“There has probably never been a time in which the prestige of the Courts has fallen so low, or in which the administration of justice has been so venal and corrupt. The most open and shameless bribery is practised from highest to lowest; prompt, even-handed justice for rich and poor alike is unknown; sentence is given in favor of the suitor who ‘places’ his money most judiciously; imprisonment or freedom has in many places become a matter of bribery; robbers, when arrested, are protected by members of the Court, who share their spoil; a simple order may send an innocent man to prison for months; crime goes unpunished, and all manner of oppression and injustice is committed with impunity. The Cadis,[18] especially those in the cazas,[19] are, as a rule, ignorant men, with no education, knowing little of law, except the Sheri, on which they base their decisions, and sometimes not overmuch of that. As to the members, it is sufficient to say that they are nearly all equally ignorant of law, and that probably not twenty-five per cent. of them can write Turkish, or read the sentences to which they attach their seals. In the Commercial Courts, the Presidents are frequently entirely ignorant of the duties which they have to perform. The low pay of the Cadis, the short term—two years—during which they hold their appointments, and the manner in which they obtain them, render the receipt of bribes almost a necessity. The first thought of a Cadi who buys an appointment in the provinces is to recoup himself for his outlay; the second, to obtain enough money to purchase a new place when his term of office is finished. Even under this system men are to be found who refuse to receive bribes; and there are others who, whilst giving way to temptation, deplore the necessity to do so.”[20] The sequel to the Treaty of Berlin is found in the next chapter. The non-fulfilment of Ottoman promises in regard to Christian subjects, and the frequent massacres of the latter are an exact fulfilment of THE OFFICIAL PRAYER OF ISLAM which is used throughout Turkey, and daily repeated in the Cairo “Azhar” University by ten thousand Mohammedan students from all lands. The following translation is from the Arabic: “I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, [the _rejeem_] the accursed. In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful! O Lord of all Creatures! O Allah! Destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of the religion! O Allah! Make their children orphans, and defile their abodes! Cause their feet to slip; give them and their families, their households and their women, their children and their relations by marriage, their brothers and their friends, their possessions and their race, their wealth and their lands, as booty to the Moslems, O Lord of all Creatures!”[21] All who do not accept Mohammed are included among “the infidels” referred to in the prayer.