CAMI'BKI.I., WILLIAM I', 



OANDIA, OR CRETE. 



99 



iirsteinof I'M u cation at Oxford, which 



:-wanl published in book form, and 



many Iinnl hits at tlio " Essays and 



I Ic had been tor some years at 



ii a moinoir of George Whitefield, which 



not live to complete. 



MI'IIKLL, WILLIAM B., an American pol- 



I jurist, horn in Tennessee about 

 .lied at Lebanon, Trim., August 19, 1867. 



. oimg man he served in the Florida 

 .;.t:iin of a company of mounted vol- 

 unteers. ( >n liis return ho was elected a mem- 



i tlie Assembly in his native State, and 



r three years later a member of the State 



: in 1886 he was chosen as Representa- 



ni Congress, and reflected in 1838 and 

 1840. On the outbreak of the Mexican War he 



[pointed colonel of the First regiment of 

 Tennessee volunteers, and distinguished him- 

 self at Cerro Gordo and Monterey. On his re- 

 turn he was unanimously elected judge of the 

 Circuit Court. In 1851 he was elected Gov- 

 of Tennessee, and served till 1853. 

 I)uring tlio war he was an unwavering Union 

 inaii, but after its close took sides with the 

 Conservatives. In 1865 he was elected to the 

 Thirty ninth Congress, but was not admitted to 



it till near the end of the first session. 

 lli-< dentil was caused by disease of the heart. 



CANDIA, or CRETE, an island belonging to 

 the Turkish Empire. The area of Candia, in- 

 clusive >f ;i number of small adjacent islands, 

 is about 8,319 square miles. The population 

 amounts, according to Captain Spratt (" Travels 

 and Researches in Crete," London, 1865), to 

 about 210,000, living in about 800 villages, and 

 the three towns, Candea, Canea (Khania), and 

 Ketimo. According to another recent work on 

 ( 'andia (Elpis Melena, Die Inscl Greta unterder 

 Ottoin.tiilxchen Verwaltung. Vienna, 1867), the 

 population of Crete numbers about 300,000, of 

 which 220,000 belong to the orthodox Greek 

 Catholic Church, and the rest to Islam. The 

 Cretan Mohammedans are not Turks, but Greeks 

 like the rest of the Cretans. They are Greeks 

 by race and language, who, under pressure of 

 foreign conquest, have adopted the religion of 



nquerors. Great social privileges have 

 hound them to that religion, and, by dint of 



int outrages npon the Christians, they 

 have come to be viewed with bitter hatred by 

 many families whom they have injured. The 

 action of the Turkish Government, in putting 

 forward the Cretan Mohammedans as its defend- 

 er- in the war which has been raging in the 

 Maud since I stli;, has made a wide breach be- 

 two sections of the same people, and 



i Mohammedans have become a terror and 

 a byword throughout the island. 

 The exports of produce in 1858, the date of 

 '.; format ion which could be obtained, 



'led to 15,373,000 francs. The imports 



"iisisted of corn, cloth, dry-goods, 



pods, iron, tobacco, hardware, and other 



Pictures, and were chiefly from Turkey 



"',000 francs), Greece (5,132,000). Austria, 



(1,505,000), France (200,000), England (198,- 

 000), Naples (110,000). With the exception of 

 a few foreign and Greek merchants, the whole 

 Cretan industry and commerce is in the hands 

 of Mussulmans, the agriculture in those of 

 Christians. 



The work already referred to, by Elpis Melena, 

 gives a full account of the causes which led to 

 the insurrection. According to this author (a 

 distinguished literary lady of Germany, who 

 under the above assumed name has already pub- 

 lished several pamphlets on Greece, and is gen- 

 erally recognized as one of the most trust- 

 worthy writers on the subject), the prime cause 

 of the revolution consists in the mekheme, the 

 only tribunal recognized by the Ottoman law 

 in civil and religious matters. It is presided 

 over by the cadis and the mollah, and applies 

 the rules of the Koran to all cases submitted to 

 it. This had lately been wielded by Mustapha 

 Pacha with a pressure unheard of before. The 

 mollah, the president of the cadis, is guardian 

 and administrator of all minors, judge in all 

 questions of inheritance, the only notary public 

 through whom the Christians can execute valid 

 bills of sale, deeds, bonds, and contracts. He 

 receives five per cent, of the value of every thing 

 submitted to his decision or his signature. As 

 the Mohammedan law imposes the cost of law- 

 suits on the defendant when he wins, he is ex- 

 posed to endless chicanery and expenses, for 

 his adversary may, if he choose, again bring the 

 same charge against him, the mollah pocketing 

 for the second time five per cent, and so on, be- 

 sides which he makes the most extortionate 

 charges, such as tetalie (summons fee), calemie 

 (entrance money), resm (entertaining fee), and 

 a number of others. The mollah and his subor- 

 dinates, by a loose interpretation of the Korau, 

 have the law entirely in their own hands, and 

 are especially corrupt in the exercise of their 

 power in cases of inheritance. The second of 

 the many causes which forced the Cretans to 

 take up arms was,'lSc practice of farming out 

 the taxes of the island. When Crete passed, in 

 1841, from the possession of the Viceroy of 

 Egypt into that of the Porte, the tithe was re- 

 duced from one-seventh to one-tenth. But it 

 was not long before a change for the worse took 

 place. Mustapha Pacha leased from the Porte 

 the collection of taxes customs duties not ex- 

 cepted and then in turn farmed out the col- 

 lection to the highest bidders, making them all 

 necessary concessions to facilitate their fulfill- 

 ing their obligations toward him. Before the 

 farmer could remove the harvest from his field, 

 he was obliged first to hand over to the tax- 

 collector the portion due the latter, who then 

 kept him waiting, in order to screw out, as the 

 price of his permission to let the harvest be 

 taken away, a much larger assessment than 

 really was due. Or, the farmers being legally 

 compelled to convey the tithe a distance of 

 three or four days' journey, if rcqnired, the col- 

 lectors demanded an extra charge in all cases 

 where they did not demand the transport of 



