MASSACRES.
It is perhaps as difficult as it is useless to ascertain whether "mazzacrium," a word of the low Latin, is the root of "massacre," or whether "massacre" is the root of "mazzacrium."
A massacre signifies a number of men killed. There was yesterday a great massacre near Warsaw—near Cracow. We never say: "There has been a massacre of a man; yet we do say": "A man has been massacred": in that case it is understood that he has been killed barbarously by many blows.
Poetry makes use of the word massacred for killed, assassinated: "Que par ses propres mains son père massacré."—Cinna.
An Englishman has made a compilation of all the massacres perpetrated on account of religion since the first centuries of our vulgar era. I have been very much tempted to write against the English author; but his memoir not appearing to be exaggerated, I have restrained myself. For the future I hope there will be no more such calculations to make. But to whom shall we be indebted for that?
MASTER.
SECTION I.
"How unfortunate am I to have been born!" said Ardassan Ougli, a young icoglan of the grand sultan of the Turks. Yet if I depended only on the sultan—but I am also subject to the chief of my oda, to the cassigi bachi; and when I receive my pay, I must prostrate myself before a clerk of the teftardar, who keeps back half of it. I was not seven years old, when, in spite of myself, I was circumcised with great ceremony, and was ill for a fortnight after it. The dervish who prays to us is also my master; an iman is still more my master, and the mullah still more so than the iman. The cadi is another master, the kadeslesker a greater; the mufti a greater than all these together. The kiaia of the grand vizier with one word could cause me to be thrown into the canal; and finally, the grand vizier could have me beheaded, and the skin of my head stripped off, without any person caring about the matter.