“Notwithstanding the favorable opinion entertained by many, it is difficult to believe in the improvement of the Turks. It is true that, under the pressure of the moment, benevolent decrees may be issued; but these, except under the eye of some Foreign Minister, are entirely neglected. Their whole system is radically vicious and inhuman. I do not refer to fables which may be invented at St. Petersburg or Vienna, but to numerous dispatches of Lord Stratford (de Redcliffe) himself, and of our own consuls, who describe a frightful picture of lawless oppression and cruelty.” (Sir Theodore Martin’s _Life of the Prince Consort_, vol. ii., p. 528.) Quoted by Canon MacColl, _The Contemporary Review_, January, 1895. Footnote 18: Judge. Footnote 19: Local districts. Footnote 20: Report of Mr. Wilson, _Blue-Book_, Turkey, No. 8 (1881), page 57, No. 48. Footnote 21: _The Mohammedan Missionary Problem_, p. 31. Jessup. Philadelphia, Presb. Pub. Soc. Footnote 22: _Blue-Book_, Turkey, No. 6, 1881, reports of Wilson, Bennett, Chermside, Trotter, Stewart, Clayton, Everett, and Bilotti. Footnote 23: _Blue-Book_, Turkey, 1881, p. 242. Footnote 24: Published by John Heywood, London, 1891, pp. 82–89. Footnote 25: Freeman, _The Turks in Europe_. Footnote 26: “Diplomatist,” “The Armenian Question” in _The New Review_, January, 1895. Footnote 27: Pp. 158–9. London: Cassell, Petter, & Galpin. Footnote 28: Speech in St. James’s Hall, December, 1876. Footnote 29: _The Nineteenth Century_, January, 1878. Footnote 30: From a descendant of Dahir Billah, the thirty-fifth caliph of Bagdad, Sultan Selim I. “procured the cession of his claims, and obtained the right to deem himself the shadow of God upon earth. Since then the Ottoman padishah has been held to inherit the rights of Omar and Haroun, and to be the legitimate commander of the faithful, and, as such, possessed of plenary temporal and spiritual authority over the followers of Mohammed.”[31] The Persians and Moors, however, reject this claim, and at the close of the Russian War not a few of the Arab muftis declared that the caliphate had been forfeited by the inglorious defeat of the Turks, and should now return to the Arab family of Koreish. Footnote 31: Freeman, _The Saracens_, p. 158. Quoted by Jessup, _The Mohammedan Missionary Problem_, p. 21. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1879. Footnote 32: Hughes, _Notes on Muhammadanism_, pp. 209, 210. Footnote 33: Hughes, _Notes on Muhammadanism_, p. 10. Footnote 34: Parts of this chapter are taken from an article, “Notes on the Armenian Massacre,” in _The Independent_, New York, January 31, 1895, by a high authority, who is compelled to sign himself “A Student of Modern History.” Footnote 35: Latham, _Russian and Turk_, p. 417. London: W. H. Allen, 1878. Footnote 36: Layard’s _Nineveh_. Footnote 37: