There seems to be no doubt that the Turkish troops
have got out of hand, and maddened by incessant attack, by privations, and by the Mussulman feeling that for Christians to rebel is insolence, are pursuing a policy of extirpation. The villages of the MOnastir district have been destroyed, and "convoys of prisoners have been murdered by their escorts on the way." The fate of the village women who cannot fly to the hills is horrible. We mention Monastir because the facts are admitted even in Constantinople; but it is believed in Sofia that the whole of Macedonia is being ravaged, as the Palatinate once was by the troops of Louis XIV. The insurgents, of course, retaliate by killing the men of the Mussulman villages, and it really appears probable, if the civil war lasts, that the province may lose the greater part of its population. Apart from the mutual slaughter, the troops and the villagers, who, as Mr. Braileford shows in the September Fortnightly Review, live only from hand to mouth, cannot both be fed, and starving Asiatic soldiers will commit almost any atrocity to discover stores of food. Nevertheless the Powers do not stir, and the Concert of Europe, which is supposed to guarantee the world against such horrors, takes no step to avert them, and remains, in fact, in a condition of suspended animation. Perhaps the murder of the American Vice-Consul at Beyrout, reported on Thursday, and the vigorous steps taken by the United States Government to secure reparation, may give it the necessary momentum. On all grounds the statement that the British Government has placed all the facilities of the Malta Dock- yard at the disposal of the American Admiral will be received here with profound satisfaction.
