passion which is always visible in the great poisoners, the thirst for a supreme and sudden exercise of power, may be doubted, but only Carrier can be at all clearly shown to have exulted in bloodshed, or rather in slaughter for its own sake. Nadir Shah, who in northern India piled up columns of heads, and the late shah of Persia, who tore out traysful of eyes, would, we imagine, have declared, and declared truly, that they terrorized from policy, and had no personal pleasure in the death of any man. They would have had no sorrow in the destruction of half the human race, and would have felt about it as little as the Mongol chieftains who proposed to a son of Tchengis Khan to extirpate the people of China and turn their provinces into grassy steppes excellent for feeding horses, but if all the world had been patiently submissive they would have slaughtered no one. It is difficult for modern minds to realize the mental condition of such men, or conceive that they could be free from a devilish lust for blood, but it is quite possible that they felt no more about killing in cold blood than great soldiers of the more brutal type have felt about killing on the field of battle. Such horrors were incidental to their work, and they overlooked them, as Marcus Aurelius or Diocletian overlooked the sufferings of the thousands of Christians whom they doomed to painful deaths. Abd-ulHamid seems, among rulers, to approach a step nearer to the true bloodthirst. His Armenians are so submissive and such good taxpayers that it is difficult to believe that in sanctioning their massacre he is not influenced by the desire for bloodshed for its own sake; but even he never sees his victims, and can control his appetite when convenient. It is conceivable, too, to those who have studied the history of fanaticism, that he believes himself in some dim way to have the right to slay, that he is really appointed to be what all the sultans call themselves, the Hunkiar, the man-slayer, divinely intrusted with the right and the power to remove all infidels dangerous to Islam. It seems to the English of to-day an impossible belief, but something like it must have been in the mind of the first Simon de Montfort when he extirpated the Albigenses, and of Alva when he drowned the Low Countries in blood. The passion of which the word "bloodthirst" is truly descriptive seems to be a kind of temporary mania excited in human beings by killing human beings, and in them only by that act. Animals are free of it. Even the great felidæ, with their ferocity developed by generations of hunger, never display it,-never, for example, attack whole herds for the pleasure of killing beasts which they cannot eat. There is a faint approach to it in the dog who "worries" a flock of sheep, but he does not kill on the spot, and seems at all events to be actuated not by lust of blood or even by the spirit of tyranny, but by an insane desire for a special dainty,-the fat of the sheep's liver. The human being with the bloodthirst on him wants most to kill after he has been killing. Soldiers, otherwise most respectable, have acknowledged the feeling as rising in them after a hardfought day, when many friends have fallen around them, and there are moments in battle when, as the soldiers say, they "see red," and in many armies, perhaps in all, it is difficult for their officers to induce them to give quarter. Killing relieves their burning thirst for vengeance. There are moments in almost every campaign, as all military historians know, when even highly disciplined soldiers seem to lose their reason, when their officers are powerless, and perfectly useless carnage cannot be stopped. The existence of this passion, which no experienced soldier doubts, is the true explanation of the awful slaughter which occurred in some ancient and some Asiatic battles, and of that ghastly incident of warfare amongst savages, their almost constant habit of killing out the wounded. It explains also the devilish excitement and thirst for more slaughter which, as the record of scenes like the St. Bartholomew murders or the murders recently committed in Constantinople proves, falls upon & crowd which has shed much blood. Many, perhaps a majority, do not feel it, but the ferocious remainder appear to go literally and medically mad, with an impulse which has in it that of the murderer and of the hunter combined, and unless controlled by some form of terror they will go on killing while victims remain to be discovered. A separate passion of bloodshedding arises in them, and tigers would be less cruel, the cruelty-it is one of the strangest of the arcana of human nature-in. creasing with the absence of resistance. It might, indeed, be possible to hold them partly irresponsible, but for the fact that they can instantly be reduced to order and sanity by appealing to their fears. A few soldiers, a volley, and the wildest mob, mad, literally mad to all appearance with the bloodthirst, will become on the instant reasonable, will take orders, will abandon, and