SUNSHINE IN TURKEY 



67 



MOSQUL OF YENI-DJAMI ON THE BOSPHORUS ! CONSTANTINOPLE 



dred and twenty or one hundred and 

 thirty thousand inhabitants. 



UPS UNLOOSED APTER 30 YEARS OP CEN- 

 SORSHIP 



At first, when the news came, people 

 could not believe it. They thought there 

 was some mistake in the telegrams. They 

 did not dare to show their enthusiastic 

 approval of this constitution. For years 

 they had learned to keep their lips closed. 

 For years they had harbored their secret 

 hopes in silence, and for one, two, and 

 three days even, there seemed to be a 

 suspense hovering over the city, between 

 fear lest this should not be true and a 

 great exultant and growing hope that it 

 might be true. At last they realized that 

 it was true, and then the city gave itself 

 over to three days of festivity, of enjoy- 



ment, and of congratulation, the like of 

 which had never been seen before in 

 Syria. They learned from the dispatches 

 that the Young Turkey Party had taken 

 the opportunity of informing His Maj- 

 esty the Sultan that now was the time 

 for the promulgation of the constitution, 

 and I need not rehearse the circumstances 

 that led up to that demand ; but you know 

 that the Sultan accepted the statement of 

 the Young Turkey Party, namely, that it 

 was indeed time to promulgate the con- 

 stitution. 



In public, before an assemblage of a 

 hundred thousand people, the Sultan an- 

 nounced his adherence, swearing before 

 Almighty God that he would be true to 

 the constitution. 



Not only was that done, but, what was 

 most important, the Sheik ul Islam made 



