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    1200 T H E L. E AD E K. P .[No. 6 299, S...

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    TURKEY FOUNDERING. It has long been the ...

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    The Poisoner In The House. Ik You Feel A...

    the poisons in his possession , but exhibited them with other drugs ; and how some of those expressions which appeared to indicate indifference , manifestly bad relation to his sympathy for relatives—we have the strongest conviction , in common with the jury , that the man is innocent , and has been tinjustly accused . But Madame Lafjfarge was kind to her husband ; and some of the evidence in her case was far weaker than in the present . For example , the amount of poison detected was infinitely less ; there were only arsenical

    stains on the test , not an actual ponderable amount of disengaged arsenic . Yet Madame Laffabge was condemned , perhaps wrongfully , as Mr . Wooleb might have been if the evidence got up against him had been successful . Wooler was not the murderer of his wife , but the partner who shared her calamity in a more painful manner than herself . Here then is a most astounding and alarming case—the lady Wits poisoned , she died from the poison , and her condition was known to her medical attendants twenty-five days before her death . She died on the 29 th of . June , and Dr .

    Jackson suspected arsenic on the 7 th of that month . The poison "was regularly administered to her , and she sank under it . One medical man suspected it at the beginning of the month ; another somewhat later ; but there she lay ^ poisoned more and more daily . It was only wonderful that she could live so long . At last she died . If anybody should have been safe , it was that lady—watched over by her husband , who knew something about drugs ; attended by a sister , and by more than one medical man , some of them men of standing . Hex case was actually suspected weeks before the end ; and yet she was sacrificed I

    Turn to the case of Tutton at Bath . Here is att auctioneer in good circumstances—very good circumstances ; he has made no will ; his son boasts that he shall shortly come into the property ; that son thrusts aside the family cook from her vocation , to prepare supper for his father ; the father is poisoned , and there was poison in that supper ; the young man absconds , conceals himself , surrenders himself , and is brought to trial ; and a jury acquits him : he is " innocent , " therefore , notwithstanding

    appearances . It was not he that administered the poison—it was somebody else . His mode of life was irregular , his actions suspicious ; but he must be cast out of the account ; and if the father of the family wishes to find who it is that has put arsenic in his supper , he must look around within his own home—to fail in detecting his murderer . He has been poisoned , —the poisoner can seek him in the very bosom of his family ; a ^ id yet he cannot detect the murderer that would be I

    It is true that we are not subject to the direct and flagrant crime of the Bougias . But present the case how you will , it does seem that we are doomed to assaults upon life not less fatal than those which stamp the middle ages with barbarism . Our streets are kept peaceable by help of the policeman ; but the judges tell us , and the statistics tell us , that we constantly breed a . band of thieves and robbers whom we try to transport . Sturdy vagrants > vrere a curae in the time of the Tudors ; but

    tdhey had not their thousands upon thousands , and they did not then desire the expedient of some place to transport them to . On the contrary , the earliest poor laws enforced the remaining of the vagrant in his own district . Statesmen do not now poison ; but private persons appear to have taken up the trade ; Wftd i apart from the tradesman , who poisons us in , our food and . abates our life , a practice is , xaOTOaeing amongst us that indicates the germ < 9 jfllQXTi bie dtomjQstio crimes . " Education" is ^ e ory of the day ; we enforce order in the

    streets , and in houses , by the strictest rules ; perhaps we have in some degree placed restraints upon natural frankness , perhaps our severe regimen tends to constrain the affections , and the true guardian of home , the natural instinct which repels all hatred and envy , sickens and languishes . It is not so everywhere ; but in some places , we believe , school , sect , and the pedantry of the day , have driven forth the garrison of the home .

    1200 T H E L. E Ad E K. P .[No. 6 299, S...

    1200 T H E L . E AD E K . P . [ No . 299 , Saturday ,

    Turkey Foundering. It Has Long Been The ...

    TURKEY FOUNDERING . It has long been the conviction of clearsighted persons in the west of Europe that , whatever Power gained by the war , the Turks must lose . Not only have the } 1 " been utterly eclipsed , their generals subordinated to those of their allies , their capital garrisoned and furnished with a French police , their navy lost , a large portion of their territory in Austrian possession , their Greek enemies only kept at

    bay by the interference of France and England , their finances exhausted , their authority contemned by their own subjects ; but it has become a question how long their " Empire" is to remain in the occupation of the allies , after the establishment of peace . To desert them prematurely , it is said , would be criminal 5 by which is meant that to release them hastily from the Western yoke would be foolish .