in some instances even regret, its frightful excesses. A whiff of grapeshot would have calmed the French Terrorists at any moment, and a thousand of the Irish constabulary with rifles, would restore the worst mob of Constantinople to comparative sanity in ten minutes. It is because the English as a rule are so free of the bloodthirst that we dare to be so lenient with our mobs, and because the rulers of foreign States know and dread the impulse that they are, as we all think, so much too ready to resort to violent repression. A Southern mob, an Asiatic mob, or an African mob which has once begun to kill cannot be stopped except by an appeal to terror, a grim fact which those who believe in human nature, as we do not, will do well to ponder over. The wild beast latent in man becomes, as we are now seeing every week or so in Turkey, wilder, not tamer, with release from external restraints. If the optimist philosophers were right, all men would be humane, for nothing can be so convenient as humanity; but as a fact there is nothing on earth so cruel as man if once he has broken loose from his fetters of custom, conscience, and social pressure, and has tasted blood. falls a mob can be moved by reason or by pity; after that it listens, as a rule, only to terror for its own life. Till the first enemy From The Contemporary Review. THE CONSTANTINOPLE MASSACRE. [The following article, though for obvious reasons it cannot be signed, may be taken as thoroughly well-informed.-ED. CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.] It is about two years since the massacre in Sassoon which led England, France, and Russia to intervene in a feeble way for the protection of the Armenians in Turkey. It is just a year since several hundred Armenians were beaten to death by Softas and Zabtieh in the streets of Constantinople. This brought the fleets to the vicinity of the Dardanelles, and after much negotiation brought five small gunboats to Constantinople. Beginning in October at Trebizond, there were massacres and looting in all the principal cities of seven provinces, and a general destruction of villages and rural population in the same provinces. According to the latest estimates, about one hundred thousand were killed, and about half a million reduced to want. The Great Powers did nothing, and, England and Italy excepted, looked on with indifference. Russia entered into a new alliance with the sultan to guarantee the integrity of his empire. On the Continent the people generally were in sympathy with the policy of the governments and took no interest in the fate of the Christian subjects of the sultan-which naturally confirmed him in his belief that he could treat them as he pleased without fear of Europe. In the spring the Cretans revolted, and in August, through the intervention of the powers, secured all that they asked for in the way of autonomy. The Armenian revolutionists, encouraged by the outbreaks in Crete, Syria and Macedonia, appealed anew to the Embassies and to the Turkish gov ernment to secure some reasonable itself, and made ridiculous by the way reforms for the Armenians, and in which they failed to carry it out. accompanied this demand with the They went in bravely, and nothing threat that they would create disturb- hindered their destroying the Bank, but ances if their demands were not heeded. they allowed themselves to be talked They planned outbreaks at Adana, out of it by Mr. Maximoff, the Russian Angora, and Van. Only the last came dragoman, and would have been the to a head, and it resulted in the death laughing stock of the world if its attenof most of the revolutionists and the tion had not been absorbed by the massacre of several thousand innocent massacre which followed. The real persons. This outbreak at Van was heroism of that day was displayed in utterly foolish in its conception, with- another quarter of the city, by another out any possible hope of success, and small party of Russian Armenians, men very badly managed. Then early in and women, who took possession of two August came the threat of an outbreak stone houses and fought the Turkish at Constantinople, which was treated, troops to the death, the survivors killing as all such threats have been by the themselves when they could fight no ambassadors, with contempt. But longer. There was no serious fighting those who knew the city have known anywhere else, although dynamite for many months that some such out- bombs were thrown from the windows break was sure to occur if the persecu- of houses and khans upon the troops tion of the Armenians continued un- in a number of places, showing that checked, and have foreseen the consesome preparation had been made for a quences. If the Armenians were not more extended outbreak. There is the most peaceable and submissive nothing to be said in justification of this people in the world, this city would attempt of the revolutionists. They have been in ashes before this time, for had provocation enough to justify anythey have had everything to drive them