CHAPTER V.
A NEW PROFESSION AND THE QUESTION OF CONSCRIPTION.
First moderation of my prejudice against Europeans—The Levantine guide—The truth is not in him—I begin to wish to visit England—A summer trip to Asia Minor—A British consul—His wife and my mother—A trip in the Eastern Mediterranean—Thoughts of a more profitable career—I join a law college—The law of Turkey —Untrustworthiness of English books of reference—Turkish law courts—A quasi-religious magistracy—Palace influence over justice—I am called to serve in the army—I obtain exemption with much difficulty—Methods of conscription—Native Christians not allowed to serve—The wisdom of this policy.
After living the hard life of the madrasseh for three solitary years, I was permitted by my uncle to pay a visit to my native town during a vacation. It was at this time that my prejudice against the unbelievers of Europe first began to be moderated, and it came about in this way. During a summer afternoon, as I was walking in the garden of the madrasseh, a young European, accompanied by a pretty girl, was just coming out of the mosque of little St Sophia. They excited my curiosity, as the appearance of all Europeans who came to visit those ancient edifices always excites the curiosity of the people living near them. They both looked at a mulberry tree loaded with fruit, and the gentleman picked up a berry which had just fallen and gave it to the lady. I walked towards them, with what possibly was a rather forbidding air. They started, and appeared somewhat embarrassed. I signed to them to stop, and, taking off my shoes, climbed up the tree and picked a handful of the ripe fruit. I put the fruit on two large leaves of the tree and offered it to the lady. My action seemed to please them. They had no guide, which pleased me greatly, for there are no more shameless cheats than those ignorant interpreters, who are as a class one of the worst products of the non-Mussulman natives of the Levant Many Europeans who pay a flying visit to the Levant, and hasten to sit down and write a book about their experiences, derive all their information from these cicerones and interpreters. Probably it is on account of this that a countryman of mine once remarked, "When we read such books, especially those written in English, about ourselves, we always learn something from them which we never knew or heard of before." As the English were respected above all other European nations in those days in the Ottoman empire, and as everyone used to think every European visitor must be English, I took the couple for English people. Whether they were really British or not is an open question. We exchanged a parting greeting, but to my regret I did not speak any language then except my own, in which I might try to talk to them. From that moment, however, my mind was possessed by a desire to see England, though I could not mention it to anyone, because the people of the madrasseh would have been greatly shocked by such a suggestion, and would perhaps have brought a charge against me of wishing to turn myself into a Christian.
I started soon after this for home. The party with which I travelled took a route different from the one by which we had come three years previously to Constantinople. I therefore had the opportunity of visiting other towns of Asia Minor. When I reached our own town, I found that my mother had already moved to her summer house in the country. By a strange coincidence, the British Consul and his family were staying in a summer residence which they had hired close by our own. They were the only English people, and also the only Europeans, to be found in the town, as the Anatolian railway was not then even projected, and no European could possibly have found any employment there. I made the acquaintance of the Consul one day while shooting wild-duck on the shores of a neighbouring lake. The British Consul was able to make himself understood in Turkish, and we soon struck up an acquaintance. I made him promise to meet me again, so that we might go shooting together. When I became more intimate with him, I was privileged by an introduction to his wife, who did not associate at all with the ladies of the country. A wish crossed my mind soon after that my mother and she should meet. This was a most delicate matter, because, though I found the lady very charming, after all, from my mother's point of view, she was an 'infidel.' However, I secured her consent, and she met the English lady with a considerable amount of shyness. On account of the Englishwoman's inability to speak Turkish sufficiently, they talked very little. Notwithstanding this, my mother liked her visitor greatly, and she afterwards repeatedly expressed to me her regret that such a nice woman should not be a follower of 'the true religion of God,' that is to say, Islam. I used to ask many questions of the Consul about his country, and I think my inquiries must have been of the most ridiculous description, for while they answered me most kindly, wife and husband exchanged words in their own tongue and smiled the whole time. I was so afraid of the prejudices of my people that I did not even venture to express to the Consul my then most unrealisable desire of visiting England.
