Alarming telegrams arrive from Macedonia. It is stated that the
secret societies there have decided upon a rising in February, that they have collected money and arms, and that they are greatly emboldened by the result of the recent insur- rection in Crete. The Turkish Government is accordingly arming the Mussulman population, and sending Asiatic regi- ments into the province. We think this news serious. The Macedonians have been restrained with difficulty for some months, their friends in Athens clearly expect a rising, and the Albanians are getting ready to support their co-religion- ists. A massacre in Macedonia is exceedingly probable, and would affect all Europe. The Government of Greece would be compelled to interfere, and if an Austrian corps d'armee entered to restore order, the jealousy between Vienna and St. Petersburg might take an active form. The main strength of Turkey in Macedonia consists in the distrust between Greek Macedonians and Bulgarian Macedonians, and in an ecclesi- astical quarrel between two divisions of the Orthodox which we do not pretend clearly to understand. Apparently the local clergy favour an organisation which the Patriarch in Constantinople pronounces heretical.
