Last Sunday, on the third anniversary of the Con- stitution
at Constantinople, a disastrous fire broke out which destroyed, in Stambul, 2,500 houses and sixteen mosques. The fact that the fire broke out in more than one place, and that it broke out afresh on Monday, naturally suggests arson. The Turkish Government has announced that the rumours of arson are unfounded. There is little doubt, however, that public feeling in Constantinople is in a state of wild, though vague, uneasiness. The Vienna correspondent of the Times describes the tension as of the kind that has often preceded massacre and revolution. Arson is a familiar symptom of such periods of dangerous unrest. We trust that the symptoms may be falsified by the event, but it is at all events useless to be blind to the portents. The Albanian situation continues very serious.
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