House and Garden 
harmlessly walking the streets, this one seemed much 
mortified, for these things reach Constantinople 
through the medium of spies, if not sent by the officers 
direct, and our fleet chanced to be uncomfortably 
close at that time. So he offered apologies, the usual 
coffee and cigarettes, and vowed that the soldier 
should be whipped over the knuckles for mistaking 
me for a party for whom they w 7 ere then on the 
lookout. 
He further pledged himself to order my teskeret 
issued that I might pass directly to Adrianople from 
Salonica, without stopping a day in that city for an¬ 
other vise. When, however, a few hours later, the 
consul sent to the vali for this paper, his excellency 
had forgotten the incident completely. Had it been 
a commutation of the death sentence of a prisoner, 
his indifference, I am assured, would have been 
equally great. 
Such are the great municipal and province prisons. 
A word about the bastiles of the district towms. The 
prison at Plevljc, capital of the Lower Sanjak of 
Novi-Bazar, long the most dreaded part of Turkey in 
Europe, is a good example of these. The “Bride¬ 
well” at this place occupies the lower floor of a two 
story building of plaster and lathing, constituting 
one of the four sides of an open court. The upper 
floor of this structure is surrounded by a portico, and 
occupied by the lesser officers of the pashalik. 
Across the court, the konak or municipal edifice 
itself stands, with a wall at either end joining it to 
the prison. In the quadrangle enclosed by these 
buildings the band plays twice a day for the pasha, 
and while the peaceable villagers are excluded by the 
gendarmes, the prisoners in the jail obtain all the 
benefit of the music rendered for 
their lord’s delight. 
Life in this prison is not all pure 
joy. As the photograph shows, the 
great cell-room is open directly to the 
elements, and when it storms, the 
rain pours directly in on the pris¬ 
oners. The arrangement, how T ever, 
is convenient in fair weather for 
friends coming to feed the incarcer¬ 
ated, much as we do the apes at our 
“zoos.” The state gives the pris¬ 
oners coffee and cigarettes only, but 
relatives may bring what they choose 
so that many an idle fellow is as 
well oft here, living on the bounty of 
pitying friends, as when squatting 
at the edge of his bazaar in the vil¬ 
lage. Picturesque indeed is the 
sight presented by these people, 
bringing the roast of freshly slaugh¬ 
tered meat, sold in the bazaars at 
sixteen to thirty-two cents the kilo,— 
cooked in lamb fat, in place of butter 
(which is of revolting odor and greasy appearance to 
the Western palate), or the roasted lamb-skulls, milk, 
sold unskimmed at four cents the liter, cucumbers, 
melons and potatoes, and among the richer prisoners 
even an occasional dish of ice cream, made of goats’ 
milk. Water, filled with typhoid germs, is brought 
cool from the tree-trunk aqueduct, in the usual tin 
petroleum can which is the common jug of the Balk¬ 
ans. One cell, how ? ever, is beyond all such access, 
and to it no European has as yet attained. What 
man in iron mask or what Bonnivard may be 
lingering here, rumor alone can say. 
I he long-sentence prisoners at this place are prin¬ 
cipally Serbs, the Turks being given exceedingly 
light sentences; officers of the army frequently being 
punished by a sound slap on the ear from the pasha, or 
an application of the bastinado alone. Young Turks, 
and there are not a few of these, owing to the deep 
interest of the Mussulman in politics,—are trans¬ 
ferred to the armies in Farther Asia. 
Of course the word of the pasha, who is nominated 
by the Porte, subject to the confirmation of the Sul¬ 
tan, is absolute, and he can make and unmake any 
man. With all his powder, however, Suleiman Terek, 
Excellency, who has been pasha here some twenty- 
eight years, dare not leave, for fear of revolt in his 
absence. Injustice, of course, is everywhere manifest; 
for while in one of the cells a Christian is confined on 
a twenty-year term for a murder not at all un¬ 
justified; his guard who cut a Serb woman apart 
in cold blood some years ago, is a full-fledged soldier 
to-day. The slain having been but a Christian the 
crime was of little importance in the eyes of the law. 
Austria remonstrated at the indignity at the time, 
and more so when, shortly after, a 
Bosniac woman’s assailant w 7 as let 
free; but the Turks held the Bosniac, 
as the other, to be a subject of the 
Sultan, and claimed they could act 
as they pleased. Justice is a mere 
matter of backsheesh and appeal. 
As betw een Moslems, w hen murder is 
done, assassin and avenger flee to the 
cadi, each with presents of money. 
This he accepts first from one then 
the other, telling each in turn that 
his case seems dubious, until the 
bribe is raised; and then, when satis¬ 
fied that he has reached the limit of 
extortion, giving the verdict to the 
better payer. The basis of the 
nefarious system is, of course, the 
sale of all offices of the government, 
which leads every man to exploit as 
much as he can. Between Christian 
and Moslem, how T ever, in cases at 
law 7 , victory must always perch on 
the* crescent. 
A TURKISH CELL 
54 
