News and Miscellany

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1872

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

THERE is a story that an American ship, arriving at some out-of-the-way Turkish port, the captain was astonished to see the consignee leave the cargo lying unprotected on the wharf. To which he was answered, “What harm can come to it? There is not a Christian within fifty miles!” We fear that those days of Ottoman innocence are past, that the evil communications of Europeans and Americans have corrupted their good manners, and that they are now little better than the Christians themselves. Only last month Haider Effendi (which title, we believe, implies descent from the prophet), ex-prefet of Constantinople, was condemned to two years’ imprisonment in a fortress; and the former minister of police, Hussein Pacha, and Emin Bey, lately secretary to the Sultan, have each been condemned to six years’ imprisonment for defalcation in office. Thus the blessings of civilization are gradually extended to the lands of the misbelievers! Constantinople may yet hope to rejoice in a Tweed or a Connolly of her own; but she must not hope to rob us of our distinction of raising the biggest thieves yet known—at least, of private citizens.