The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-02-01
THE WRETCHED SULTAN.

An Account Of Abdul Hamid the
''Shadow of G0d''.
Henry Norman. the London Chronicle
Correspondent, Describes Him in His
Daily Life-How He Treats His Minis
tiers and Receives His Guests-His
Four Confidants, One of Them His
Chief Eunuch-Horrors of Yildiz
Palace.
New York SUM-
The character of tire Sultan of Turkey
is the most profound mystery OF our
time. Some of us have seen him. We
know his origin and history. we havs
studied his rule in his own capital. we
are acquainted with the facts of his
reign, and We have questioned the few
men who during recent years have talked
intimately with him face to lace. But all
this affords no clue to the mystery.
Here is an Asiatic, first debauche, and
later religious fanatic; who has hardly
seen civilized city or had civilized
man for his friend; who lives in the
strictest seclusion, fearing instant assas-
snation; who rules over a people nine
tenths of whom look upon him as a
political and religious usurper; who has
seen during his reign vast territories de-
tached from his kingdom; Wis has been
crushed in a great war; who has let
powerful fleet go to utter ruin and
splendid army totally degenerate who,
finally, was once the ally of Great Britain
and France and is now without a sup
porter among all nations. Yet he is
able to defy Europe; with impunity to
outrage the conscience of the civil lied
world; to trample under foot every
solemn engagement that has been wrung
from him: to score one diplomatic vic
tory after another over six of the most
experienced and willy Ambassadors living;
to laugh at the pressure of powers whose
battle ships could lay every coast town IN
Turkey IN ashes in few hours and who
could set in motion ten millions Of men
and, finally, when he has at last been
constrained to promise life and liberty to
an oppressed people, deliberately set
about to exterminate them. This man,
I say, is the greatest mystery Of our time.
Moreover, / do not believe the man lives
who can explain him. Certainly, I make no
pretence to do SO. but Ii ave been study
ing him recently at rather close range,
and that l am not without some intimate
knowledge of his movements is perhaps
p, owed by the fact that knew and pub
lished in the London Chronicle his &C.
ceptance of the project of Armenian re-
forms twenty-four hours before any one
else in Europe. Therefore I may per-
haps throw little light upon the mys-
terry.
THE PERSON OF ABDUL HAMID.
Take the Outward man first. Abdul
Hamid II. is short, bent in the back,
languid in movement, with occasional
large ears, large nose, large lips, large
hands, and large feet. His eyes are
grayish, his hair is thin and dark like
his board, his teeth are long and yellow,
and his complexion is like parchment
that has been roughly folded dozen
times. That is, everything In his appear
ance oontradicts the idea that he is an
Osmanli-a pure Turk. In fact, he is an
Armenian. His mother was an Arme-
MAN slave, and unless all tradition lies,
his father was not the Sultan Abdul
Meiid, but the latter's Armenian gardener
The Turks to man call him the bas-
tard, and tell you with many ciroum-
stantial details how his mother layished
upon the plebian of her own race the
fayors which she succeeded in withhold
ing from her alien if august lord and
MASTER. In this fact of his origin is to
tense and unreasoning hatred of the
Armenian race, and also the explanation
of many practical qualities Of statesman
ship in which he excels the Turk. For
the Armenians are the Jews of Turkey,
the buyers and sellers, the money lenders
and usurers. the bookkeepers, the specu-
lators, the commercial parasites. Thus,
though Abdul Hamid II. has played
with success many game in which a
Turk would have been utterly worsted,
and though he is in name and position
the thirty fourth man who has girded on
the sword of Osman in the sacrosanct
Mosque of Eyoub on the Sweet Waters of
Europe, he does not really belong to that
race which Freeman declares to have pro-
duced more great leaders Of men than
any other than has ever existed. He is SO
years old, and he succeeded his elder
brother, the deposed Murnad ". three
months after the latter succeeded his
uncle, the deposed Abdul Aziz, namely,
on Aug. 81, 1876, at the moment when
Servia was waging war against Turkey
and only eight months before the Gar
would be doing SO, too. He rejoices in
| the official titles Of "Sultan of Sultans.