THE TURK.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12765, 5 February 1910, Page 1

THE TURK.

■o Reviewing a book about the everyday life of the Turkish people a writer in "T. P.'s Weekly" remarks that wihile the Turk can be savagely cruel under the influence of religious or political influence, in normal conditions lie is "very much like the toiler in every land — hard-working, modest in demands on life, devoted to his family, and usually the possessor of a harem, not with many wives, but just a single helpmate, who rules his household as she does that of the working man. - of. Christian lands." One of the greatest virtues of the Turk is sobriety. Turkish town life is characterised by extreme sobriety and orderliness, street disturbances being rare. Cleanliness, too, is part of his religion, and is one of the causes of the good health he enjoys. There are few class distinctions. Though the monarchy is hereditary, the social system is distinctly opposed to the creation of a hereditary aristocracy. There are a few families in which, the title "Bey" is transmitted, and that is all. The poorest Turk may rise to bo Grand Vazier, and a deposed Minister may descend to an inferior employment without losing caste. Turkish women, says the writer of the book, are not the down-trodden, despised people of Western! imagination The Turkish wife's life is certainly somewhat monotonous, but to imagine her spending her time in luxurious idleness is quite erroneous. She is a good manager, and finds plenty of housework to occupy her time. Great stress is laid on reverence and duty towards parents, and the teaching bears good fruit. "According to Islamic law, -the care and maintenance of indigent parents, and especially of mothers and grandmothers, is incumbent on Moslems; and it would bo difficult to find in -Islamiyeh a parallel to cases of common occurrence in England, in which, a progenitor of a family, numbering perhaps from fifty to a hundred souls, is dependent for his or her subsistence on public charity."