Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1897-08-12
THE SuLTAN'S MOTHER.
Fu16ument of q Martinique For
tune Te1Ier's Prophecies.

Ful6ument of q Martinique For
tune Te1ler's Prophecies.
The present sultan of Turkey is par
TALLY French by descent, curious fact,
from which hangs romance.
Every loiterer in the pleasant byways
of history will recall the charming
story told anent Empress Josephine
and her friend Clara Bazillais of how
a mulatto fortune teller prophesied that
each of these young beauties of Mar
Unique should marry an emperor. jose
phine, who was then merely Mile. de la
Pagerie, laughed at what she deemed
piece of idle fattery; and SO did the
equally incredulous Clara Bazillais.
But nevertheless the prophecy came
true in both cases. Josephine became
empress of the French, and Mile. Ba-
zillais, by as strange turn of the wheel
of chance, ended her life as the first
consort and only actual wife of Sultan
Mahmoud III.
The late Sultan Abdul Madjid, while
in Paris in 1867, told Napoleon III. the
full story of his mothers romantic ad-
ventures. Mile. Bazillais was on her way
from Martinique to Marseilles when
captured by piratical galley off Malta
and carried to Constantinople. There
she was exposed for sale in the slave
mart, but Sultan Mahmoud, happening
to pass that way, fell in love with the
fair maid of Martinique, and bought
her for very large sum- Mile. BAIL
lais acquired an extraordinary influence
over the grand Turk-so great one,
indeed, that he married her formally,
having divorced all his other wives. She
remained Christian to the last, and
after her consort's death in 1889 she
retired to beautiful villa on the Bos-
phorus, where she spent her widowhood
under the name of Mime. de Martini
que" Her eldest son became Sultan
Abdul Madjid, and her grandsons were
the late and present Sultans Murad v.
and Abdul Hamid II.
Mahmoud IL, consort of the ci-devant
Nile. Bazillais, was one of the best and
most energetic soyereigns that modern
Turkey has known. He it was who first
introduced the customs of civilized
courts at Constantinople, and placed
the Turkish diplomatic service upon a
proper footing. May we not ascribe
some, at least, of these tendencies
toward civilization to the influence OF
Clara Bazillais, girl friend of Josephine
de la Pagerie, whose hand the mulatto
fortune teller read so skillfully in far
of Martinique Chicago Journal.
The Climate of Greenland.
During series OF observations made
last summer by professor of Cornell
university, it was discovered that there
had been most amazing change in the
climate of Greenland since the first rec
ords made concerning that region. It
would appear that there are, on the
Greenland coast, unmistakable evidence
of submergence of the land. WhethNr
this has caused diversion of ocean
currents is not yet determined. The
explorers found on the Greenland coast
blossoming flowers, transforms, fresh,
balmy air and birds and insects in
great abundance. On the American
shore thousands of miles to the south
VAC COAldA 1lOAsS WC1C ACpCA6CAAg e11A0 U11CA 2
was every evidence of wintry weather,
the shores being covered with heavy
snowbanks and with great foes of ice
in their vicinity. The professor, in dis
cussing this subject, makes the follow
ing interesting inquiries: ''Is Green
land now passing through the stage
of ice withdrawal from which the Amer
ican, Labrador and Baffin Land have so
recently escaped? And is there any
relation between the down-sinking of
Greenland and the uprising of Labra-
dor and Baffin. Land? Is the ice with
drawal directly due to the land move
ment, and is the load of ice really the
cause for the sinking which allows its
withdrawal? That is, does the ice in
crease in area and extent with no other
result than its own destruction by de-
pressing the land, and hence removing
the cause of supply ?"-N. Y. Ledger.