thing in reason, but there was nothing to desperation. They have bowed their reasonable in this plan, nothing in it to heads and submitted to this also; but attract the sympathy of the powers or it was certain that the revolutionists to conciliate public opinion; and if the would try to rouse them and to startle statements are true which have been Europe in some way. The Turks also made by Armenians as to certain unexseem to have desired this outbreak. ecuted parts of the plan, it was diabolThey were fully informed as to the ical. This only can be said on behalf plan of seizing the Ottoman Bank on of these revolutionary committees. August 26. This is stated in the They are the natural outcome of the proclamation of the sultan, published in treatment of the Armenians by the the Turkish papers the next day, and Turkish government during the last has been affirmed by many of the twenty years. When oppression passes officers since. They did nothing to a certain limit and men become desperprevent it; but spent all their energy in ate, such revolutionary organization alpreparing for the massacre which was ways appears. They are the fruit and to follow. not the cause of the existing state of things in Turkey, and if we can judge by the experience of other countries, the worse things become here, the more violent will be the action of these committees, whether Europe enjoys it or not. The theory of the Russian Armenian revolutionists who seized the Ottoman Bank was, that if they could hold it with the threat of blowing it up if their demands were not listened to, the ambassadors would force the sultan to grant the reasonable reforms which they demanded for the Armenians, rather than permit the destruction of the Bank and its staff. It was a scheme borrowed from the theatre, absurd in LIVING AGE. VOL. XII. 595 Revolutionists are the same all the world over, but the Turkish government is unique, and it is not the attack on the Bank which interests us but the action of the government which fol lowed it. As we have said, the authorities had full information of what was to be attempted and did nothing to prevent it, but they made every preparation for carrying out their own plan. Bands of ruffians were gathered in Stamboul, Galata, and Pera, made up of Kurds, Lazes, and the lower class of Turks, armed with clubs, knives or firearms; and care was taken that no one should kill or plunder in the quarter to which he belonged, lest he should be recognized and complaint made after wards by the embassies, with a demand for punishment. A large number of carts were in readiness to carry off the dead. The troops and police were in great force to prevent any resistance, and to assist the mob if necessary. It was a beautiful day, the streets were crowded, and few had any idea of what had happened at the Bank, when suddenly, without any warning, the work of slaughter and plunder began, everywhere at once. European ladies on the way to the Bosphorus steamers suddenly found themselves surrounded by assassins, and saw men beaten to death at their feet. Foreign merchants saw their own employés cut to pieces at their doors. The streets in some places literally ran with blood. Every man who was recognized as an Armenian was killed without mercy. In general, the soldiers took no part in slaughter and behaved well, and this somewhat reassured those in the streets who were not Armenians; but in a few moments the shops were closed and a wild panic spread through the city. The one idea of every one was to get home; and as the foreigners and better classes live out of the city in summer they had to go to the Galata bridge to take the steamers, which ran as usual all through the three days of massacre. This took them through the streets where the slaughter was going on, and consequently we have the testimony of hundreds of eye-witnesses as to what took place. The work of death and plunder continued unchecked for two days. On Friday there were isolated outbreaks, and occasional assassinations occurred up to Tuesday. The number the killed will never be known. The ambassadors put it at five thousand or six thousand; the official report to the palace at eight thousand seven hundred and fifty, besides those thrown into the sea. Thousands of houses, shops, and offices were plundered, including a number belonging to Greeks and foreigners. Everything was done in the most systematic way, and there was not a moment of anarchy, not a moment when the army and police had not perfect control of the city during all these days. Certain Armenian quarters - Scutari, Koom Kapou and others-were for some reason protected, and were as quiet and undisturbed as usual. The outbreaks of violence at Bebec and Candilli on the Bosphorus were probably spontaneous and contrary to orders, as was everything done after Friday morning in town. The quarters where the slaughter and pillage were most terrible were along the Golden Horn - from the Dolma Baghtchè Palace to Hasskuei and from Seraglio Point to Aivan Serai; also at Samatia, near