had not broken into license. Though there was no longer a censorship of printed matter, the Turkish Press observed a dignified moderation in its tone. For the first time the comic papers were free to publish political caricatures in which the highest personages were represented; but if one might judge from such as were exhibited in the windows of the newspaper shops, there was nothing offensive in these somewhat crude pictures. Large crowds attended political meetings in the capital; but there was no disturbance of the peace and there was no need for the presence of the police or the troops, save when the Greeks, who are never happy unless they have some real or imaginary grievance to make a noise about, made demonstrations during the elections. People now enjoyed the right to form themselves into associations, but one heard of no anarchical societies; and apparently the first result of this new privilege was that the Turkish temperance reformers availed themselves of it to establish a total abstinence league in Cæsarea.

But, as might be expected, the interregnum between the withdrawal of the authority of the old régime with its severe code and its armies of spies, and the reorganisation of the police and other departments by the Young Turks was taken advantage of to some extent by the ignorant and lawless. At the beginning of the revolution all prisoners, including the criminals,

were released from the gaols-probably because it was impossible in many cases to ascertain whether the offence for which a man had been confined was a political one or otherwise. The restrictions on the sale and carrying of fire-arms were also removed, with the result that revolvers in tens of thousands poured into the city and were at once bought up. A large proportion of the population carried revolvers and also let them off; men practised with them in the streets; accidents were frequent; and in some quarters of the city, especially in the poorer Greek quarters, it was not unusual to hear a regular fusillade going on at night, generally in honour of something or other, or to spread the news that a house was on fire. Robbery with violence in the streets certainly increased after the revolution. But, notwithstanding all this, it could not be fairly said that Constantinople was a dangerous place to walk about in at any hour; and indeed, when it is remembered what a lot of cosmopolitan blackguardism there is in that city of over a million inhabitants, it is astonishing that there was so large a measure of security for life and property.

It was natural, too, that Turks of the poorer and more ignorant class should be under the impression that this new constitutional liberty meant that each man was free to do what he liked a common error which before long was

eradicated from the minds of this naturally lawabiding people by the Young Turk administration. Thus many thought that the Constitution wiped out the liability to pay any private debts incurred before the revolution. In the country, peasants came to the conclusion that they would no longer be called upon to pay taxes; in the towns the contrabandists sold their smuggled tobacco openly; and in Constantinople itself the popular conception of liberty produced some amusing results. be seen calmly chopping up their logs in the middle of a busy thoroughfare; pavements were often blocked with the wares of the hawkers; and others in like manner carried on their avocations in public; so that the narrow, crowded streets and the Galata Bridge, difficult enough to traverse in the days of the old régime, became almost impassable. This sums up the inconveniences of the interregnum; they were wonderfully few and trifling when one bears in mind what a revolution this had been.

The firewood sellers were to

It was, of course, difficult for the Young Turks to reorganise the police and carry out administrative reforms until Parliament met; for the provisionary Ministry was naturally disinclined to accept much responsibility. But in the meanwhile, though there was a little license in small matters, the people were made to understand clearly that the Committee would stand no

nonsense.

This was proved at the time of the coaling strike in Galata not long after the proclamation of the Constitution. The men, having struck once and obtained the concession of their demands, came to the conclusion that under the new Constitution they were free to extort what they pleased and terrorise the population; so they struck again for a prohibitive rate of wage which would have closed the port to commerce. It was a critical time: the Young Turks were on their trial; their movement had been represented by their enemies as anarchical; their cause would be lost were they to fail to preserve order among the populace. It must be remembered that this was not only the question of a strike, but of probable rioting of so serious a nature that it might have caused European intervention; for these labourers who coal the ships at Galata belong to that rabble of Kurds and other Mussulmans of the lowest class which is only too ready, on a hint from the Palace, to set about massacring Armenians and other Christians.

It therefore behoved the Young Turks to prove that they could rule men, and they did SO. Two young officers rode boldly, unescorted, into the middle of a dangerous crowd of the strikers, and by their firm attitude compelled the men to listen to them. First they tried persuasion, and pointed out to the strikers that by their action they were prejudicing the cause

of freedom which they had so loudly acclaimed but a few days before. But the men would not be persuaded and refused to go back to their work. Then the two officers changed their attitude. One, drawing his revolver, reminded the men that under the old régime the soldiers would have been sent to throw them into the water or cast them into prison! "And as you are conducting yourselves as friends of the old régime, so shall you be treated," he exclaimed. "I will come down here to-morrow and ask you to return at once to your work. I will with my

own hand shoot down the first man who refuses to do so, and the rest of you will be swept into the sea or into prison." The next morning the two officers rode to the quay followed by a body of cavalry. The strikers knew that what had been said was meant, and quietly went off to work, and there has been no trouble since with this dangerous element of the population.

Indeed, the Committee, by its firmness and justice, made itself loved of the people, who at last came to obey its orders without question. Thus, when the Committee enjoined the strict boycott of Austrian trade, while at the same time forbidding the populace to molest or insult Austrian subjects, a wonderful thing happened. The Austrians were able to go about the streets in perfect safety; and the Austrian shops remained open, but no one would buy of them,