The restless temperament and fanaticism of the Greeks have ever made them the most turbulent of the Ottoman subjects, and ready instruments in the hands of Russian diplomatists for sowing the seeds of discord and confusion in the Turkish empire.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE JEWS.
The Jews of Turkey, of whom there are about 170,000, are by no means exempt from the sorrows and curses of their race. As if conscious that there is no escape from the contempt of the rest of the world, they are willing to undertake the meanest of earth’s callings, literally to “eat the dirt” of their Moslem masters.
Content to appear like the refuse of humanity, they strive to accumulate the miser’s hoards, and receive the buffetings and cursings of their neighbors as if they were choice blessings—usury of all sorts, whether upon sequins or old clothes, peddling the meanest of wares in the streets, rag-picking, and filth-gathering in general, are their means of earning a livelihood.
The venerated names of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are almost needless, or seldom heard—for the one comprehensive word Yahoudy (Jew) is the nomenclature of the whole remnant of the chosen people. Yahoudy come, and Yahoudy go, are the summons and dismissal—while the rabble boys mockingly shout Tchefut, and snatch some fragment of their tattered garments.
Public sentiment having stigmatized them as utterly depraved, they have no incentive to honesty, and not daring enough to commit any atrocious crime, they become more expert in petty larcenies and like misdemeanors. They are even accused of stealing a Christian child once a year, in order to mingle its blood in their festivals, as a retaliation upon the Christians in general.
This, of course, refers to the mass, who, victims as they are to misery of all sorts, cannot be expected to practice the kindlier virtues which distinguish those among them to whom a better fate has been allotted.
There was a celebrated Armenian banker, Tcharazly, who, having fallen under the displeasure of a certain Turkish grandee, was suddenly one day seized and hung before the door of his own dwelling; his property confiscated, and his only son cast into prison.