TURKEY.
We have intelligence of serious collisions between the Turks and Christians in both Asiatic and European Turkey. In the former, the religious zeal of the Turks prompts them to fanatical excesses against the Christian population; in the latter, an obstinate struggle for political supremacy has already commenced between the respective followers of Christ and Mohammed. The sultan seems fated soon to be no more than the protector of European Turkey, for Bulgaria has been already made a principality as little dependent on the Porte as Servia and Bosnia; the Herzegovina and Albania are evidently aiming at the same privilege. Indeed the present position of Turkey appears any thing but satisfactory.
The persecution of the Christians in Asiatic Turkey is terrible. On the 18th of October an attack was to have been made on the Christians at Liwno, and one actually did take place on the 16th at Aleppo. A body of Turks and Arabs fell upon the Christians during the night, and a fearful massacre took place. The Greek bishop was among those murdered. The pacha locked himself up in the fortress, and the troops did not attempt to interfere. At Monasta, a fanatical dervish, who professed to be inspired, killed a Christian boy of fourteen years of age, and a certain Guiseppe Thomaso, an Italian emigrant, in the open street.
Accounts from Beyrout of the 4th of November state that for some years past the Turkish government has been desirous of subjecting the Syrian population to the recruitment system, but so great was the dissatisfaction the idea caused among the people that it refrained from doing so. At last, in September, it determined to execute the design, and it began operations. The people murmured; and bands of armed men, commanded by the Emirs Mohamet and Hassan, of the family of Harfourch, commonly known as the Emirs of Baalbeck, advanced toward Damascus, but were dispersed by the Turkish troops. It was believed that, after this, the recruiting would take place quietly, but the two Emirs reappeared at the beginning of October in the environs of Damascus at the head of between 3000 and 4000 men. A corps of the regular army, consisting of two battalions of regular infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, four guns, and 400 irregulars, under Mustapha Pacha, marched to meet them, and succeeded on the 16th of October in surrounding them in the defiles near Maloulah, six hours' distance from Damascus. The insurgents were obliged to give battle, and were completely defeated, with a loss of 1000 men; the two Emirs were captured. The loss of the troops was only thirty men. The village of Maloulah is inhabited principally by Christians, and the Turkish soldiers, exasperated at the resistance they made, pillaged some houses, carried off women, killed a Catholic monk, wounded another, and so seriously wounded a schismatic Greek bishop that he died afterward. They also completely sacked two convents, pretending that they contained gunpowder, and that insurgents had taken refuge in them. M. de Valbezene, the French consul at Damascus, exerted himself on behalf of the Christians, and, through his intervention, the seraskier of the army of Arabia promised assistance to the villages, and ordered the troops forthwith to give up all the articles taken from the churches and convents. The day after the battle, the Emirs were made to walk through the streets of Damascus in their shirts, with irons on their feet, and street-brooms on their shoulders. They were to have been subjected to the same punishment during five days, but suddenly they were sent off to Beyrout, from whence they were forwarded to Constantinople. This measure was taken in consequence of the breaking out of the revolt at Aleppo.
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, PERSONAL MOVEMENTS, ETC.
UNITED STATES.
The past month has been more fruitful of events of interest in the world of Art than its predecessor. This was to be expected; for the opening of what is called "The season," and the approach of the Christmas holidays rarely pass without the production of novelties in most of the various walks of Art. Booksellers, Print-publishers, Jewelers, and Managers of places of Public Amusement, all, in fact, who minister to taste and luxury, reserve for December their finest and most elaborate productions; and an examination of their advertisements, even, will afford the means of judging the point of refinement attained by the public mind, whose demands they at once create and supply.
A decided improvement, year by year, is to be noticed in the style of books and other articles intended for Christmas and New-year gifts. The Annuals which, some five or six years ago, began to droop, are now dead, utterly extinct. Their exaggerated romantic Prose, their diluted Della Cruscan Poetry, their great-eyed, smooth-cheeked, straight-nosed, little-mouthed, small-waisted beauties, have passed from their former world into the happy and congenial state of the Ladies' Magazines, where they will again have their day, and again disappear before advancing taste and superior education. The place of the Annuals is occupied, we will not say supplied, by editions of the great poets and writers of prose fiction, illustrated in the highest style of the steel and wood engraver. Some of the first artists of the day are now employed by publishers to furnish designs for such publications, and the eagerness with which they are bought, and the discriminating admiration which they, on the whole, receive, when regarded in connection with the generous support given to Art Journals, Art Unions, and Public Galleries, show in the public mind an increasing healthiness and soundness of taste, as well as a greater interest in matters of Art.
Prominent among events of moment in this department, is the opening to the public, at the Düsseldorf Gallery, of Lessing's Great Picture, The Martyrdom of Huss. The Düsseldorf Gallery had contained some of the finest modern paintings in the country, and had done much to keep alive the aroused interest of the public in the Arts of Design before the arrival of this, the greatest work of the acknowledged head of the Düsseldorf School; but now it is without doubt the centre of attraction to all lovers of Art on this side the water, for the great picture, whether regarded as to its intrinsic interest or its academic merits, has no rival here, and some enlightened enthusiasts say, none among modern paintings in the world. The picture appeals at once to popular sympathy, by the interest of its subject, the simplicity of its treatment, and by the striking reality and strong individual character of its figures. We gave, in the December number of this Magazine, a notice of this great picture, from a German paper, which renders any further description of it here unnecessary.