THE "GREAT ASSASSIN" AT HOME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10479, 26 June 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE "GREAT ASSASSIN" AT HOME.

[BY A FBESCH lOTEKVJEWKR.] Thbbe is no reason to doubt thpt M. Denais' article on the* Sultan of Turkey in the first April number of the Nouvelle Revue furniches a substantially accurate picture of the crafty potentate whose wiles seem so far to hava prevailed against all thegreat Powers of Europe; and ib is interesting a; well as accurate.

' M. Danais arrived in Constantinople some days, before the massacres broke out ; mid he had, to begin with, no prejudices against Abdul Ifamid. Of the events in Ash Minor during the preceding two or three years, the French public had been kept in almost absolute ignorance, while what hud leaked , out was so vague or was so persistently contradicted that it made little or no impression on the national mind. ,M. Doimw received an unsolicited invitation to visit the Sultan, nn honour which naturally makes him unwilling to reflect in any degrqa on his Imperial host. But fortunately M, Demithas recognised a higher duty—(hat which lie owes to the uninformed French people who form his readers— it cannot justly be said that he has minced matters, or allowed his sense of the Sultan's courtesy to distort his judgment.

THE BOHIOOD OF A SULTAN 01? TUKKEY. Abdul Humid was filty-four years old on jlst September last. His mother, an Armenian slave, died in giving him birch. Shi) was, , it seeing, consumptive. The education which the hair to the Imperial throne, in common with the oilier princes of the reigning dynasty, undergoes has been lixed from time immemorial. Up to hi'! twelfth year every prince of the Imperial House lives in the harem in the company of slaves, Soudanese eunuchs, and Circassians, all absolutely destitute of intellectual culture. At the age of thirteen the young prince is entrusted to the concubines, who are also profoundly illiterate. Ho grows up without- the slightest notion of State affaire; he is even specially forbidden to look at a European newspaper. Such whs Abdul Haniid's preparation for the enormous responsibilities attached to the Turkish throne., The event which probably made iho greatest impression on him was the attempt made on behalf of the sons of the Sultan Abdul Aziz to poison at dinner all the male descendants of Abdul Me.ljiii in order that the throne might pass lu U.ilonel Yusaui-Izadddin, son of the Sultan then ill power. Abdul Haniid, who, in spite of his bringing up, id by no means lucking in intellect, declined thu invitation to that dinner himself, mid persuaded his brothers AluniJ, Kecliad, Suleiman, and others also to nvoid going. Abdul Humid I*l a very dissipated life up to thu age of twenty-four. Then his health altered ; he gave up wine, and became very sober and piuiij, unci practised a strict monogamy. He saw the deposition of Abdul Aziz, and the brief three months when Murud V, ruigndii. i M. Denais evidently does not think that Jlurad was really mad, as was averted. The (jreat Powers were contented with a medical certificate which declared that the patient wad incurable, though lie whs only twenty-one. Abdul Humid, us is well known, succeeded Murad, who was kept for sumo time at Tcheragau on the lioi|)hiitii3, and was then transferred to Midi.; Kiosk, so us to bo nearer to his atFectionatu brothnr.

I'KK.SO.NAI, UHAKACrKKISrIOS. Naturally pusillanimous, (ho qventi of which lie haul been a witness were not likely to jiHjiire Abdul Humid with couiMgo. It w.|s not. very long before the thought of hi: own personal safety became with him the gjverning principle of his life. This care, which had its origin in the ordinary prudence practised by almost every reigning sovereign, soon degenerated into an abfolute monomania, {a obedience to it the Sultan surrounded the hill uf Vildiz Kiosk, which occupies mi excellent strategic position on the outskirts of Constantinople, with a triple fortilioation, within which he retired for safety. The selamlik or public prayers compels him to show himself outside his palace every Friday, but he goes to the mosque which lie has hail built close to Yildiz instead of passing through the chief streets of Constantinople as Ins predecessor* used to do.

M. Donais urgtiea nt some length that Abdul Hamid is not naturally cruel; indeed, even the rite which compels him to kill a lamb at the Bairam festival is extremely repugnant to him. Nq one who has seen him believes that ho is a cruel man by nature. If M. Uenais' diagnosis is correct, he is simply ill, and tho famous phrase "Tho Sick Man of Europe" is even more applicable to tho monarch than to the country ovor which he rules. Uis ancestors for generations have been dipsomaniacs, and his mother was u consumptive. Uonce come his curious bilious complexion, his weak oyes, his feverish agitation, his bent back, his narrow chest. Hβ has great irritability, a propensity to sudden tempestuous outbursts of unger, a complete absence of moral sense, and, above all, what is known as tho mania of persecution in an extreme form.