About 1878 Dr. Wheeler, President of Euphrates College, imported a printing-press into Harpoot, where he set it up and ran it with great industry for several years. Only a local work was done there, while the general publication operations of the missions were carried on at Beirut and Constantinople. In the eighties the Turkish government began to put severe restrictions upon the press. The one at Harpoot was silenced and has so remained to this day.[1] Strict rules were promulgated to restrict printing in the empire. Formal permission must be procured in order to own a printing outfit, and strict rules were formulated for its conduct. All matter to be printed must first be submitted to a royal censor whose stamp of approval upon every article is necessary before it is put upon the press. The same stamp of approval which carries with it the sanction of the sultan must be printed upon the first page of every book, otherwise its issue, circulation, or even possession by a subject of the empire constitutes a crime. This approval must be obtained for every edition of the same book. It is almost as difficult to secure permission to-day to print a new edition of the Bible as it was after the appointment of the first censorship to print the first edition. Permission to print a book like the Bible carries with it no authority to print separately any part of the same. These rules have greatly hampered the work of the press, but have not by any means been able to stop the constant output of useful books and periodicals in the leading languages of the country. There is no department of missionary effort which has done more to open the eyes of the people and stir in them new desires and ambitions than this work of publication, taken in connection with the general educational operations. Many English books and periodicals find their way into these schools and are included in the libraries of the teachers and students. These too are subject to all the restrictive laws which hamper the press. The tendency is more and more to exclude all foreign books and periodicals and to have it almost a crime for a subject of Turkey to have in his possession a library of any kind. Many an Armenian has been arrested and thrown into prison for no other crime than the possession of a few harmless English books. No one has yet been bold enough to confiscate from the libraries of the missionaries the books which they possess, but this step has been repeatedly threatened. The officials, however, intercept many books in the mails or in transit by freight.