(1.) The Kavasses, doing duty in the capital and attached to embassies and other foreign offices.
(2.) The Seymen, doing police duty at Constantinople.
(3.) The Zaptiehs, foot police for the service of the district administration.
(4.) The Soubaris, mounted police, charged with the superintendence of public safety; with the office of receiving the taxes from the villages and transmitting them to the authorities; and with the duty of accompanying overland mails, travellers, etc.
(5.) The Bekchis, or rural police, placed at the Beklemés or guard-houses on all the main roads.
(6.) The Teftish, or detectives.
The uniform worn by the Kavasses consists of a black cloth coat and trousers, braided with gold, a belt, and a formidable-looking Turkish sword and pistol. That of the detectives is similar, but they carry no arms. The rest of the police wear a uniform similar to that of the Zouaves, of dark blue shayak, braided and turned up with red, a black leather belt and a cutlass. The Soubaris have long guns, and all wear the fez. The officers’ uniform is similar to that of the officers’ in the army. The arms are supplied by the Government, and a new suit of clothes allowed every year.
When this body was first organized, some attention was paid to enrolling in it men of respectable character. The increase of pay and the regularity of the pay-days gave it for some time a better name than the old force; but, unfortunately, hardly had the people begun to feel the benefit of the changes created during the reform fever, than these were set aside to make room for the economical mania that took possession of the administration on the formation of a new ministry. This latest epidemic, of the many that have attacked Turkey, was fatal to the provincial administration in general, and affected the police in particular. Their numbers were reduced, and pay diminished, and irregularly distributed. The guard-houses on the highways, which had been established at the distance of four miles from each other, and intrusted to Bekchis, who were held responsible for the security of their districts, were abandoned and fell into ruin, or were occupied by worthless fellows who undertook the duty for a small recompense, which proving difficult to obtain, these so-called “guards” were compelled to make up their financial deficits as best they could.
I heard of a fellow of this kind who had taken the post of Bekchi in a mountain pass as a chiplak, or tattered Albanian, but who after a year had passed was the owner of 700 goats and a fine house, and was dressed in all the glory of his national costume.
How did he obtain it? is a question not easily answered if put to a great many of his class. I do not, myself, find the problem difficult of solution. These amateur guards would seem to be the connecting link between the police and the brigands; if, indeed, any such link were needed.