“In travelling through Palestine they are as free as in any of our Indian provinces. The laws may not be perfect—very few are—but they are found adequate in most cases to protect life and property. It is true that they were not always so. About a hundred years ago, and, indeed, until the middle of the nineteenth century, there was as little liberty in Turkey for the Christians as there is at the present day in Russia except for the Orthodox Greeks. But all that has long been changed in the Ottoman Empire. Seventy years ago Sultan Mahmoud thus publicly expressed himself: “‘I desire that in future a Moslem shall only be distinguished as such at his mosque, the Christian at his church, and the Jew at his synagogue.’ “In these words he manifested his intention to regenerate the Empire by the complete emancipation and assimilation of the races under his rule; he announced the inauguration of a new era of reform. But it was his son and successor, Abdul Medjid, who actually introduced the new system, the ‘Tanzimat,’ by the proclamation of the ‘Hatti-Sherif of Gulhanè’ on November 9, 1839. This was followed by the establishment of the Criminal Code in 1840 and the Commercial Code in 1850. Both of these were chiefly based upon the Code Napoléon and have worked well. But the most important enactment of all was the publication of the firman of 1854 which guaranteed the perfect equality of Christians and Moslems before the law. These were the first-fruits of the Sultan’s efforts to carry into effect the reforms promised by the Hatti-Sherif of Gulhanè. The next stage of the Tanzimat was reached after the Crimean war by the Hatti-Humayoun of 1856, which extended the reforms to the civil and military administrations, etc.” Thus far the authority I have quoted. When we bear in mind the conservative nature of Orientals generally and their hatred of any departure from their national practices and traditions, it is truly wonderful that the changes brought about in the internal constitution of the Empire by these decrees have not resulted in a violent upheaval of the Moslem population. It is a remarkable proof of the respect and veneration in which the Sultan is held by his subjects that they should have submitted so peacefully to such a startling revolution in their national life.