The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-01
THE DEEDS OF THE TURK.
He Governs In the Spirit of the Tar
tarS, the Spirit of Destruction.

tnrS, the Spirit of Destruction.
From the London Spectator.
Now, what have the Turks done? They
left their deserts on the frontiers of China.
and invaded Europe for purposes of plum
der They reached the end of their re-
sources, and would probably have been
driven back when, as Dean Church in his
wonderful paper on the subject has des-
crihed. their leader hit upon the Internal
device OF demanding a tribute of children
instead of certain imposts Out of those
children. none of them Turks by blood.
he formed the New Soldiers" the Janis
saries, perhaps the most formidable stand
ing army which ever existed, and with
them his successors conquered Constan-
tlnople and the whole of the eastern en-
pire of Rome, and nearly conquered Hun
gary but were beaten back by the Polish
cavalry.
From that day TO this they have govern
ed that magnificent empire in the shirt
of Tartars, which is the spirits of destruc-
ton. They have founded nothing, improv-
ed nothing, built nothing, have produced
no literature, advanced no art sent out no
new idea among mankind. They have
shown no conception of government except
despousm, supported, whenever resistance
was made, by massacres which included
both sexes and destruction which extended
even to the animals and the trees.
OF their endless subiect-races they have
not conciliated one. Greek and Slav alike
by almost unheard of sacrifices, have Of
last cast off their yoke. There is no oeo-
pie in the world so submissive as the Ar
menian, who obeyed the Roman cheerful
ly for centuries, but even he cannot toler-
ate the Turk. The Greek loathes him.
and even In little island like Cree
fights him hand to hand. The Arab. who
is of his own faith holds him to be the
worst of barbarians and rises against him
in armed insurreCtion at least once In
every five years. The detestation of him
is, in fact, not European. but universal.
and is kept down in every province only
by sheer terror of the Ottoman. the
eoidest and most merciless of all Aslatio
fighting men.
Nor is there the slightest hope of I'm.
provement. On the contrary, in Turkey
everything, including public virtue. Is
rapidly decaying. There never was n sui
tan so bad as the present. or one so SO.
cure the pashas are universally corrunr
ana are given up even by the admirers of
the Turk and as for the soldiery. lef
batuk and Armenia answer for their
character. Nothing survives in the Otto
man except his magnificent courage. his
hablt OF obedience TO his officers, and his
readiness to die rather than surrender tha
ascendency of his caste, an ascendencv
WuiCn WIN MN means the right to kill
an christians who viii not submit
The treasury is bankrupt, the provinces
are ruined, the capital rises and retires
trembling, while all reformers are hunted
down, and even the religious students who
appeal to the Koran as condemning the
present regimes are ordered back to their
homes to starve there in quiet After 400
years of unbroken rule this is the condi-
ton of Turkey and then because the I,e-
Vantlnes of the ports are an unworthy
people we are tod that we ought to sym
pathlze with the masculine Ottoman"
ana not the civilized Greek Let us adj
init that the Turk is masculine, and then
ask his admirers If they can point to an
other race in which. If man rises to the
top, he becomes by those admirers ac-
nowledgement instantly and hopelessly
bad-in stransformed. in fact, from a fine,
II brutal, soldier or peasant into a pasha.