WOMEN IN TURKEY.

Colonist, Volume XXII, Issue 2515, 25 February 1879, Page 4

WOMEN IN TURKEY.

Some of the true tales which are told by the author of " Lea Femmes en Turquie"—a trioßt interesting book, by the way—are as marvellous as any of the Thousand-and-One-Nightß perieß. The mother of Abdul Medjid, for example, was a roaid-of-all-Work in the Sultan's seraglio. Il aeh her business to warm the baths iv the palace One day the Sultan Mohammed met her as he was going to his bath, and a caprice burst like lightning through his soul. Without ceremony the cervaut girl received from him the lofty distinction of Kalfa. It is more tnan probable that after a few minutes' reflection the Sultan regretted his precipitation, but he had given his word, and the result was that the maid-of-all-work gire birth to a prince, and waß proclaimed Sulcana Valide. "What a wonderful jump!" exclaims the author, " from the wash-tub to the throne!" The account which he draws of life in the seraglio is a rcoßt painful one. Discipline is still maintained by corporal punishment. The practice of striking womtn on the soles of their feet has been abandoned, but blows are given elsewhere by eunachs, who execute the sentences, and rods are substituted for the stick. All the young women in the palace—and there are a thousand women there, wives, favorites, relations and servants, and there are as many more on the retired list in the old seraglio and in the courts of the princesses, all being dependent upon the civil budget—are compelled to dress io light clothing, half decolletee being the rule, and in winter are constantly exposed to colds and lung disease?. Whenever the Sultan draws his lart breath, or in dethroned, his wives, favorites, and all their waiting women have to pack up and be off within twenty-four hourg., Imr<