TURKISH ANARCHY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 330, 15 May 1877, Page 4

TURKISH ANARCHY.

The special correspondent of the Times ■wrote from Pera on March 6 Atrocities in Turkey are still the order of the day. Head the following "About four weeks ago a gendarme (zaptieh) having been killed and two others wounded by the brigand Salt, near the village Yissitra, in the district of Yodena, Province of Salonica, the Yali, or Governor-General, sent the Colonel of Gendarmerie, Alay Bey, at the head of 150 gendarmes in pursuit of the brigand, at the same time bidding the Kaimakams of Yodena, Sanitza, and Yervia to co-ope-rate with Alay Bey, every man with his gendarmes. " A man named Bekir Pehlevan, multezim, dimier, or the tithe-gatherer, had bought (farmed), at the rate of 17,000 piasters a year for three successive years, the tithes of the village Pozar de Karatzova, a dependency of the district Yodena, and consisting of 180 houses and an entirely Christian population. The man hoped to enrich himself by exacting the tithes twice in the year, and with that view he had recourse to the following stratagem :—While Alay Bey was busy at Vissitra looking for the brigand Salt, the »»iM Bekir Pehlevan waited upon him and assured him that in the village of Pozar there was hidden a far more famous brigand, whom he called Tanos. The Colonel, believing, or affecting to believe, the tithe-collector, abandoned the traces of the real brigand Sai't, and collecting, besides his gendarmes, 30 or 40 Turks in every village he went through, made his way into Pozar at the head of a battalion of 820 Bashi-Bazouks, and encompassed the village with his forces in the night, pretending to be on the look-out for the imaginary brigand Tanos. " On the following day, at daybreak, he went into the village with his battalion and searched all the houses for him. Having found no man answering that description, he left a garrison of 30 gendarmes in the village, with 100 BashiBazouks under a Lieutenant, and for his own part he removed with his battalion to Sumbotzko, a farm belonging to his friend Dourzi Caratzovali, a man looked upon as a very scourge to the whole country. "Alay Bey being gone, the Lieutenant left in charge of Pozar bade his men arrest all the male population of seven years and upwards, and, beating them most unmercifully, he shut them up in the stables, crowded together like sheep in their pens, by this means compelling the women to satisfy the unjust demands of the tithe - gatherer, Bekir Petovan. Remonstrances against the iniquity of these demands and against the unprovoked ill-treatment of their children were attempted by some of the more respectable imprisoned heads of the families, but the Lieutenant, by way of answer, tlirew them back into prison, ordered his men to get into the houses, and have themselves Berved by the women with the best the larders afforcleA, and allowed the old women, if they attempted to keep the young ones out of sight, to be exposed to the most obscene insults and tortiu-es, which cannot be described to English readers. The village was thus militarily occupied for two nights and one day ; the men in durance, and the women at the ravagers' discretion. Some of the worst Turks of the neighbouring villages came up, seizing Christian labourers where they chanced to be in the field, and compelling them, in their own ribald, grotesque way, to carry them pick-a-back like beasts of burden, using their knives as spurs to urge them on when, through age or illness, they fainted on the way. " While this scene of riot and outrage was going on, the Lieutenant sat, whip in hand, with the Mukhtar, or Mayor, and some of the best men of the village before him, bidding him deliver up the brigand Tanos. As these persisted in their denial of the existence of the alleged brigand, and, at all events, asked for time to look for him and set out on his track, the Lieutenant took them under escort to liis Colonel, Alay Bey, who threw them into prison. " Some of the peasants had in the meanwhile found their way to Yodena, and described to the Kaimakam, the condition to which their village and people were reduced in consequence of the iniquity of the tax-gatherer. The Kaimakam, as the custom is, appointed a Commission of Inquiry, consisting of one Christian and two Mussulmans. The Commission, acting under the influence of Dourzi Caratzovali, Alay Bey's friend, made no report. The village meantime had been robbed, every house gutted," and hardly a tile left sound upon the roofs. All the produce of the poor people, their furniture, ciothing, &c., or as much of it, at least, as did not tempt the plunderers, became the property of the tithe-gatherer, who picked up a sum of 30,000 piastres in silver, while the sum for which he had farmed the village tithes for three years was only 51,000 piastres. The peasantry have at last been left, sorely beaten, terrified, and destitute of everything, after submitting three days to every kind of outrage. " The Archbishop of Salonica has lodged a complaint before the Yali, or GovernorGeneral, but the latter has paid no attention, attributing the people's complaints to mere disaffection stirred up by ' RussoGreek intrigue.' He will, however, appoint a Commission !" Such is still, such wil 1 for a long time j yet continue, the state of things in this ! Constitutional country. Those gentlemen who think that the Turk should have ■ hia chance, that time should be given to j him to ripen his reforming schemes, ' should bear in mind that the foregoing : narrative, for the fairness and honesty of ' which I vouch, merely describes a state of <

things which is normal in Turkey, j although by the letter of a hundred Hatts j and Firmans, by all the laws binding the Government to the people, and by all the Treaties making it responsible to foreign States, such abuses as the farming out of tithes and taxes, the violation of persons and domiciles on the part of the police, ought to have ceased long since. Anything like security for the person and property of the men or for the honour of the women, anything like even an attempt at a fair administration of j ustice, cannot, and never will, be obtained here without the application of foreign coercion. Diplomatists think that coercion would be a remedy worse than the evil. Be it so ; and let nothing more be said about it. But in that case let nothing more be said about Turkey; let us give up the silly pretence of waiting to see what may come of "granting her a respite, of allowing her one more chance," After seven times seven chances the Turk will still be the Turk, and the Giaour the Giaour ; the latter an inferior animal, to be roughridden, robbed, outraged, trodden underfoot, cut to pieces by thtf former. Were I in need of evidence of the incurable disorder to which the country is a preyj I should only have to look at the letters from the Provinces printed in papers best affected to the interests of the Ottoman Government, and never contradicted by the authorities, who are only too conscious of their correctness. From Yolo, in Tliessaly, we hear that " the house of a baker was entered by four masked men, who attacked the man, his wife, and servant girl with knives." " There is great difficulty," the account goes on, "in getting hold of the real culprits in such cases. The perpetrators of the murder of three persons in the same village are still at large." At Jaffa, we read in the same papers, house and shop robberies are matters of common occurrence, "the police of the town being committed to men whose characters will hardly bear inspection—whose antecedents, in fact, are too well known." The Bulgarian village of Obrouklii, in the neighbourhood of Adrianople, was attacked by its Turkish neighbours of the village of Jeni Beyli, who demanded money, and, on the Bulgarians being unable to find it, cried out, " Satisfy our demands, or you will be killed." Some of the villagers were then led away captives, and unmercifully beaten all along the way. As their fel-low-villagers were following, interceding for them, they were received by the Turks with rifle shots, and compelled to fall back. The prisoners, in the end, were sent back stripped to their very shirts. The gatherer of the war contribution showing himself soon after, complaints of the atrocities endured were laid before him. "Only pay," said the man, "and no more words." In the Bulgarian villages of Gul-Bounar, of Souroute, of Koumkoui, of Dougandjali, and of Drenovo, the worst outrages against the people, and especially against the women, are daily perpetrated by the Turkish inhabitants of Kara Bounar, of Sadaklii, and of Smavlii. The terrorising of the ill-fated Province of Bulgaria will be accomplished before the expiration of the time to be given to the Turk for his Constitutional experiment, "before yet another chance is given to him."