2 JANUARY 1886, Page 23

THE SULTAN'S TREASURY.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—You ask, "Where is the proof that the Crusaders [of the fourth Crusade] stole objects of art ?" and "if so, what did they do with them ?" On a journey I have no means of searching into original authorities ; but the record of what the Crusaders .did to works of art at Constantinople will be found in one of the most familiar chapters of Gibbon, and "what they did" with some of them may be seen on the west front of St. Mark's Church at Venice. Of "mere destruction," I should have said that the Crusaders were at least as guilty as the Turks, perhaps more so. Whether the Ottomans "ought to have inherited the plunder of the Seljuk Turks " is a question on which I cannot venture to enter.—I am, Sir, &c.,