Photo by James F. J. Archibald 



A mohamme:dan boatman: Constantinople 



tributions is that the peasant never knows 

 what he will have to pay. He believes, 

 and not without cost, that the measure of 

 taxation is whatever can be squeezed out 

 of him. 



In addition to these taxes and irregu- 

 lar demands for money he has in many 

 parts of the Empire, and notably in 

 Macedonia, to meet the demands of men 

 in the last-mentioned province, usually 

 Albanians, who enforce exactions to 

 which their legal right is of the most 

 shadowy description. They or their 

 fathers have chosen, as the Kurds like- 

 wise do in Armenia, to levy contributions 

 from certain villages, nominally for pro- 

 tection against other brigands ; but it is a 

 protection with which the peasants would 

 willingly dispense. Between the exac- 

 tions of the tax-collectors with the sap- 

 tiehs at their beck and call, and those of 

 these unsolicited "protectors," the life of 

 the peasant becomes absolutely intoler- 

 able. 



It is no part of my task to point oijt 

 the wrong inflicted by such protectors 

 and by the saptiehs (policemen) upon 

 the women of the peasants. It is suffi- 

 cient to say that they are such as in all 



ages have "turned the coward's blood to 

 flame." The extortions alone — heavy, 

 arbitrary, irregular — levied upon all that 

 the peasants produce, and enforced by 

 saptiehs and other officials, who can take 

 the oxen from the plough, or seize the 

 few cooking utensils, which are all that 

 he may possess, and, in case he is sup- 

 posed to have property which he is con- 

 cealing, can send him without trial to the 

 tortures of a prison, ought not to be en- 

 dured. The peasant, in fear of official 

 and private rapacity, is afraid to let it be 

 known that he possesses anything of 

 value. Living usually in constant fear 

 of starvation and oppression, hopeless of 

 any amelioration of his lot under exist- 

 ing rule, he becomes ready to risk his 

 life in support of any movement which 

 promises to better his condition. 



DECAY and desolation FOLLOW THE 

 TURKISH RULE 



The history and present condition of 

 the country justifies a feeling of despair 

 for progress among the Turkish people. 

 It is bad enough to find roads and 

 bridges once well built now falling into 

 decay ; to see towns which even within 



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