von Thurn probably borrowed the rules which Baron Codelli, the mayor
of Ljubljana, was elaborating at this time. "In the streets of the
town and the suburbs," says the Baron, "smoking has become of late a
general practice. The pleasure of smoking tobacco, which its partisans
can sufficiently enjoy in their abodes, by the river and in the
fields, makes them forget what is seemly, and, moreover, they
disregard the peril that may arise from conflagrations, especially
when their pipes are not shut. Several fires, due to this
pipe-smoking, which is contrary to the police regulations, have not
sufficed to lead the culprits back to the respect and precaution which
they should preserve for the goods and property of their
fellow-citizens. To satisfy the general well-being and to satisfy the
police with regard to fires, it is forbidden to smoke tobacco, and
especially cigars, in the streets and squares of this town and the
suburbs, with the penalty of losing the pipe if a police-agent catches
anyone with it in his mouth, and in the case of a repeated offence the
penalty will be more serious."
IN SERBIA THE PEOPLE ARE FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM
This system of tutelage may have had its irksome moments; the Turkish
rule in Serbia was such that any people with blood in their veins
were bound to rebel. Sooner or later a race like the Serbs, who lived
always with the songs of their old heroes and who gloried in their
heiduks, were sure to dash themselves against this alien master. Kara
George had seen that the Serbs in the Banat were prosperous, while in
Serbia they were obliged to stand and watch the janissaries come back
to the pashalik of Belgrade, though the Turks had sworn this should
not be. Then the match was set to the fire--in January 1804 the Da-Hi,
the chiefs of the janissaries, after having slain Mustapha Pasha, the
enlightened Turkish Governor, who was known affectionately as "the
mother of the Serbs," cut off the heads of a number of Serbian
leaders; seventy-two of them on pikes were made into an awful avenue
of trees. But even as the snowstorms beat against these Serbian heads,
so Kara George and his companions from Šumadija, the heart of
Serbia, flung themselves against the janissaries and vanquished them.
This was what the Serbs had started out to do, and so for the moment
Constantinople had been content to look on. However, when the Sultan
was told that his unruly vassals had seized the whole of Šumadija
and the departments of Valjevo and Pojarevac, he sent against them the
Pasha of Bosnia, who demanded that they should lay down their arms.
But now the Serbs had seen what some day they might struggle to--the
liberation of their country. They had climbed a few steps up the stony
path, they would not let themselves be lured back to the plain. Let
Austria or some other one of the Great Powers guarantee their rights.
The Pasha would not hear of it, and so these few undaunted men
resolved to fight the Turkish Empire. An army came at once to stamp
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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