officers of the United States steamer San Jacinto, and the French frigate Charlemagne, came to the rescue with their men and fire-engines, and the flames were finally quelled.  The proceedings of the Americans, who cut holes in the roofs and played through them upon the fires within, were watched by the Turks with stupid amazement.  “Mashallah!” said a fat Bimbashi, as he stood sweltering in the heat; “The Franks are a wonderful people.”

To those initiated into the mysteries of Turkish politics, these fires are more than accidental; they have a most weighty significance.  They indicate either a general discontent with the existing state of affairs, or else a powerful plot against the Sultan and his Ministry.  Setting fire to houses is, in fact, the Turkish method of holding an “indignation meeting,” and from the rate with which they are increasing, the political crisis must be near at hand.  The Sultan, with his usual kindness of heart, has sent large quantities of tents and other supplies to the guiltless sufferers; but no amount of kindness can soften the rancor of these Turkish intrigues.  Reschid Pasha, the present Grand Vizier, and the leader of the party of Progress, is the person against whom this storm of opposition is now gathering.

In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman Power is rapidly wasting away.  The life of the Orient is nerveless and effete; the native strength of the race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of European institutions produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more exhausted than before.  The rosy-colored accounts we have had of Turkish Progress are for the most part mere delusions.  The Sultan is a well-meaning but weak man, and tyrannical through his very weakness.  Had he strength enough to break through the meshes of falsehood and venality which are woven so close about him, he might accomplish some solid good.  But Turkish rule, from his ministers down to the lowest cadi, is a monstrous system of deceit and corruption.  These people have not the most remote conception of the true aims of government; they only seek to enrich themselves and their parasites, at the expense of the people and the national treasury.  When we add to this the conscript system, which is draining the provinces of their best Moslem subjects, to the advantage of the Christians and Jews, and the blindness of the Revenue Laws, which impose on domestic manufactures double the duty levied on foreign products, it will easily be foreseen that the next half-century, or less, will completely drain the Turkish Empire of its last lingering energies.