We are officially assured that the change in the Ministry will in no way impede the progress of reform, which has already been carried out in the Department of Justice, and which is soon to be applied to the civil administration. The plan has already been elaborated. It has been sent to the Valis for their approval, and will soon be submitted to the Eastern Roumelia Commission, after which it will be considered by the Sultan and, if approved by him, will be proclaimed in the form of a new _Hatt_. It professes to be a plan for a reorganization of the Vilayets, on the principle of decentralization and local self-government. It does not seem to excite much interest in any quarter, probably for the reason that all this exists already _on paper_, and that if Aali Pacha could not execute the elaborate scheme, which he proclaimed when the Vilayets were organized, there is not much probability that the new _Hatt_ will be any more effective. The people of Turkey have no faith in paper reforms. They are issued as easily as paper money, and are as easily repudiated; they are like leading articles in the daily papers--they are written, read, and forgotten, alike by the author and the reader, within the twenty-four hours. There is an old proverb current among the Turks which says, "The decrees of the Sultan last three days--the day they are made, the day they are kept, and the day they are forgotten." If the proverb were a new one, the second day would be omitted. The reforms which have been completed by Said Pacha, the Minister of Justice, are not of a nature to encourage the hopes of the people. A large number of new officials have been appointed, but they are of the same class as those already in office. Indeed, there seems to have been a special purpose in these appointments of making it known to the people that no change was to be expected in the method of administering the law. Only seventeen out of one hundred and eighty-three of these new officials are Christians, and the Turkish papers take pains to declare that it is absurd to suppose that Christians are competent to hold these offices. This is the result of the demand of Lord Salisbury that the Courts of the Empire should be reorganized under European control. They will continue to be what they have been, and it will be but a small consolation to the suffering people of Turkey to know that they have been condemned in strong terms by the British Government. The worst feature of the case is that the law offers no man any protection against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. A man may be thrown into prison and kept there for years without any trial or any knowledge of the charges brought against him. Such cases are very common. Or he may he beaten by the police, or chained in a dungeon, on the most frivolous charge. I knew a case the other day of a Greek who was severely beaten because he requested a police officer to arrest a Turk who was plundering his shop in broad day.