NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE news from Constantinople is almost disastrous. Information that "disorders "—that is, massacres insti- gated by authority—have occurred all over the Empire accumulates at the Embassies, and the numbers of the dead are now believed to reach at least thirty thousand. The mass of property destroyed amounts to millions, while the number of families left destitute is so great that in parts of Armenia and Anatolia the American and British residents apprehend actual famine. Nevertheless, the six Powers re- main inactive, and are inclined to wait till spring, in order that the Sultan should not be able to say that he has not had "time" to carry out his reforms. The Sultan, therefore, feels safe, and utilises his respite to publish reports saying that everything is quiet everywhere, to compel the higher Armenian clergy to acknowledge that their countrymen began the trouble, and to intrigue with individual Powers, especially Germany, which he thinks is disinterested. He delays his assent to a proposal for stationing twelve foreign gun- boats instead of six, within the Bosphorus, although even the Porte has remonstrated at this; but he still maintains that the concession would impair his dignity and irritate the Mussulmans. Everything, therefore, for the present is arrested, except, indeed, the hunger of the Armenians.
