It is interesting to learn that the British appear to
be very popular just now in Constantinople, the result of our having in the past shown sympathy for the more liberal-minded Turks, and having done our best to protect them. The new British Ambassador, Sir Gerard Lowther, who arrived at Con- stantinople on Thursday, was met by a large crowd of Young Turks carrying a huge banner, and their leaders were actually presented to the Ambassador by Saad-ed-Din Bey, the repre- sentative of the Foreign Office,—an incident which reads like a record of one of the revolutions of 1848. Sadik Bey, a Young Turk, made a speech welcoming the Ambassador, who came at so solemn a moment in the history of the Empire. Sir Gerard Lowther, we read in the telegram in Friday's Times, after thanking the Committee of Young Turks for their welcome, " proceeded in his carriage at a walk, followed by the crowd cheering and waving flags." A curious item of information, also appearing in Friday's Times, is that on Wednesday night an Irade was issued ordering the release of all prisoners, whatever their offences, who had served two- thirds of their sentences. The prisoners who were not eligible for release under this order protested, however, so vigorously that the prisons were soon empty. Such an indiscriminate jail-delivery—tyranny imprisons ruffians as well as innocent people—can hardly be called a very auspicious event. When two thousand respectable inhabitants of the capital protested, the Grand Vizier declared that he had nothing to do with the issue of the Irade.
