"If a Turk," added Mr. Vankovitch, "once renounces his wife before a witness, he cannot withdraw his renunciation. There is a story that a woman, who wished to be divorced from her husband, dressed up one of her female slaves in man's clothes and provided her with false whiskers and beard. On entering the harem late at night the husband found this disguised figure lying by the side of his wife. He was furious, and at once renounced the, as he thought, faithless lady. There is a curious law about marrying a divorced woman which is not generally known by Europeans," continued the speaker. "If a Turk has divorced his wife, but she wishes to return to him and he to take her, the lady first of all must be married to some other man, and the rites in their entirety be accomplished; the new spouse then divorces her. After this process she can return to her former husband.
"A husband who wishes to take to himself again his divorced wife, generally chooses some beggar, almost always a very old man; he then offers this elderly individual a sum of money to marry the lady and afterwards renounce her. Sometimes, however, there are difficulties in carrying out these arrangements. The lady takes a fancy to the beggar, and the beggar to the lady. The pauper will not divorce her, and the original husband is laughed at by the rest of the community."
There were 10,000 inhabitants in Yuzgat, but there was very little crime. Only one execution had taken place during the last fifteen years, and this had been for murder.
The town itself is, comparatively speaking, of recent date, its construction dating back 130 years. The neighbourhood abounds with mines, and I was assured that iron, silver, and coal had been found near the city.
The Armenians did not serve in the army as soldiers; but in lieu of military service, paid the Ottoman Government twenty-eight piastres thirty-two paras every year for each male child, from his birth to his death.
The Circassians, of whom there are a great many in this part of Turkey, are not compelled to join the army; but they have promised the Government that every able-bodied man amongst them shall turn out as an irregular horse or foot soldier, should his services be required.
The people in the province of Angora are taxed as follows:—If ground is cultivated, the proprietor gives the Sultan the tithe of the crop.
The owner of a house pays 4l. per 1000l. of the estimated value of his abode, that is to say, if he is living in it himself. If on the contrary he lets it, he must pay 40l. per 1000l. The tax for people engaged in trade or commerce, is 30 per cent. on their profits. If a merchant sells corn in a town, he has to pay a duty of two paras for every twenty okas of grain purchased from him, and should he dispose of a horse, sheep, or ox, in the market-place, he must give the Government 2½ per cent. of the proceeds of the sale. A farmer has to pay the Government four piastres a year if he is the owner of a goat, and three for each sheep he possesses. The collectors of taxes in almost every instance were Mohammedans; many of the Christians grumbled at the way they were assessed.
If an Armenian girl expresses a wish to become a Mohammedan, this gives rise to great jealousy between the Turks and Christians. At the same time the Armenians who profess the Armenian faith detest any member of their community who has accepted the Roman Catholic or Protestant doctrines. The Christians being much more intolerant towards the dissenters from their respective creeds than the Turks are to the Christians.
There has hardly ever been an instance of a Turk accepting Christianity, but the American missionaries in Asia Minor were said to have converted many Armenians to Protestantism.