A letter from Cairo, in a journal of January 1824, contains a whimsical exemplification of Turkish manners in the provinces, and the absurdity of attempting to honour distant authorities, by the distinctions of civil society. A diploma of honorary member of the Society of Frankfort was presented to the Pacha, at the divan (or council.) The Pacha, who can neither read nor write, thought it was a firman (despatch) from the Porte. He was much surprised and alarmed; but the interpreter explained to him that it was written in the Nemptchee (German) language, contained the thanks of the ulemas (scholars) of a German city named Frankfort, for his kindness to two Nemptchee travelling in Egypt.
But the most difficult part was yet to come; it was to explain to him that he had been appointed a member of their society; and the Turkish language having no word for this purely European idea, the interpreter, after many hesitations and circumlocutions, at last succeeded in explaining, “that as a mark of respect and gratitude, the society had made him one of their partners.” At these words the eyes of the Pacha flashed with anger, and with a voice of thunder he roared that he would never again be the partner of any firm; that his partnership with Messrs. Briggs and Co. in the Indian trade, cost him nearly 500,000 hard piasters; that the association for the manufactory of sugar and rum paid him nothing at all; and, in short, that he was completely tired of his connections with Frank merchants, who were indebted to him 23,000,000 of piasters, which he considered as completely lost. In his rage, he even threatened to have the interpreter drowned in the Nile, for having presumed to make offer of a mercantile connection, against his positive orders.
The poor interpreter was confounded, and unable to utter a word in his defence. At this critical moment, however, Messrs. Fernandez, Pambonc, and others who have access to the Pacha, interposed; and it was some time before they could reduce his Highness to reason; his passion had thrown him into an hysterical hiccup. When his Highness was a little recovered, Mr. Fernandez endeavoured to explain to him that there was no question about business: that the ulemas of Frankfort were possessed of no stock but books, and had no capital. “So much the worse,” replied the Pacha; “then they are sahhaftehi, (booksellers,) who carry on their business without money, like the Franks at Cairo and Alexandria.” “Oh, no, they are no sahhaftehi, but ulemas, kiatibs, (authors,) physicians, philoussoufs, &c., who are only engaged in science.” “Well,” said he, “and what am I then to do in their society; I, a Pacha of three horse tails?” “Nothing at all, your Highness, like perhaps most of the members of their society, but by receiving you into their society, these gentlemen intended to show you their respect and gratitude.” “That is a strange custom, indeed,” cried the Pacha, “to show respect to a person by telling or writing to him in funny letters—you are worthy of being one of us.” “But this is the custom,” added Divan Effendi (his Secretary.) “Your Happiness knows that the friends (Franks) have many customs different from ours, and often such as are very ridiculous. For instance, if they wish to salute a person, they bare their heads, and scrape with their right foot backwards; instead of sitting down comfortably on a sofa to rest themselves, they sit on little wooden chairs, as if they were about to be shaved: they eat the pillao with spoons, and the meat with pincers; but what seems most laughable is, that they humbly kiss the hands of their women, who, instead of the yashmak, (veil,) carry straw baskets on their heads; and that they mix sugar and milk with their coffee.” This last sally set the whole assembly (his Highness excepted) in a roar of laughter. Among those who stood near the fountain in the middle of the hall, several exclaimed with respect to the coffee with sugar and milk, Kiafirler! (Ah, ye infidels!)
In the end the Pacha was pacified, and “All’s well that ends well;” but it had been better, it seems, if, according to the customs of the east, the society of Frankfort had sent the Pacha the unquestionable civility of a present, that he could have applied to some use.
ST. BRIDE’S CHURCH.
On the 11th of January, 1825, a sketch of this church was taken from a second-floor window in the house No. 115, Fleet-street, which stands on the opposite side of the way to that whereon the opening was made by the late fire; and the subjoined [engraving] from the sketch is designed to perpetuate the appearance through that opening. Till then, it had been concealed from the view of passengers through Fleet-street by the houses destroyed, and the conflagration has been rightly deemed a favourable opportunity for endeavouring to secure a space of sufficient extent to render the church a public ornament to the city. To at least one person, professionally unskilled, the spire of St. Bride’s appears more chaste and effective than the spire of Bow. In 1805, it was 234 feet high, which is thirty-two feet higher than the Monument, but having been struck by lightning in that year, it was lowered to its present standard.
St. Bride’s Church, London, as it appeared Jan. 11, 1825.
From the opening in Fleet-street made by the Fire of Sunday, November 14, 1824.
St. Bride’s church was built by sir Christopher Wren, and completed in 1680. It has been repeatedly beautified: its last internal decorations were effected in 1824. In it are interred Thomas Flatman the poet, Samuel Richardson the novelist, and William Bingley, a bookseller, remarkable for his determined and successful resistance to interrogatories by the court of King’s Bench—a practice which that resistance abated for ever: his latter years were employed, or rather were supported, by the kindness of the venerable and venerated John Nichols, Esq. F. S. A. whose family tablet of brass is also in this church. As an ecclesiastical edifice, St. Bride’s is confessedly one of the most elegant in the metropolis: an unobstructed view of it is indispensable therefore to the national character. Appeals which will enable the committee to purchase the interests of individuals on the requisite site are now in progress, and can scarcely be unheeded by those whom wealth, taste, and liberality dispose to assist in works of public improvement. The engraved sketch does not claim to be more than such a representation as may give a distant reader some grounds for determining whether a vigorous effort to save a building of that appearance from enclosure a second time ought not now to be made. The proceedings for that purpose are in this month, and are entitled to a place in this sheet.