It is announced that the Russians have returned to the
lines of Tchataldja, thus again menacing Constantinople. The news caused a fall on 'Change, the English theory being that the Government of St. Petersburg, seeing the British occupied in Afghanistan, now intend to enforce their own interpretation of the Treaty of Berlin. The Russian explanation is that the Mabommedans are killing the Christians in Ronmelia, which seems to be true, the Sultan, instead of sending Regulars to protect the abandoned districts, having kept his men in Constantinople, to protect himself. The true explanation is, we suspect, that Sir Austen Layard has at last applied the only effective pressure to secure the carrying-out of reforms in Asiatic Turkey, namely, coercion through the English party, who could effect a revolution, and that the Russian party have given General Todleben a hint that a little counter-pressure would be welcome to the Sultan. The almost internecine struggle among parties in Constantinople is not over yet, and hardly will be without blood- shed, of one sort or another. Note some renewed rumours of the Czar's abdication, which would signify a triumph for a much less moderate school of statesmen in St. Petersburg ; and Prince Bismarck's anxiety that the leader of the peace party, Count Schouvaloff, should become Russian Chancellor.
