Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-02-24
COMEDY AT CONSTANTINOPLE
Bu. W th Gloom Of Tragedy Lurking Gloss
Eehind It.
CORRUPTION OF HIGH OFFICIALS
A City where People Talk I'm Wills
pers and May Not Discuss As
tronOmy-Turls suffer ~
wen ns Christians.

.NsTANTINoPI.E Jan. II. - Especial
Correspondence. lit is a city of whispers.
No one laughs, no one speaks loud. Head
is laid to head and hand TO mouth. Men
eft all day on divans along walls and whls-
per once an hour.
when a Turk comes TO your room he
opens the door suddenly now and then to
see who is listening As in a Maeterlinck
play. there is always somebody behind the
door
II you want to say 1.-THE sultan" you say
nothing. "Yildiz" in Turkish means star,
but the word lie extinct. The sultan lives
IN Ylldiz Kiosk. and astronomy lie no
longer discussed.
But Il is with Yildiz that the whispers
deal. It stands over there on the hill
above the Bosphorus. far from the an
cient city, where the great sultans used to
live--far across the Golden Horn and Pera
from the sublime porte or offices Of state.
compared to which our home ONCE and
war Office are fervid hives Of industry.
There II stands, visible, but unapproach-
abie-a conglomerate town in itself, con-
taining everything that the heart OF man
could discrepancies and barracks and gar
dcns and kitchens and porcelain factories
and prisons and stables and women's apart
midst of It all, encircled by ring after ring
Of precaution, Joined to the outer world
only by long strands OF telegraph wire,
squats the spider sultan-"feels at each
thread and lives along the line" It Is
about him that the flies in the city whis-
per-
IT'S he dead?"
"Ie has certainly been very ILL.,"
''They say he's better now"
He was at the Selamllk. He has missed
only one Friday all these years"
THAT comes OF a good conscience"
"They say he never looked better since
the Greek war"
1T was that Times leader of January 8
set him up. 1t proved England could do
nothing for Macedonia. He's quite well
again"
did you hear about the censor7 He
delayed a telegram saying his majesty was
better Next day he came to the ONCE
as we'll as usual. felt uneasy after lunch
and died on his doorstep. His own brother
has been compelled to succeed him. Per-
haps he will be more careful"
do you know that inscription on the
tomb of Pasha who was master of the
mint and other things till, as the grave
stone says, the imperial will decreed thai
on such and such a day his honorable func.
tions should cease?'
"In those times 1t was bowstring, nov
Il is coffee"
Best not to eat from the palace"
Whats a man 20 do when all the salary
he touches is his free meal7'
HE can always sell it,
They say 5000 trays are sent out from
the palace now"
IT wish had a generals rank to eat III
to-"
So the whispers run and you gather tha
the sultan has probably been Ill and is per
haps better. other whispers follow, II
lower tones.
The Shah was mortal Is IL not tru
that all men are mortal7 Could even
record murderer live forever7 II he shoul,
die. what them
Well. then, the next eldest Of the Prophet
line will be his present majesty's owl
brother, Reschad, son OF Abdul Mejid
They say he drinks. They say he Is
liberal. They say he has pledged himsel
TO constitution
No one knows. He has been shut up 70
years and years. One thing only is Ger
tsin-he is GA.
There are two other brothers besides
but the next eldest here Is Youssouf Izze
Din. son of Abrul Aziz whose veins wer
cut with scissors. He, too, has been shu
up for years and years. living like a stale
bull
The crazy Sultan Murad w. has a sor
stlll living. in jail. And there are othe