The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1914-06-09
HAREM
Of Turkey Is Passing Away
Speedily
SuItan'S Subject May Take
Three Wives

proper season the jolly bachelors who
engaged passage, at many times its
real value, for the cruise to the Orient
would have cancelled their reserva
tions-for the peep into real Turkish
harem, which was one of the things
promised them, must be foregone! The
harem, as such, is being evicted, slow
" but surely from all the territory
westward of Adrianople-along with
the passing of the Grand Turk.
We in America have not, as yet, felt
the full effect of what has occurred
there in the Balkans All the vast, fer
tile plain of Macedonia, the garden
spot of the Levant, is now open to til
lage, with life safe to the husbandman,
as it hasn't been since the Turk came
into Europe. AS a result, ROumanlan
and Bulgarian and Serb and Greek, ev-
en- the Croat and the Magyar, who had
been saving to emigrate to the distant
America, where people spoke strange
tongues and had strange ways, and
where it meant years of work to ac-
cumulate enough before one could
come back and visit home folks, are
now turning to Macedonia and coming
in, buying farm land and setting UP in
region where tillage is at home,
where the language, the customs, are
substantially the same, and where one
can take fourth-class passage on the
trans-Macedonian Railway and be
| home inside of IL hours.
All of which means that where the
hated Turk lorded it over the Chris
tians just two, three years ago, the
Christians, now in prepondernace, are
giving such of the Moslems as remain
in given locality notice that there
has been change in power And it
isn't in the nature of things, with
an untutored peasantry not to make 1t
mighty unpleasant for people who,
along with their ancestors for genera
tions, would murder these peasants in
cold blood, seize their crops and ex-
tort unjust taxes, steal their daugh-
ters and perform ndignltles without
number. Wherefore, in constant
streams, the Moslems are moving out
of Europe, taking their most precious
possessions with them, selling their
stock and their implements for song
and passing across the Horn, or al
least making for Constantinope. Along
with this passing of the Grand Turk
comes the passing of the harem out
of Europe.
Strangely enough, there is possibly
no institution in the Orient in regard
to which there are more current mis-
other than the one belonging to the
Sultan. 1t is, for example, the almost
universal opinion in the Occident that
the harem is of whatever size its own
er may desire to make it; that polyg
amy is limitless Turkey over, and thai
the social life of the land is nil. AS 0
matter of fact, the home life of the av
erage Mohammedan Is ideal, the share
taken by the three wives (for at three
the limit is set for anyone but the
Sultan) in the menage OF the house
keeping so light that the Turkish
danes necessarily have time to idle
and loll in the fashion In which VIZ
sually find them pictured
The real harem Is but seldom Wis
tied by the American of masculine
gender. Even the mems part of thu
house is unique enough, though to re
{ pay his coming. To begin with, on'
does not enter a Turkish harem direct
, ly from the highway; in fact, there arr
no doors opening upon the street. TIL,
( house is built to face upon gardel
I surrounded by high walls and enteret
. by a heavy gate. At this gate tn
T knocker is set and no one would thinl
of entering without waiting answer t,
the summons, This is done in orde
, that the Turkish women, should ther
be any in the garden, may either lie
down their wells or else retreat t
cover. Weather homes have POI
ter stationed just outside this gateWa
:, to attend the summons, and In Salon
= ca black slave (for slavery is no
dead at alD often attended this duty
>, Crossing the yard one enters tn
house, the harem or the selamlik, az
cording as you were bound for. til
women's or the mems apartment. Gu
Q iously enough while the harem Is mel
= toned abroad constantly, the selamlil
which is quite evident, is seldom hear
outside the east
Il 1t is simply the mems apartment
= as the other is mllady's boudoir 1t
. only essential difference is the faC
81 that lattices are absent from the vii
u dows and that the low, little stool {
jujube paste, or Turkish delight, foun
in every well-regulated harem, is r