The Savannah morning news., 1903-06-21
EGYPT'S PLAGUE OF CRIME.
1T FOLLOWED THE COMPLETION
OF THE sUEZ CANAL YEARS AGO.

Were Engaged i'm That Work-Aft-
err Opening They Remained in the
Chief Cities-ShipIond of the vagn-
bonds Taken Out to Sea and
Drowned Like Rats.
From the Washington Post.
Cities and countries troubled with
plethora of criminals might do we'll
to take pattern after certain East
ern monarch who. some thirty years
ago, as the story runs, changed his
domain from a hotbed of vice and
disorder into one of the most orderly
countries in the world. The means
he adopted were Enthusiastically orr
entail and from that day to this the
incident in question has remained a
part of the unwritten history of the
orient. Why such excellent material
should have thus long escaped the at
tention of writer's is difficult to say,
for, true or not. it is one that has long
passed current in Egypt and has for
foundation certain well-known facts.
An intelligent merchant of this city
native of the Levant and formerly
a resident of Alexandria, Egypt, re-
Gently related the story to a Post re-
porter, as follows:
when, in the fall of 1869. the Suez
canal was completed, it turned adrift
upon Egypt some 10000 of the worst
thugs and cutthroats that ever went
unhung. Eight years prior to that
date Ismail Pasha, the khedive of
Egypt, who, / do not hesitate to as
sert, was the shrewdest and most bril-
1s.., -
of oriental statecraft, alarmed at the
concessions granted to the canal COM
pany by his predecessors, and weary
of the task of supplying forced native
labor, withdrew his support from that
corporation, causing the native labor
ers to desert the work. which for the
time being was paralyzed.
An Army of Indigents.
1.-THE matter was subsequently ar
ranged, however, to the satisfaction of
all parties by the French government
and certain moneyed institutions ad-
vancing the necessary funds for the
completion of the work. Thus provd-
ed the canal company began recruit
ing labor from the various European
countries to take the places of the
fellaheen who had left the works when
Ismail Pasha made it plain to the ca
nal people that the drain upon Egypt
was more than the country could
stand. Something in the neighborhood
of 10000 men were secured for the work
-laborers whom you may rest assured
represented the dregs of Europe, from
Dublin to Odessa. A person capable
of earning che merest pittance at home
was not eager to risk his life In the
canal diggings, where malaria1 fevers
that even killed off the natives await
ed those who braVed the dangers of
this the worst climate in the east and
where even if they did succeed in es-
Gaping the ravages of malaria the
chances were they would be killed, eth
er for purposes of robbery or in the
numerous quarrels which arose between
the workmen.
$50 1t happened that the ne'er-do-
wells. men who were anxious to leave
Europe for Europe's. good to escape
trial and conviction for crimes they had
committed-in short, all the riffraff
lazzaroni and loafers flocked to the
Suez canal, attracted by the high wages
which the company was obliged to pay
for men who could not have earned a
third of such wages at home in order
to secure the kind of human cattle
which the work required.
A Troublesome situation.
while the work was in progress
AN6J Ptf NhCII CliJOyiilB one OF Ine OeSI
governments it had experienced in
centuries, under one of the most in
telligent and enlightened rulers the
Orient ever produced 49, Ismail, the
third ruler of the dynasty established
by the great Mehemet Ali-remained
tranquil enough, with the exception,
of course, of Suez and Port Said towns
on the canal. These in two years had
increased from 5000 and 1000 to Is. 900
nd Iokg
beds and nurseries of vice and crime
But the moment the work was finish
ed and this immense army of thugs
and ruffians were turned adrift on the
country, to return home whenever it
suited them, the country began to ex-
perience u carnival of crime the like
of which, I dare say, had never been
experienced by any country before or
since.
Alexandria, Cairo, and other cities
and towns were full of this riffraff and
ten highway robberies and murders,
to say nothing of burglaries, etc, per
night was a common thing in Alexan-
dria, where this class appeared to be
most numerous. There was no protec-
ton for property and those who went
forth to business or work did not
know what moment they would be
struck down, robbed and killed by
LneSe human JdCKalS.
CAS- usual in such cases, the mer-
chants and business people clamored
for more protection, criticising the
government for its failure to suppress
the evils, yet the constant doubling
and trebling of police forces and in
crease in the number of troops sta
toned at the principal points had no
other effect than that of making mat
ters worse. The jails were full, but
for all that it did not seem to abate
the evil in the least
The Problem Was Difficult.
"As matter of fact, the problem was
a dangerous and difficult one for the
government to handle. Had 1t simply
been a case Of arrest, conviction and
execution Of common native criminals
the trouble might easily have been set
tied. But the fact was that the canal
laborers were from almost every city
in Europe, from Cork to Lisbon and
from there on round. Marseilles, Ge-
noa, Naples, Palermo. Trieste, Athens,
Odessa, all were represented. The min
ute they were arrested they would de-
clare themselves to be Austrians,
Germans, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Ital-
ians, Greeks, Russians and what not,
inventing cock -and-bull stories to the
effect tina tthey were innocent and had
been arrested by the Egyptian police
to cover the crimes of native malefac-
tors. They made a great ado to their
consuls and the latter permitted them
selves to be deceived and exercised
what power lay at their command to
get their undeserving countrymen out
of trouble.
Egypt was then heavily in debt to