The meeting of British sympathisers with the Christians of the
Herzegovina and Bosnia which was held in London on Thursday was not a very brilliant one. The best card played was a letter from Lord Russell, rather less incoherent than his letters have been of late, in which he spoke strongly of the wastefulness and tyranny of Turkish rule, and said that if the Powers of Europe could not compel Turkey to perform the promises which she has so often made and as often broken to her Christian subjects, the only resource was to obtain for the people of "Croatia and Herzegovina,"—we suppose Croatia was a slip of the pen for Bosnia,—some form of self-government. The speeches of Mr. Lewis Farley and his friends were not very practical, and the resolutions did not even urge any definite course on the British Government. Mr. Farley,—who, as Lady Strangford reminded him, in a rather clever letter published on the day of the meeting, has changed his side rather suddenly, — gave a graphic description of the exactions and barbarities of the Turkish Government in the insurgent provinces. "The Turkish officials take from them one-third of their crops of wheat, barley, oats, vegetables, fruit, besides the half of their hay, and they compel each family to sow 20 okes of wheat for their
special use. When these officials travelled the wretched peasants were obliged to provide horses and provisions, and if one of them wanted to build a house in a village, it was the village which must furnish the materials. They forced the young girls to come and dance before them, and then insulted them by their licentiousness." In other words, Turks treat the Christians as dust beneath their feet, and the Christians regard the Turks as the trampled regard the tramplers. But to publish that will not mend the matter, without urging a policy on the British Govern- ment, and this Mr. Farley and his colleagues seemed purposely to avoid.
