THE GREAT ASSASSIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 185, 17 August 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE GREAT ASSASSIN.

ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY ABDUL HAMID.

''The great assassin," "the cruellest monarch in the world," are the terms in which some of those best informed as to his cari'i'V refer to that despot of the Bosphorus, Sultan Abdul Hamld 11. of Turkey.

The endless train of cruelties which the Sultan has inspired—and which have now so reacted upou him as to make him the most terror-stricken as well as the most feared of human beings—are recalled bj the shooting a short time back of the tyrant's own physician.

Tlie Sultun had earache. His doctor was called in to treat It. Unavoidably the phy sleian caused the monarch pain. Fearing that an attempt was being made upon his life, the Sultan pulled his revolver and shot the man dead.

The Court Chamberlain rushed in at this point to protect the Sultan,who, blind with terror, fired again, this time severely wounding the Chamberlain.

No commotion whatever was caused in Turkey by this incident. The death of a court physician can make little stir In a land where slaughter Is performed wholesale, where torture is a dally Incident, where every tradition and every prejudic-.-are in favour of Injustice und cruelty.

For Abdul Hamid, the "Shadow of God," as the faithful know him, has not v pretty record. There are excellent reasons,which may be set forth in black aud white, why nine-tenths of his subjects hate,as no other monarch In the world Is hated, this small, soft-voiced, hook-nosed, swarthy man,with terror-dilated eyes, aud his small white woman's hands—the most murderous, tho most repellant hands In the world. What has Abdul Hamld done? Here are a few o_ his achievements:— For 25 years the Sultan's brother and predecessor on the throne, Murad 11., has been shut In a living grave. For a quarter of a century this man, confined on the pre text of madness, has not seen a human face. Neither has he seen a letter nor a newspaper, nor a book, nor heard a reassuring voice, nor known an hour's abatement from the AGONY OF HIS LIVING DEATH. Only thus may Abdul Hamid preserve his power. Only by this Inhumanity muy he retain the supremacy which makes his own life the most ghastly of nightmares.

Murder and bloodshed are, however, rather more in the Sultan's line.

It has not been forgotten that when he ascended tho throne he was singularly ready to follow the Turkish precedent and put to death the entire harem of his pre deccssor. Indeed, his first sovereign act was to have drowned In the Bosphorus 154 women whose only crime was that they had been preferred by the deposed Murad. Since then not a year has passed that the Sultan has not Instigated some similar atrocity . Six years ago 50 bodies were discovered by a diver tit the bottom of the sea near Constantinople.

Au investigation proved that they were students who had been convicted a few weeks before of belonging to the "Young Turks" party. They had been traced by their friends to a Government transport nnd the naval officials had said that the students were to be safely transported to a remote part of the empire.

The young men were found by the diver to be gagged, bound and weighted at the feet with great cannon bnlls. Such was tho revenge of this Turkish Nero—the savagest monarch of the nineteenth century.

Iv tho centre of the Bosphorus there is a dark streak of swift water known aa the •'Devil's Current." No one will know how many of Abdul namid's enemies and wives have perished in this dread ribbon of water. There is a little gate near the palace. which leads to the water's edge, through which the despot's victims are tuken for "a ride on the Bosphorus In the moon light." Not even the "Bridge of Sighs" has been linked with more tragedies than thi_ little door of death.

In all the Imperial palaces are apartments filled with devices for torture. "Bowstringing" Is one of the favourite methods of inflicting agony upon such as have offended the "Shadow of God." Not long ago 17 men were "BOWSTRUNG" in a single night. Not only men and women, but children. fall victims to the lust for slaughter shown by "HunUiar," the "man-slayer," as the Sultan Is called In som^e quarters. All the male children of the royal house are killed at birth with the exception of the Sult/in'.. own. For a babe to be "killed for reasons of State" is a commonplace matter iv Turkey. Meanwhile, over the surface of the Bosphorus slslju restless little bird* known to the Turks as "souls of the lost."

Sometimes the ladles of the harem are unfortunate enough to come into possession of State secrets. When this is sus pceted the Sultan orders a few ground dia monds placed in the food of the offenders. Glass would answer the purpose, but the diamonds are considered more fitted for an Imperial murder.

