Sir H. Drummond Wolff, M.P. for Christchurch, the English Commissioner
in East Roumelia, received a banquet at Bourne- mouth from some of his constituents last Saturday, and made them a speech, in return for the toast of his health, in which he pointed out that the Sultan was the head of the Mahommedan 'religion, and though quite willing to treat all other religions with tolerance, could not afford to propose treating the true religion of which he was the chief organ, on a par with all the false religious which he sufferea with the sufferance of scorn. Whenever they had been fairly beaten in war, said Sir H. D. Wolff, the Turks were willing to accept their defeat, and assent to constitutions which gave Mahommedans no advantage over the believers of other creeds ; but where they had not yet been beaten, they were not. And this conclusion Sir H. D. Wolff appeared to think, if not satisfactory, at least inevitable. He had no remedy to propose, except persuasion—as much and as useless as you please—and he then went on quite calmly to descant on the advantage of keeping Turkey astride of the Bosphorus, if only for the sake of keeping Russia out. Why, it is, as he himself showed, only where Russia had not been kept out, that any improvement has been got in,—which seems to us solid ground rather for regretting, than for exulting, that Russia was kept out so much as she was. As physical nature used to be thought "to abhor a vacuum," political nature is now held by a large party to abhor a Russian, and they would call in violenoe, anarchy, corruption, and lust, rather than admit any kind of order founded on a Russian basis. It is a curious and childish superstition, lamest pathetic in its imbecility.
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