Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-08-26
People in Conssan.inopie.

The lower orders proper live very much like
their brethren in Christian countries Both men
and women work. The wife helps her lord and
master in the daily toll, washes, cleans, and
keeps the house in order; she has neither time
nor opportunity for frivolous amusements con-
sequentiy she is more respected both by hus-
band and children, and knows not the heart
sickness and WEAKNESS ofthe harem. But even
here women do not eat with the men, and never
stir outside their domicile unveiled. There is no
middle class among the Turks. There are the
rich Cor easy and the poor. These two
orders are constantly changing places.
The rich man Of to-day may be the poor
one of tomorrow You will know him
by his shabby, greasy coats unbrushed shoes
He Will make no effortto keep up an appearance
10u may see him buy some simple fare and eat
it IN the street on his way to business or home.
He has lost his place. He is poor. He is neg
lected. Meeting him thus you might suppose
him shOe-mender, or a low class coffee-house
Keeper. yet he has only lust missed being a
Pasha. and few months more will probably
renstate him in the position he has lost. The
men and women of the country are naturally
all on par. There is no genius, no talent. no
eminence OF virtue among them Cor If there be.
1t is banished as soon as it dares lift its hcad.)
One man is as good as another. fair adj
dress. smattering of French, and good
luck. are all that are wanted to make no.
body First Minister; but the same fortune
grown tickle may hurl him from his post.
and he sinks lower than what we understand
by the poorest gentleman" One fact battles
European would-be reformers. We are always
meeting with surprises. There is nothing solid
anywhere. There is no public spirit. no landed
interest, no trade interest, no personal author
ity-nothing to grapple with. Everything slips
through your fingers. The laws exist, but are
not enforced. 1t is nobody's business to enforce
them; property is yours to-day. mine tomorrow,
and week hence it may be Mahmoud's, or SAT-
nets, or Ahmed's. The one thing permanent
among us is the watchful jealousy of the various
nationalities. 1t is the different consuls that
keep order here, not the Turks: and were it not
for this protection Europeans could not live in
Turkey. The Turks are Indifferent tradesmen.
Nearly all the shops in Galata. and the whole of
those In Pera, are kept by Europeans. The
Greeks are the chief traders, though a
smart business Is done by the Levantines. The
most fashionable shops are French, but there
are a few tirst-rate Ems lish and American ones.
A large class of Turks hawk their wares in the
street. They are, for the most part, fine, stall
wart, civil-spoken men. They shoulder enor-
nous baskets. containing cheeses. creams. fruits,
vegetables, and many other comestibles, and
furnish more than half the Authorization Of the
city. The habits of these men are very simple;
they live chiefly upon bread and fruit; but they
also know the secret of the pot au teu. and often
l nave seen knot of them, after their days
work, grouped under a she'd or on a green spot
OF earth, mixing the ''savory mess"-you will
perhaps be shocked to hear the pot contains
vegetables (Of onions large sharel stewed in
OIL! somewhat strong-tasted mutton. called
karamani, is the favorite food of the Turkish
upper classes. Pilaff is also an everyday dish,
wherein Europeans also delight The chief
fault OF the Turkish cooking is the enormous
quantity of grease and fat consumed, and the
excessive sweetness of many of the dishes
>e-----
Good that is stCatching.,,
From the Philadelphia Ledger.
Among the murders and suicides and rail-
way accidents rObberies and defalcations which
have peppered the American breakfast table
lately with their bad-tasting sauce. the public is
grateful for any credit on the other side of the
account. anything which relieves humanity from
the weight these items leave on it. OF being a
bad lot; any sweet and fragrant morsel that
refreshes its faith in men and women. Col. In
gersoll overstated his case when he said, if he
could have had the ordering of this world, he
would have made health - catching" instead
of disease. A certain sort Of health is very
catching. The healthy sympathy of Ameri-
cans for any form of distress that comes
before their eyes and ears when they can see
or feel the way to help it, is remarkable this
summer as usual. 1t does not ALL or hun
dredth part of it, get into the papers, but when
it does what stir there is. Only let men and
women know of movement that is helping
some distress. let the distress be real, and it
draws their affections and dollars as lightning
rod draws electricity. On the morning train up
from Cape May, yesterday, was touching
spectacle, mother bringing up her dead baby,
In her arms. She had taken it down, at deaths
door. the day before, as sits last chance for
liie.i' the doctor told her; but 1t was too
late. With true motherly instinct she bore
the tiny body in her arms to the railway
train. Her sad freight and the hopeless
errand she had taken became known to
some OF the passengers The smoking car"
that is usually supposed to be deep in it's
newspapers and its business day ahead. and its
nicOtian indlfference-the smoking carr got
word of the pitiful story and instinctively, in a
few minutes, the little family were taken from
the open thoroughfare car to the paror car, the
passengers in the enclosed compartment gave
up their coy places and took others less COM
Portable wherever they could find them, the
afflicted living were placed in seclusiOn with
their stricken dead. the stalwart conductor
became as tender as woman, the porter
OF the car made them as comfortable
as the circumstances permitted, and then. so
quietly that very few persons outside Of those
who participated knew anything about it,
another substantial token of human sympathy
was made in way that we need not mention
more particularly here. The smoking car" did
what In all probability needed to be dOne-but
it was done without anything but the eloquence
of that sorrowIul burden to invite tit did it
self That tiny dead baby made all the passengers
akin; every man there took personal interest
in the helpless hopeless trouble the silent
mother was bearing. Every father saw in her
grief what might have come to be his own.
ing as disease. When broker or business man
charters a steamboat and picks up from the dem
sest alleys of dirty city boat load Of pale wo-
men and babies, sewing girls or other friend
less folks, how good it is to hear. When the
Country Week tells one story out of its hundreds
that bring its good work to light, how everybody
wants to take hand. If So will give two starved
city children each a ten days's feeding and free
dom on a farm, it only needs to state the sum and
peoples hands go into their pockets. How every
body sympathiZes with this conductor, by whose
road a small boy waited for train to come along.
He had caught squirrel. he was a returning
Country Week boy, a small boy. He was bring
ing it home in triumph as usufruct At the
station it bit his finger and got away. Just then
the market train came along. He made dive
caught it, lost it again. Every man on that
train who looked out OF the windows saw the
chase Everybody who reads knows what it
will be to that boy to come home minus SOUR
rel. What is to be suppOsed-the natural thing
to happen did happen, The train waited. The
passengers were as absorbed in the chase as the
boy himself. The conductor held that train like a
man. Squirrel was caught for the third time
and proudly carried aboard.
With all the hot weather that seems to
"blaze" the days ness in red hot passions tor
nadOes of carelessness, rage and treachery.
social earthquakes when trusted man goes