The news of the week from Crete is serious. The
Turkish Government, after a brief interval of hesitation, during which a project of selling the island appears to have been discussed, decided to put down "the insurrection " by force, and ordered reinforcements of from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand men, — thirty-five battalions in all. Abdullah Pasha, an energetic officer, was sent on in advance, and con- trived, with the troops already in the island, to relieve the garrison of Vamos, who had been besieged by Christian in- surgents. He intends to proclaim a "state of siege," that is, a military despotism, and to put down all resistance by slaughter. The Porte has been warned by the Powers that a massacre will be regarded with disfavour, but the Mussulmans are already killing Christians in all villages, and as the Cretans are by no means weak folk, but fight exceedingly well, the Turkish soldiery will probably become unrestrainable. Crete may therefore easily become the scene of a massacre like that in Selo in 1822, when eighty-five thousand people, the whole population in fact, were butchered, expelled, or sold publicly as slaves. It remains to be seen whether a benevolent Emperor of Russia and a highly modern Emperor of Germany will stand by and see this done without shelling Constantinople. It is a strange proof of the perfection of our new civilisation that massacre has been made easier to Turks than at any time within the half-century. The Vienna cor- respondent of the Times affirms—" let who will deny it "—that the number of Armenians murdered reaches eighty thousand. Why not, when the murders covered provinces P
