The sale of offices continues to be the chief source of income of the State.  The candidates borrow the money at a high rate of interest from some Armenian business house, while the government permits these “lease-holders” to recoup themselves by the exploitation of their provinces to whatever extent they wish.  Withal, they must fear either a higher bidder, who leaves them no time to get rich, or the State, if they happen to have grown rich.  The provinces know beforehand that the new pasha has come to rob them.  They, therefore, prepare themselves.  Interviews are held, and if no agreement is reached, war is waged, or if an agreement is broken a revolution takes place.  As soon as the pasha has settled with the Agas, he stands in fear of the Porte.  He, therefore, combines with other pashas for mutual protection, and the Sultan must negotiate with the future neighbors of a new pasha before he can appoint him.  In a very few pashaliks, to be sure, the beginning of a better order of things has been made, the administrative and military powers have been separated, and the taxpayers themselves have agreed to higher taxes, provided they are permitted to pay them directly into the State treasury.

Presents are as customary here as everywhere in the Orient.  Without a present the man of lower station is not permitted to approach his superior.  If you ask justice of a judge you must take him a gift.  Officials and officers in the army are given tips, but the man who receives most presents is the Sultan himself.  The expedient of adulterating the currency has been used to the point of exhaustion.  Twelve years ago the Spanish dollar was worth seven piasters; today it is bought for twenty-one.  The man who then possessed one hundred thousand dollars has discovered that today he has only thirty-three thousand.  This calamity has hit Turkey worse than it would have affected any other country, because very little money is here invested in land, and most fortunes consist of cash capital.  In the civilized countries of Europe a fortune is the result of having created something of real worth.  The man who wins his wealth in this way is increasing at the same time the wealth of his State.  His money merely represents the abundance of goods at his disposal.  In Turkey the coin itself is the thing of value, and wealth is nothing but the accidental accumulation of money within the possession of an individual.  The very high rate of interest, which is here legally 20 per cent, is far from indicating any great activity of capital.  It only indicates the great danger of letting money out of one’s immediate possession.  The criterion of wealth is the ease of its removal.  The Rajah will probably buy jewelry for one hundred thousand piasters in preference to investing his money in a factory, a mill, or a farm.  Nowhere is jewelry better liked than here, and the jewels which, in rich families, even children of tender years are wearing are a glaring proof of the poverty of the country.