Photo by Felix J. Koch 



ONE FAMILY OF CHRISTIANS: MACEDONIA 



pecially when he has to rule over Chris- 

 tians ; the Turkish peasant, when Hving 

 among Christians, whom he is taught to 

 despise, who are unarmed while he is 

 armed, who can obtain no justice for any 

 violence committed by him against them, 

 naturally becomes arrogant and cruel. In 

 a mainly agricultural community quar- 

 rels as to the ownership of land are 

 bound to arise, and in these cases it is 

 always the Turk who obtains the advan- 

 tage (see pages 1132 and 1144). 



The Mohammedans suffer from the 

 utter chaos and corruption of the Turk- 

 ish government, and while in theory they 

 are the privileged class, their privileges 

 are given them in the form of license to 

 pillage, and on occasion to murder, their 

 Christian neighbors. 



The Turks are essentially nomads, and, 

 at all events in Europe, they are little 

 more than an army of occupation hold- 

 ing the country by a military tenure. 

 The idea of abandoning Rumelia (by 

 Rumelia the Turks mean European Tur- 

 key generally) is regarded by them as a 

 possibility to be contemplated, although, 

 naturally enough, they do not wish to see 

 it realized. If the country were to be 

 placed under a Christian government the 



majority of them would probably return 

 to Asia Minor in a short time. 



Before the independence of Bulgaria 

 and Servia both those countries con- 

 tained a numerous Turkish population, 

 which has slowly but steadily decreased 

 since they were separated from Turkey. 

 Another characteristic is their tendency 

 to congregate in the towns. 



More important is the decline of their 

 numbers. The Turkish race shows a 

 steady tendency to decrease, and it is said 

 by some competent authorities that syph- 

 ilitic diseases are largely responsible for 

 this. In Macedonia, however, their num- 

 bers are kept up by artificial means. In 

 the first place, the civil and military es- 

 tablishments maintain a quantity of offi- 

 cials and soldiers in the country ; but the 

 most numerous contingent is furnished 

 by the mohajirs, or emigrants from the 

 emancipated provinces. From Thessaly, 

 Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Crete there has 

 been a constant stream of Mohammedans 

 to the dominions still under the rule of 

 the Padishah, and the majority of them 

 have been given lands in Macedonia, 

 partly because there were more estates 

 available and partly because it is now a 

 frontier province once more. During the 



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