    A sense of generosity may induce the English people to compassionate their helpless allies , the Turks , whose cause was the original object of the war . But the result was foreseen two years ago . Turkey , as a purely Mohammedan state , has no longer a political existence . The Turks have lost their pride , their selfreliance , their privilege of oppression . They are protected by France and England , and , like all protected races , they are conquered . "We recently observed that in the British camps in the Eastit is a joke that the successor of Abdul Medjid will be a Frenchman . This is a

    light illustration of a serious truth . lurkey is in the possession of Great Britain and France , and they ai * e already consulting what to do with it . The event at Kars comes to justify the opinions we have stated , of the vitality that remains in the governmental system of the Ottoman empire . A single city , easy to approach , connected by a high road with the sea , with well-constructed defences , an able British officer in command , and a body of as gallant soldiers as ever fought to garrison it , has been starved into surrender . It is easy to impute this disaster as a crime to the Allies , who filled one vast arena of operations in the

    North , and one iii the East . Possibly , Oaiah Pasha was fettered in his movements , not from any desire to spare Russia—fov every secondrate Russian success only protracts the war , and injures Kussia ; but from obstinacy , or from indifference , or from blindness . Possibly , however , his presence was necessary in the Crimea . That is a point on which it is not easy , for us , in London , to decide ; but the fact remains , and is not covered by mystery , that the Imperial Ottoman Government , with the free range of the Black Sea coast , and uninterrupted communications , couM not , or would not , rescue Kars . The reason being that it is a decrepid and spiritless Government .

    In the presence of great armies , traversing his territory , occupying his capital , putting his Christian subjects on a practical equality with him , where is the superiority of the Mussulman ? When he was supremo , it was through the power of the sword , which maintained the severity of intolerance , lie dares no longer assert the insolent ascendancy of his nation . His police cower before the police of

    his french protectors . Moreover , the head of his religion , the Sultan , scolded and tutored for years by the reigning diplomatist at Constantinople , will have a treaty forced upon him , in due time , to which his consent will be a mere formality . The principalities of Wallachia and Bulgaria , integral parts of his empire , may be erected into a separate state—will be , if the Times has its way . As it is , they are under Austrian martial law , and may continue in the occupation of Austria until the Mahommedan dominion is extinct .

    This is not a deplorable , because it is a natural catastrophe . A nation that pretends to rule by the right of conquest , must live by its own law , and yield to power . But the power that has unnerved the administration of the Turks , is not that of France , Austria , or England . It is that of the Christian race which has expanded , while the Turkish race has shrunk , which has taken possession of the industry of the empire , of its trade , of its commerce , of its navigation , of its schools , of its system of foreign intercourse , while the

    Turks have remained , immoveable , lords of the sword and the soil . The sword has now dropped from their hands ; every military position in their territory is possessed by the Allies ; the Bosphorus is no longer a Turkish , but a French and British station ; every Ottoman port is under the presidency of Europeans . To the Christian powers they owe , perhaps , that their own power has not been violently extinguished . What , then , remains of their strength or their prestige ? Their navy is destroyed ; their army is reduced ; their exchequer is wholly exhausted . An alloyed

    currency , and a ruined credit , promise few resources for the future . At the same time , the Christian populations are becoming more powerful , intelligent , and ambitious , daily . Marvellous numbers of new merchant . ships are being built by them—a hundred and forty for the Grecian ports alone ; they are rapidly learning to supply almost every want of the great armies quartered in their territory ; and , which is still more significant , they express , without reserve , jn Constantinople and the other maritime cities , their scorn of the Turks , and their hope of succeeding them as a ruling race , in the east of Europe .

    The incidents of the war have by no means mitigated the mutual rancour of the Turkish and Christian nations in that empire . The Christians—even those who sympathise Avith the Allies—have almost invariably satirised the victories ot the Turks , and exulted in their ddeats . We must take the truth as we find it , without lecturing the people of the Levant on the moral wickedness

    of not rejoicing when Britain and Gaul drive back the barbarians , & c . & c . & c . ! All men , when they have their own interests and passions strongly at work , look coldly at external affairs . The Christians of Turkey hate the Turk more i , han they hate the Russian , because they have suffered more from him . When they estimate their own strength , it is not to

    measure it against that of the Russians , for the most part their co-religionists ; but against that of the Turks , who , during four hundred years , have kept them in a state of abject social inferiority . The Christian , when he can do it with impunity , now taunts his old oppressor with the rellection , that he is indebted for his empire to the assistance ol " infidels . "

    The Christians have felt their power ; the Turks have felt their weakness . There will bo a new contest in the East when the Allied armies have been withdrawn . It may bo gradual and bloodless ; but if the frontiers oj the Ottoman territory be really defined , and guarded by the great powers of Europe , a

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 15, 1855, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15121855/page/12/