The Times correspondent at Constantinople sends to the Wednesday issue
of his paper an extraordinary story of a conflict which has arisen between the German Embassy and Fehim Pasha, the chief of the secret police. The latter is an aide-de-camp of the Sultan, in high favour at the Palace, and has long been notorious for the blackmail he has levied from local merchants. Recently he seized a cargo of wood bought by a German firm for consignment to Hamburg, and when the German Ambassador sent a dragoman to take delivery, he used force to hinder him. Baron Marschall von Bieberstein is not a man to take insults lightly, and he has accordingly sent a Note to the Porte describing Fehim as a "brigand" and a "notorious criminal who dishonours the personal prestige of the Sultan," and demanding the punishment specified for the offence in the criminal code. Such punish- ment is loss of rank and either perpetual banishment or penal servitude for life, and there is likely to be a fierce contest before the German Ambassador carries his point. The German Embassy has the gratitude of all the other foreign missions in is manful crusade against this intolerable blackmailing.
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