THE TURKISH PARLIAMENT.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXV, Issue 2126, 29 January 1909, Page 8

THE TURKISH PARLIAMENT.

VOTING IN CONSTANTINOPLE. The surroundings of the ballot-box in English and colonial elections can by no stretch of imagination be called impressive, or even picturesque. This is one of the things they manage better in Constantinople. Mr Charles Hands, the special correspondent of the 'Daily Mail,' who witnessed the first election under the new Turkish Constitution, confesses to a liking for Turkish electioneering. "in mosques under nobly-proportioned aomes, with views through vistas of columns of interlacing arches of colored marble and hanging lamps of brass and exquisitely designed soft-colored paper ruge, the vote does cot seem to make its mean appeal to the petty individual interests of each selfish man. It is exalted and dignified by its surroundings, and becomes a ceremony, almost a sacrament. Without excitement, but with solemnity, the old Turk drops through the slit of the bal-lot-box his vote tor the committee of electors who are to seiect the Parliamentary representatives." The booth he visited in the purely Turkish quarter was a very old mosque, surrounded by buildings of which every stone was "charged with the traditions and associations of the successive waves of government by force of might" that have swept over Constantinople. The voting „took place in a little whitewashed- cell occupied by one of the priests of the mosque, and the presiding officer and the English correspondent sat on the truckle bed. The voting papers were distributed among the electors, who might fill them up where they liked, in the mosque, in a coffee-house, or at home. When the voter came io deposit his voting paper in the ballotbox he produced his identification passport, which every Turk carries, and an official checked his name on the roil and stamped his passport to prevent his voting again. An old hadji, who had made the sarred pilgrimage, said very earnestly, 'Th the name of God," as he dropped his paper into the box, and Mr Hands noticed the lips of other voters moving as they recorded their votes, doubtless to similarly pious effect. "It was all very quiet, very orderly, very serious, and citizen-like and responsible."