The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-09
TURKISH MIXTURE"
The Extraordinary Variety of Races
Over Which the sultan RuIes.
From the St. James Gazette.

| Over Which the sultan Hules.
From the St. James Gazette.
| The Sultan of Turkey may be a very in
| efficient ruler; but when we blame him
for not carrying out the promised reforms
without hitch or delay we do not treat him
with that fair play of which we are so
proud as a nation. Owing to the extraor-
| binary variety of races and creeds over
which he rules. his difficulties are almost
insurmountable; and II is doubtful whether
he or any one else will ever succeed in
making Turkey a land of peace and har-
mony
There are no fewer than seven main di-
visions of races in the European and
Asian provinces. In Europe both the
Greeks and Albanians are as numerous as
the Ottoman Turks, each contingent num-
bering about 1900 900, according to the best
authorities. Constantnople itself has just
as diversified a mixture as the kingdom
generally; and only $50 600 of its 875, 900 in
habitants are Mussulmans. the Greeks
numbering $4,000 and the Armenians $780,
coo. But In Asia there are twice as many
Ottomans as all other races put together
The Turks proper consist of Ottomans.
Yurouks, and TurkOmans. The names
have something terrible in their very
sound to US; but travellers unite in de-
ScTlDlng the OIlOfndnS as honorable and
humane men, although they can fight
when it comes to blows. The Turkomans
live a pastoral life. while the Yurouks are
nomadic and therefore not easily SUBJ
jected to law.
Although the Greeks and the AIbanians
are regarded as belonging to the same
Graeco-Latin race, the latter are for the
most part Mussulmans. Some of the AL
banians are Roman Catholics and others
are Of the Greek church, and the two
slightly divergent sects hate each other as
cordially as Parnellites and anti-Parnel-
iites. But, whatever the form of faith,
they prefer robbery as a means of liveli-
hood to any other industry. At the same
time they are of a fine physical type and
make splendid soldiers; but they treat their
women like oxen and although they dress
in rich clothes of the fashion of the Scot
fish Highlands, they have a horror of
soap. In fact, 1t is said that they put on
their clothes once for all and never take
them off. In the event of war the Alba
mans would probably fight for the sultan
The Greeks have not penetrated very far
inland, but have scattered themselves
along the coast of both European and Ash
attic Turkey, where they are always on
the lookout to put money in their purse
together with the Jews and the Armeni-
ans, they do nearly all the trading and
banking of the country, and make a very
good thing out of it, In spite of the sui
tau hIlsTule' tne creeks lmmigrate in
increasing number every year which
makes one think that they must be
slngularly imprudent people, or that Abb
uul is not so very much damned after all
Armenians and their exterminators, the
Kurds, are both sprung from a Persian
stock. The Kurds live in the mountains
and are not precisely the kind of people
one would care to set about reforming.
Some say there are an even million OF
them; others say there are over two mill
lions. They keep the sultan in perpetual
not water, being very bad Moslems But
they are very enterprsing, chiefly in STAY
ing Armenians and stealing their neigh
bors' goods. When not thus engaged they
rear cattle, sheep and goats; and they diff
Ter in no way from their ancestors as
described by Xenophon. Armenia was a
portion of Western Asia, between the
Caspian sea and Asia Minor, but it has
suffered the fate of Poland and the Ar
menians are now almost as scattered as
the Jews. They number about two and a
half millions, and are intelligent people
with particular talent for trade and
banking. The Kurds would probably fight
on the side of the Turks. and we all know
what side the Armenians would take.
The Semitic race has many families in
Turkey. There are the Jews, who perse-
cuted everywhere. took refuge in Turkey;
the Greek church Maronites, who are the
deadly foes of their neighbors, the Druses:
the Druses, of the Mahometan faith, brave
and temperate men, who take neither wine
nor tobacco and who detest the Maronites:
the Chaldeans, who are Christians of a
sort; the Arabs, of whom there are four
or five millions, and who, though holding
the same religious views as the sultan,
are his inveterate enemies, and the Sy-
rans.
Then there is the fine race of Circassians
who are differentiated from most of the
~ arah h av4f~ H. e.
work for a living; the Lazes and the Gyp-
sizes. 1t is supposed that, in the event of
war; the Lazes and Circassians. as well as
the Tartars, Yurouks and Turkomans.
would support the sultan and his Ottoman
subjects, while the Albanians and the
Kurds might, but probably would not, OPP
pose him.