ASIA! TURKEY IN ASIA. 421 



ping, and pasteboard all of inferior qualities. The qualities are, 

 however, as good as are demanded. For choice kinds of writing 

 paper, most foreign residents import their own. 



Paper comes chiefly from Austria; some also from Germany, 

 France, and England. Only a limited amount is brought into the 

 country, and statistics as to the exact quantity and value are not 

 available. 



Paper has no market price, and is, in this respect, like every other 

 commodity soli in this country. 



It is kept for sale in a dozen or more small shops, but generally 

 as one article in a miscellaneous lot of merchandise. 



No newspaper is published in Jerusalem or Palestine, none being 

 allowed by the Turkish Government. 



There is a little better showing in the matter of printing presses, 

 there being 12 or 15 establishments of this kind, if we are allowed 

 to call a small hand press and one workman an "establishment," 

 and the number of persons employed in connection with them 

 amounts to 130 or upwards. With a single exception that in the 

 Latin convent the presses are all worked by hand. All the large 

 religious bodies here have printing presses, the Armenian being the 

 oldest. Besides the Latins and Armenians, the Greeks, the London 

 Society for Propagating Christianity Amongst the Jews, the Church 

 Missionary Society (English), and the Jews have their own presses. 

 Of Jewish establishments, there are 8 or 10, all small, the largest 

 employing 8 men. These presses turn out chiefly school and reli- 

 gious books, although the Latins print some costly lexicons in Arabic 

 and Italian, Arabic and French, and in some other languages. The 

 languages in which printing is done in Jerusalem are English, 

 French, Italian, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, 

 Armenian, Greek, and Latin; possibly, the list is not complete. 



The population of Jerusalem is not far from 50,000. 



SELAH MERRILL, 



JERUSALEM, January p, 1899. Consul. 



SIVAS. 



POPULATION. 



There has been no census of the population of this consular dis- 

 trict. I estimate the number of inhabitants to be about 2,000,000. 

 It appears that 87 per cent are illiterate. The people are lacking in 

 mechanical traits and produce almost nothing of a manufactured 

 nature, except handmade carpets and cloth. 



