October 9, 1885.] 



SCIEN'CE. 



305 



taught many of them to read and write, but placed 

 the Bible and som.e good school books within their 

 reach. Then, too, the Bulgarian church dates only 

 from 1870. Before that time the hated — and who 

 generally deserved to be hated — Greek priest was 

 his only rehgious adviser, and such being the case 

 he preferred to go without religious ministrations. 

 The Bulgarian drinks no more than do those about 

 him of other races. He is fully as honest as they, 

 wliich, to tell the truth, is not saying much for his 

 honesty, and, when any incentive is offered, is as m- 

 dustrious — excepting, perhaps, the Grim Tartars, 

 who seem to be an extraordinarily industrious race. 

 But the Bulgarian is eminently superior to the Turk 

 or Greek in his capacity for improvement, which is 

 certainly very marked. Then, too, though sur- 

 rounded by Slavic races, whose immorahty is 

 notorious, the Bulgarian woman — though pro- 

 tected by none of the safeguards which the Turks 

 throw around theu* women — is above reproach ; 

 and on this account mainly Bulgarian home life is 

 sometliing almost unique in the east. The village 

 Tui'k is an entirely different being from the Moslem 

 of Stamboul, in that he is honest and industrious, 

 but at the same time he is susceptible of little or 

 no improvement. The future of the Balkan pen- 

 insula seems to he in the hands of the Bulgarians, 

 and it is undoubtedly the knowledge of this that 

 makes the Greeks so restive at the threatened 

 union of all the Bulgarians. 



There is no room here to go into the causes of 

 the late Russo-Turkish war. By February, 1878, 

 the Russians had passed the Balkans and had 

 drawn their lines tightly around Constantinople. 

 On March 3, the negotiators of the two powers 

 put then- hands to a treaty of peace at the little 

 hamlet of San Stefano, ten miles from Stamboul, 

 There are many points worthy of notice in this 

 treaty, but what concerns us at the present 

 moment is the disposition that was made of the 

 Bulgarians. By this treaty of San Stefano, that 

 part of the Balkan peninsula lying between the 

 Danube, the Black and ^gean Seas, Albania and 

 Servia vras formed into a great tributary state to 

 be raled by a Christian prince chosen by the Bul- 

 garians themselves, in whose hands should be the 

 administration and mihtary police of the state, and 

 provision was made for representative institutions 

 similar to those of Roumania. The Turkish garri- 

 sons were to evacuate the country, which was to be 

 confided for two years to the fostering care of a 

 Russian commissioner and 50,000 Russian soldiers. 



Of course England, then ruled by the Beacons- 

 field government, could not calmly stand by and 

 see Russia acquire such a predominant position at 

 the gates of Constantinople. Explanations were 

 demanded, money voted, the reserves called out, 



and war seemed ahnost begun when it was agreed 

 to refer the matter to a European congress. The 

 congress assembled at Berlin on June 13, 1878. A 

 month later the Berlin treaty was signed. The 

 map in the text will show the territorial modifica- 

 tions of the San Stefano treaty wliich were thus 

 brought about. Servia and Montenegro, with con- 

 siderable accessions of territory, were declared 

 independent. Bessarabia, torn from Russia after 

 the Crimean war and then given to Roumania, was 

 restored to Russia, which now once again extends 

 to the Pruth and the Danube. Roumania, which 

 was declared independent, was recompensed with 

 the Dobrudsha, Bosnia and Herzegovina were 

 turned over to Austria, and the Porte was recom- 

 mended — afterwards compelled — to give large por- 

 tions of Epirns and Thessaly to Greece. The great 

 Bulgarian state which Russia had endeavored to 

 erect at the outposts of the Turkish capital was 

 divided into two states. That north of the Balkans 

 to retain the name of Bulgaria, and to have an 

 elected Christian prince, and to be tributary only 

 to Turkey. That lying south of the mountains to 

 be governed somewhat like an Enghsh colony, 

 and to be called, not South Bulgaria, for that might 

 arouse national aspu-ations, but Eastern Rumeha. 

 The internal police of this partially independent or 

 conditionally autonomous province was to be in 

 the hands of a native militia, and the Turkish army 

 could not be sent into the province unless to sup- 

 press an insurrection or the hke, and then only on 

 notification being given to the 'powers.' The 

 Ottoman government was to garrison the Balkan 

 fortresses, which right, however, it promised not to 

 exercise. 



On the whole, the Berlin arrangement has not 

 worked well in practice. Naval demonstrations 

 and armed occupations have been necessary to 

 compel its observance. On the 18th of last 

 September the Bulgarians of Pliihppopohs — the 

 capital of Eastern Rumeha — rose in rebellion and 

 proclaimed a union of Eastern Rumelia with Bul- 

 garia. Bulgaria accepted the union, and if Prtn.ce 

 Alexander can mauitam himself, the Berhn ti-eaty 

 will have been pierced hi its most vital part. In 

 closing this brief account of one phase of the 

 eastern question, I am reminded of what ]\Ir. 

 Gladstone wrote of the "heartless manner in wliich 

 the statesmen of a by-gone generation have 

 argued for the maintenance of the Ottoman gov 

 ernment with a view to the general convenience of 

 Europe, while they have seemingly omitted from 

 the case all consideration of the question, how far 

 the Porte fulfilled or defeated the main purpose 

 for which every government exists — namely, the 

 welfare of those beneath its rule." The present 

 crisis is merelv the attempt of one of the subiect 



