We mentioned last week that the renewal of the war
would probably be preceded by the deposition of the Sultan, and on Monday the Daily News published a long telegram to the same effect from its correspondent at Constantinople. He intimates that on one day in the previous week everything had been arranged for the overthrow of the Sultan, but the conspiracy was stopped by information that in the event of a revolution the Russians would enter the capital. The people and the soldiery are represented as alike hostile to the Sultan, the Pashas are quarrelling with each other, and if both Russian and English influence were withdrawn, the throne would fall. This statement reveals one of the many difficulties produced by the present policy of the Government. They cannot prevent the Turkish Government from destroying its own authority by a series of Palace revolutions, which will end some day either in the downfall of the House of Othman, which would be the signal for an explosion in Asia, where Arab and Turk are watching each other-jealously—four Turkish regiments are en route to Mecca— or in the retreat of a Sultan to Broussa, where he would be among his Asiatic subjects, and out of the way of worrying Ambassadors. The English may defeat Russia by helping revolu- tion, but they are destroying the only principle of cohesion left alive in the Turkish provinces, the deep reverence for the House "with which Islam will fall."
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