Birmingham state herald., 1897-01-03
the representatives of all the other great

1Ht DeSl DTOOl lHdJ Ine DOWeTS IhtNt agreed upon something which is not to
 be mere sham or other paper reform is the perturbation which the past week
 has witnessed. The able palace favorite.
 Izzet Bey, has been entrusted with mis- sion which is believed to consist in keep ing the ambassadors at loggerheads, and 1t is rumofed that his great influence at the Yildiz Kiosk will cease as soon as it
 becomes manifest that the ambassadors cannot be set one against the other But during the past week the amb2S- sadors have had visits paid them with the object of learning whether each one vis- ited could be induced to see that the sep arate interests of the country he repre-
 sents would be best served by supporting Turkey. M. Nelidoff is reported to have given an answer to such an inquiry, worthy of the great empire he represents. M. Cabot, the French ambassador, and Sir Philip Currie, the British ambassa- dor. have each had similar visits, and have, of course, met them with entire loyalty to the agreement among the pow CTS The depression of the palace Cama- rillas is excellent evidence that the Turk ish ruling party believes for once that the powers are united and intend to do something which means, in this case, to enforce good government, and if the l Turkish alarm is Justified it means that the powers have, before formulating their | scheme of reforms, agreed among them selves as to the means to be employed
 
 The Daily News correspondent appar- | ently believes that the scheme of re- | forms to be enforced down the sultans | throat is not even yet completely settled, l and that the plan of operations to be fol- lowed, in case coercion has to be applied, | Is not quite agreed upon, but the facts | are as stated. Nobody doubts that the use of force by the European powers will be immediately followed by anti-Chris- | tian outbursts in various parts of the na, mir ha Ua ion among those who know the Turkish character we'll Is that matters will soon settle down. Furthermore. it has been hastily assumed that the Christians are | incapable of taking care of themselves. | It may be confidently expected that | the Armenians, who are not naturally | warlike race, would fight when they | heard that their hour of deliverance had ! arrived; but the Armenians, of course, are not the only Christians in the Sul- | tan's domain. The Greeks will have to | be reckoned with, and that they are a l formidable factor may be Judged from 1 the fact that there are 420,00 of them in | Constantinople alone. well-informed | correspondent opportunely reminds us l that these Greeks have long been pre- | pared for the possible eventualty of their | turn following that of the Armenians. l They are all well armed, and 1t Is their | boast that every male among them over | 10 years is an adept in the use of edged weapons The correspondent adds:
 At the time of the late Armenian mas sacre the Hellenic element was fully prepared for an attack and persons who were able to form an opinion declared | that had they been moleSted they would have made clean sweep of the cowardly blood-thirsty Turkish rabble at smyrna. The Greek element is so numerous and powerful that in case of popular Moslem rising against the Christians they would seize and hold the city"
 Enpltch which from time to time obtain much qualification and matter for moralizing upon from the po- lice scandals in New York, probably give | less play to their virtue on this subject, now that one of the chief cities of the l British empire is found to be tainted in a similar manner. Last Wednesday, | William Bannister, superintendent of the Manchester police force, was dismissed with ignominy and fined by a peace mag istrate for what is euphemistically de- scribed on the charge of sheer neglect of l duty.
 The man ought to have been charged pretty well with every crime possible for | trusted public officer to commit, but | there was general desire in Manchester | to keep the scandal within the narrowest | bounds SO far as publicity was concerned l and so Bannster has been let off lightly, | and other officers, who ought to have | been prisoners in the dock with him, | escaped with nothing more serious than l a caution. The main trouble was con- nected as in New York, with disorderly | houses but Bannister beat his American | prototypes all hollow. He not only | levied blackmail upon the wretched wo- | men as a matter of routine business, put | was actually part owner of a disorderly i house himself and tried to establish a 1 monopoly for the establishment in its own particular district by persistently raiding l rival houses within a specified radius | The occupants of these houses in other dictri " COu1d not he regarded CS rivals in business, were regularly warned when raids were contemplated and, Of course, had to pay for the information. Bannister was within nine months of completing twenty-five years service, which would have entitled him to a pen | sion of $1 900 year and this, of course, he | has forfeited, but there Is not the least l doubt that he has made plenty of money | by his nefarious operations, which will 1 enable him to live in comfort for the rest | of his life. Immaculate Manchester is in | a sea of much virtuous sindignation at 1 these disclosures, but the feeling js ap- parently not strong enough to compel searching investigation by an impartial | body into the whole question of the con l nection of their police officers illegal practices.
 MT. Henry Labouchcre, in Truth, and Editor Palmer, of the Yorkshire Post, an influential provincial journal, call att 1 tention this week to a subject more than once referred to here-the bribing of En- glish newspapers by means of advertise ments inserted ostensibly as news and by payment for the insertion of pros pectuses of new companies on condition of their being puffed more or less direct ly Neither critic is sufficiently severe upon the state of things which is fast sapping the independence of the press of this country. Both appear to think that only second or third rate newspa- pers are bribed. which is far from be- ing the case. Papers with more than a local reputation such as the London Times Morning Post and Daily Tele- graph, habitually insert personal notices for payment, which are advertisements pure and simple, and not always inspired by harmless vanity, and their example is being very widely followed. The chief evil of the system is the putting and swindlng concerns of company promot- CTS and bucket shop keepers. A glaring case in point was the advertisement of the British motor syndicates, an impu- dent scheme for extracting three mill lions sterling from the pockets of sim pie investors, for the. property is prac- tically worthless. The newspapers, from IL yT,:-~ tt,a