish forces.
Now, the Turkish military were good
soldiers and brave men, and, as we are
aware at the present time, they had
blockaded one of the Turkish towns,
(Niksicb) because there was question
raised about it in connection with the
armistice. In 1916, when the lay sove-
reign of Montenegro retired, he made
over the government of the country to
bishop, and a succession of bishops had
since governed the country and led the
people in the desperate struggle between
life and death, almost without intermis-
sion, from 1915 up to 1912. Those bish-
ops were warriors; indeed, every priest
in the country was warrior. 1t was a
conflict in that country between life aud
death, from day to day and from year to
year, and during that long time have the
people not been permitted to lay aside
the terrible arms they used in the con-
slant struggle with their enemies, and
have maintained their system of religion
up to the present time. When they went
up to the mountains, their leader sum-
monsd them and made them take a sol
emn oath on the New Testament to abide
true to their faith and nation, and who
ever broke this should be invested with .
woman's apron and hooted from the ranks
of men. Having referred to the high
esteem in which women are held in the
country, and the almost savagery with
which the Montenegrins treated the Turks
they slew in battle, the right honorable
gentleman said that they should try to
understand the circumstances under
which the Montenegrins, when they went
into battle together, and one of them
was wounded that could not be removed,
it was the duty Of the other, especially
if he were his brother, or his friend, to
cut of his head; and why not3 To save
him from the horror, insult and Disgrace
to which, while alive, his body would be
exposed. OF course, . savage state of
manners came in, and that was one of
the points he held, and when the op-
pressed were driven to this state Of things
their oppressors were responsible for it.
He was glad to say, however, that in r.
cent times great efforts had been made to
ret rid of that ferocity of character, and
for two generations past great pains had
been taken by their soversigns, and, he
believed, with great success, to establish
peace and order and good government
among them. Their history, though it
had drawn very little attention, and
though he was very far from denying
that it had its dark spots, because the
spirit of ferocity still prevailed to some
extsnt--still, the heroism of the people,
their sanctitiss, aud their noble constancy
would, in his opinion, secure to them to
--LATEST ages name more enduring than
1hot which would b given to other me-
1fona. States and peoples who appeared
Rsa6sr IN the eyse az the world.