The Bee-Hive. — 1876-06-10 (London, England)

NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS. The late Sultan of Turkey has committed suicide by opening veins in the arm with a, pair of scissors until he bled to death. The statement to this effect has been confirmed by the result of an examination of the body by nineteen medical men, who were unanimously of opinion that death had ensued from the opening of the veins and arteries beneath the bend of the left arm, and of the veins of the right arm. It is not said, however, whether these wounds were self-inflieted or not. All we know is that he is both dead and buried, and all his schemes for the succession of his son are buried with him. If the particulars be ever known, it will appear, no doubt, that ho came to this miserable end.frota vexation unrelieved by any help from his peculiar religion. His nephew and successor, it may be believed, will have saved himself from self-reproaches by having directed that every consideration should be shown to the deposed ruler compatible with public safety. But neither the Turks themselves, nor people of any other nationality or creed, must rely too trustfully upon promises made in the name of the new sovereign. He aecedes by right of seniority in thc Inaperial family as did his predecessor; and, like him, he begins)* sign with fair promises. A,bdul A.ziz promised many things,  and actually began by reducing the civil list, cutting down palace expenses, and protesting that he would content himself with one wife. To these and other things he added a special engagement that all subjects, Massahalm, Christian, Jew, and any other, should be equal in the eye of the law. Nay, in 1867, he even visited England, from which it was given out that he returned home, deeply impressed with our institutions and their happy. effects. Like Herold of old, he "did many things ;" in particular, he formed a Council of State, which he opened in a, speech favourable to progress and reform. But what were the practical benefits resulting from all? Nothing, far worse than nothing. Under his rule) the foreign debt, by loan upon loan, came close lip to £185,000,000, the faithless Sultan all the while hoarding up personal treasure at his subjects' expense, and to the last week of his abominable reign gratifying his boundless lust and tyrannical caprice at the country's cost, even while provinces, driven to revolt by the creatures of the despot, were being coerced, had it been possible, but with more probability of Turkey being blotted out of the map of Europe than of the compulsory submission of the Christians to a yoke which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear. Sultan Marad' who has been recognised by Austria, declares his intention to proclaim a general amnesty until the twentieth of July. In. Berlin, the new potentate finds little sympathy, the allegation et suicide as the cause of his uncle's death being repelled With general incredulity; while the Emperor William's departure fa Ems to meet the Czar seems to have been indefinitely ,postpollod' In Vienna the reports of the late Sultan's insanity find While the fits lasted, it is said, he raved about the loss of his hoarded treasure, seven millions of which, in " consolides," l'avn been transmitted to the Ministry of Finance. Europe waits for the upshot, wondering whether it will be in favour of religiousn freedom and national independence, or whether Mussultua madness will drive the Turkish Power to destruction. belief.  The Miners' strike in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, wo fllO glad to announce, is at an end. We wish that we could make 3, similar annquncement as to the strike among the miners °I Warwickshire. In the former case, as all will remember, the masters proposed a reduction in wages of fifteen per cent. A few of the men stand out against any reduction at ; but the great majority have agreed to accept a reduction of ten and a half per cent:, pursuant to an arrangement come to between the official representatives of the two as.sociations —the coalowners' and the miners'. 4. similar compromise had been effected by the like agency in Warwickshire; but ,the dissentients among the working colliers have proved too numerous to bring the strike to an end. At a large meeting on Whit. Monday, Mr* Gethings, of South Staffordshire, attended as a deputation front the 'Wipers' National Union, and strongly advised the men to fall in with the proposed arrangement, frankly pointing out that the strike, if persisted in, would damage the union, and while failing of its purpose, entail evil consequences. Although assured, moreover, that further support would not be forthcoming, the meeting by a majority approaching to .unanimity, resolved not tato go to work on the terms which their own official reproson lives had agreed to in conjunction: with those of the OWnerS. After this, those who flippantly attribute to trades unions the fostering of strikes, ought, in common candour and justice, to bo more careful what they say.  The first Struggle of the French Republic is to be, with the party of Rome in France. The Chamber is ebating tile a,pparentiY, power of conferring university degrees, which the Minister of Public Instruction would relegate to the State, but the elt3rlee"l party would entrust as of yore to the hands of the Church. Collciliatory in tone, AI. Waddington was cogent in argument. To religion and to liberty, he awards separate and distinct spheres. Be tender to religion, he says to the LAt. The (*oven:uncut is not that of a sect, but of all France, he says to the Right. The SW(' will not allow of intrusion on its own domain, is what he says to all. If the Church demanded the fullest liberty of teaching, she had it already; which he showed to be so, both in principlhi. and in detail. The Minister was inet by the Count de Mull, the soldier-churchman; but all he said amounted to a complaint OA' faith had been broken with the Bishops by changing a law in