This dreadful system of _espionage_ and the suppression of all intellectual liberty fell harder on the educated Mussulmans than on the Christian subjects of the Sultan, for despotism had no such fear of the Greek or Armenian as it had of the patriotic Turk, and the Christians therefore were not so closely watched and had more chance of public appointment. The Christians also had one important advantage over the Mussulman Turks in so much as their privileges allowed them to establish schools uncontrolled by the State, which provided a more liberal education than was possible in the Moslem schools. It can be readily understood, therefore, how patriotic Turks of the upper and middle classes, ground down under this tyranny that gave them no voice in the administration and placed over them mean men who were hurrying the country to its destruction, were prepared to join in any movement that promised a fair chance of overthrowing the Hamidian _régime_. It is also easy to understand that the Christians, who during this reign were deprived of some of their ancient rights, who were treated with a more galling contumely than ever before, as a subject and despised people, and lived in perpetual dread of massacre and outrage, welcomed the revolution that placed them on an equality with the Mussulmans; but how it came to pass that the Despotism became so intolerable to the masses of the Turkish people as to excite to rebellion even the patient, religious Moslem peasants, who had hitherto revered the Sultan as their spiritual ruler as well as their monarch, and had been blindly and fanatically obedient to his will, requires some explanation. The thrifty, hard-working Turkish peasants suffered as much as the Christians from the evils of the administration; they paid the same heavy taxes, and, like their Christian neighbours, they were cheated by the tax-collectors, being often illegally mulcted and most harshly treated by petty tyrants. The provincial officials did not receive their pay regularly, and so recouped themselves by corrupt practices. Thus the rich, by paying bribes, succeeded in many cases in avoiding taxation altogether, and many unfair exemptions were allowed; with the result that in some places nearly all the burden of taxation fell upon the poor. The peasants were shrewd enough to perceive that the money thus wrung from them did not produce any good for themselves or their country, but went to enrich the ruling clique, and that Constantinople swallowed up the huge sums that were collected in every part of the Empire. They knew that there were Ministries established in costly palaces and maintaining a large number of well-paid officials, while the result of this extravagant expenditure was not anywhere to be seen. Thus there was a Ministry of Public Works, but there were no roads or irrigation works; a Ministry of Police, but no protection of life and property; a Ministry of Justice, and no justice; a Ministry of War, and a starved army.