the Seven Towers, and at the Adrianople gate. Large numbers were killed in Pera. The majority of those massacred belonged to the working class-especially the hamals (porters)—but a large number of gentlemen, merchants and other wealthy men, were killed, together with about fifty women and children. The savage brutality of the Moslem mob was something beyond all imagination, and in many cases the police joined in beating men to death and hacking others to death with knives, in the very face of Europeans. A friend of mine saw eighteen men dragged by the police, one after another, out of a building in Galata, and cut to pieces at the door. A lady friend saw a procession of Catholic schoolgirls in Pera Street. An Armenian, flying from the mob, took refuge in the midst of them, and was cut to pieces there - his blood spattered over the children's dresses. Some twenty employés at the railway station were seized by the police and beaten to death on the premises. Mr. Maximoff, the Russian dragoman, saw 1 arms. At Bebec the mob was made up of the Turkish hamals of the village, and at a signal from the Imam of the mosque they first attacked the bakery, where they bought their daily bread, generally on credit, murdered every man they could find, and plundered everythinga Turkish woman in a neighboring house pointing out the hiding place of one poor boy. In many cases European officials appealed to the officers in command of the troops, who were looking on at the slaughter of helpless, unarmed men, to interfere and put a stop to it. The reply was "We have our orders." It was an officer who killed the clerk of the British post-office on the steps. And some of the most cold-blooded and horrible murders took place in front of the guard house, at the Galata end of the bridge, in the presence of officers of the sultan's household of the highest rank. They also had their orders. two men beating an Armenian to death and they killed him in his mother's in the street. With the help of his cavass he captured one of them, took him to the nearest police station, and demanded his imprisonment. This was refused, and he took him to Yildiz-he turned out to be a well-known official there. Mr. Herbert, H.M. Chargé d'Affaires, to whom the highest honor is due for his action during the massacres, saw many terrible sights with his own eyes-among others a Moslem crowd jeering at a man on the top of a cartload of dead, who was still in the agonies of death. A man whom I knew very well was beaten to death, stripped, and a big cross cut on his breast with a sword. A living child was found in the pile of seven hundred mutilated bodies in the Chichli Cemetery. A friend of mine saw a mob of Turkish women looting the little shop of an Armenian just killed shouting and laughing, and treading under foot what they did not care to take away. When there were no more Armenians in the streets they were sought out in the khans, shops, and houses, and here in many cases the military officers took an active part in the plunder-if not in the killing. At Hasskuei-where there is a large Jew. ish population-after the Turks had murdered the inmates of a house, the officers sold the right to plunder it to the Jews. I know one case where an officer received nine pounds for the plunder of a large house. The Jews also assisted the Turks in hunting the Armenians out of their hiding-places, and in some cases killed them themselves. At Hasskuei, Samatia, and Kassim Pacha the women and children left alive are without any means of living. The brutality of the mob in these attacks upon the houses was even more horrible than in the streets, for the women pleaded and sometimes fought for the lives of their husbands and sons, who were mercilessly cut to pieces before their faces. I know of one case where a widow prayed for the life of her only son-an innocent boy. Even the murderers were touched, but the mob of Turkish women behind cried out, "Don't listen; kill him!" Happily for the honor of the Turkish people, there is another side to the story. It was the government and not the people that conducted this massacre. And although the vile instruments employed were told that they were acting in the name of the Prophet, and freely used his name, and are boasting to-day of what they did for Islam, the Sheik-ul-Islam forbad the Softas taking any part in the slaughter and many a pious Turk did what he could to proSome of them tect his neighbors. sheltered scores in their own houses, and there are Ulema who condemn the whole thing as directly contrary to the teaching of the Koran. The common people accept it as the work of the caliph, which is not to be criticised. One poor woman who had an Armenian family in her house said: "I will protect you against the mob, but if they demand you in the name of the Prophet I must give you up to be killed." I think that many of the common Turks are as much afraid of the Armenians as the Armenians are of them. It is not the people, not even the mob, who are responsible for this great crime. It was |