When the three months' vacation given to me that year came to an end, I started for Constantinople again. Having gained sufficient seniority in the madrasseh I was now free from serving any tutor. I had a room which I shared with an Albanian fellow-pupil. That year I made progress in the study of Mohammedan law, which is always taught in the Arabic language. Two more years passed. The next summer vacation I wanted to see some new country, so I took a French liner for Beyrout, where I had a relation. On my way I stayed at Smyrna, and visited the Turkish islands of Chios and Mitylene. During my travels I saw many young men who, having completed their studies in modern colleges, had been appointed by the Government to various posts in the provinces, with salaries which at that time seemed to me higher than could have been expected by any young man. An idea crossed my mind that I might change the course of the antiquated studies on which I was wasting my time. On making inquiries about a rational system of education to which I could devote myself, and by which I might eventually make a future career and earn a competence, I found that an entrance examination was going to take place in three months for the newly established law college. The Government wished to find trained officials for the new courts, and qualified advocates for the bar. I determined to try my luck; and a young officer from the military academy, who was residing close to our madrasseh, gave me, as a favour, some coaching for the examination in geography and arithmetic, the two subjects in which I was most backward. I passed the examination fairly well, and joined the law l institution.
As I said before, all the progress of the educational institutions of modern creation has of late been lamentably hampered by the interference of the Sultan's palace Government, whose principal desire is to crush the growing liberalism. I should, however, mention here, to the credit of the Porte, that these institutions were originally founded, and have always been maintained, at the expense of the State, and that they are mostly free and open to students of all classes of people, without distinction of race or faith. In our first year's class at the law college, in which there were about forty-five students, the number of Armenians alone reached thirteen.
By giving some account of the subjects taught us in the law college of Constantinople, I shall be able to state in brief the nature of the statutes and constitution of the Ottoman empire and its judiciary institutions.
Besides a few subjects which are of general interest to all trained lawyers and legal officers, there are various courses of lectures on the civil code and its procedure, criminal law and its procedure, land law, commercial and mercantile law, digest of administrative regulations, chapters on international law and capitulation treaties, and so forth. The civil code is based upon the rules established in succeeding centuries from the time of the Ommiade and Abbaside Caliphates down to the early days of the Ottomans, as set down by various Arabic books, which were compiled by the early Moslem jurists, who have made many commentaries on them. The civil code of Turkey, therefore, is based entirely upon the ordinances of the Mussulman secular law. It was framed by a board of men well versed in the literature and the jurisprudence of the Moslem East. This board was formed during the reign of the late Sultan, and it took nearly fifteen years to carry out the necessary researches and frame the code as it now exists. It is noteworthy that, as has been shown by competent authorities, there are many essential points of resemblance between this code and the civil laws of some European nations which have borrowed their materials from the sources of Roman law. The procedure of the Turkish civil code is based partly on the French system and partly on the usages which existed in the ancient courts of Turkey. The land law is also based on the principles of the Mussulman secular law relating to land and estates, and on the established precedents existing in the empire. This law is of much interest to Europeans residing in Turkey, because while, so far as the criminal and civil cases are concerned, those Europeans enjoy the protection of their capitulation privileges, with regard to the land law they are subject to the complete jurisdiction of the Ottoman Government. The reason of this is that when the representatives of the Great Powers demanded that the Porte should grant to their subjects the right of acquiring property in the Ottoman dominions, the Porte insisted that, as a counter-concession, the Powers should renounce the capitulation privileges, and thus leave their subjects under the jurisdiction of Turkey, so far as the acquisition of land and cases arising from it were concerned. The criminal law and its procedure, the procedure concerning the formation of courts, and commercial law are almost entirely copied from the French judicial system, while the mercantile law is copied partly from France and partly from Holland. Most regulations of various kinds promulgated since the Treaty of Paris have been adopted from the State regulations of some of the Continental Powers, more especially of France. In many cases they have been adopted without much regard to the local requirements of the Levant. The pressure put upon the Porte by the Great Powers at different periods for the introduction of reforms is responsible for the hasty adoption of the least suitable of these legal and administrative laws.
The details I have given above will give some idea of the existing statutes and constitution of the Ottoman Empire. When you open your best books of reference to see what are the laws of Turkey, you will find in one this useful piece of information:—"The Koran is the legal and theological code upon which the fundamental laws of the Empire are based," while in another you will see the following illuminating passage:—".... Fundamental laws of the Empire are based upon the precepts of the Koran. The next to Koran the laws of Multeka" (!) I have no doubt this last bit of knowledge is borrowed from the meaningless writings of Canon McColl on Turkish matters. I have often pointed out to Englishmen of my acquaintance many of the mistaken notions prevailing in this country on the affairs of the nearer East. The answers and reasons given to me were always the same—namely, that Englishmen are not much interested in Turkish matters nowadays. This indifference on the part of Englishmen is the chief reason why the prestige of Great Britain is doomed to disappear in the Levant. If the editors or writers of such productions as those I have quoted are also of the opinion that Englishmen do not now take an interest in the Turkish empire, I should think that, instead of filling up their pages with ridiculous inaccuracies, they would be better advised not to write anything on Turkey at all.