27 DECEMBER 1884, Page 2

Disquieting rumours arrive from Constantinople. The Turkish Cavalry have recently

been in mutiny for arrears of pay, and the Treasury has with great difficulty scraped together enough to keep them quiet, and in doing it has increased the discontent among the Infantry. So great is the financial distress that the Porte recently issued an order that all provincial receipts should be forwarded intact to Constantinople, thus depriving the provincial Governors of all means of paying local agents. A furious quarrel has accordingly broken out between the Treasury and the Grand Vizier, and the Sultan apparently does not choose either to be victorious. Munir Pasha, the Finance Minister, who resigned on Wednesday, has been ordered to re- tain office. To add to the confusion, the Sultan has seen reason to suspect the Circassians, to whom he entrusts his personal safety, of plotting a revolution, and this week all their chiefs were arrested. They were speedily released; but the ruling Turks are evidently beginning to despair; and when that is the case the Oriental mind thinks first of a change in the depositary of power.