The more common practice is to sew the offender up in a bag: and drop her Into the Bosphorus at night. A visitor to Turkey, who actually saw one of these murders carried out at Abdul Hamid's direction, thus describes It:—

"At three hours past midnight two caiques bearing lights lay in the centre of the stream. They were filled by police officers. A female closely shrouded In a yashmak and with the mouth of a sack Into which the whole body had been thrust tied about her throat was lifted in the arms of two men and flung into the deep waters of the bay. As no weight had been appended to the sack, the miserable woman almost instantly reappeared upon the surface, when she was beaten down by the oars of the boatmen, and this ruthless and revolting ceremony was repeated several times ere the body finally sank." It is only two years since A GROUP OF HAREM WOMEN WERE DROWNED In this fashion for suspected complicity with members of the Young Turkish party. And it was only a year ago that in order to check an "uproar" in the harem His Majesty caused nine of the favourites tg be exiled to Asia Minor and caused 14 others to be flogged and degraded to the level of servants.

The story of Zulelka, the Circassian slave girl, 18 one of the most pitiful of the recent tragedies of the harem. Zulelkn was 15 years old, small, blonde-haired and darkeyed* the most beautiful Circassian Constantinople had seen in years. She was the highly-prized possession of one Youssouf, who refused to give her up to the Sultan's harem. Abdul Hamid accordingly had her kidnapped, but when Youssou. made himself very troublesome about the matter the Sultan promised to send her back, and $&• Not, however, without first

having poisoned her food, so that poor Zvleika died a few minutes after returning to her former owner.

Add to these brutal Inhumanities which make the Imperial Yildlz the chief royal butcher-house in the world the long and still untold story of the Sultan's Armenian atrocities, and you will be able to form a .pretty accurate picture of the Nero of tho modern East. The leaders of the massacres were, it will be remembered, handsomely rewarded by the Sultan, who was at the same time shamming a hypocritical ignorance of the affair before the other Powers of the world. Ten thousand Armenians were once massacred in a week— children in their mothers' arms, wives In fuli sight of their husbands. The barbar ous riots of Stamboul and Harpoot wil' not soon, be forgotten. Of the massacred in the Sassoun district it is related that families were burned alive In their house., the eyes of priests gouged out, children tcssed in the air and caught on soldiers' bayonets, holes bored in men's stomachs and gunpowder stuffed In and Ignited. Later the wretched survivors of these inhumanities were told to sign a paper of thanks to the Sultan. Those refusing were INHUMANELY FLOGGED, placed in chains, and suspended for hours by their feet. The penalty that he pays for his inhumanity is the coustant fear of assassination. Whence it follows that Abdul Hamld is a man of one idea—self-preserva-tion. He does not dare to live in his magnificent palace of Dolmabaghcheh. It stands too close to the river—a boatload of assassins might be landed at his door.

His hiding-place Is a plain white marble building situated on the very pinnacle of the highest hill in Constantinople. Thousands of pampered guards, made loyal by high wages and many favours, entirely surround the prison which the Sultan calls "home." The water the tyrant drinks is brought from the country in sealed casks. A court taster samples all the food upon the royal table. He has never been known to sleep In the same bed for two nights running.

His favourite bedroom is a sort of specially prepared garret, to which he ascends by a ladder, which he pulls up after him.

He wears white gloves whenever he receives a stranger lest any kind of infection should be conveyed to him.

When he g9es to the mosque to pray he is guarded by 7000 soldiers, every one of whom is a picked man. Even this array of watchful protectors Is not sufficient to calm his fears. He glares from right to left In a panic of alarm lest some enemy shall break through the serried ranks and do him harm. In 1895 it .was estimated that 418 plots hud been formed to rid the Sultan of the life which affords him so little pleasure. Since that time tlie conspiracies have been too numerous to count. His latest enemies are a sect of Mahometan fanatics, who curse him as a rulei who makes treaties with "infidel" notions, and so brings the displeasure of Allaji upon the Turkish people.