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ii Ex-Sultan Abdul Hamid’s Cruel 0
munents on “Eunmean
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The Deposed Turkish Despot in the Latest Chapters
of His Diary Says That Cultivated Europeans
Were Continually Applying to Him for Harem
Positions and That All Turkish Brigands Are
Christians.
r
E XTRACTS from the diary of Ex-Sultan
Abdul Hamid of Turkey, now appearing
In the German magazine Nord und Sud,
continue to excite keen interest. The vlllanous
deposed Sultan displays a curious mixture of
shrewdness, naivete and cynicism. The guiding
principle of his reign was to regard European
diplomats as a gang of conscienceless scoun
drels and all Christians as enemies of Turkey.
Here are some of the latest passages:
By Abdul Hamid,
Ex-Sultan of Turkey.
fHE brigandage that flourishes in Turkey
is made a constant reproach to us by
European newspapers, and it is but
a poor consolation to me to know that our
brigands are never burks, though they oper
ate in Turkey. Since the celebrated brigand
Athanasios stopped a train and stripped a
party consisting of about 100 German tour
ists I have never heard of so bold a robbery
as one that has just been reported to me. In
this last case the brigands waylaid the French
capitalist. M. Chevalier, director of the Cassan
dra silver mines on Mount Chalcidice, and
kidnapped him. This crime was carried out
in the heart of a city. They required a ransom
of $75,000, which has already been paid. The
unfortunate thing is that in these cases the
Turkish Government always has to pay the
money in the end. A few years ago M. Rey-
mond and Madame Branzeau, two French sub
jects, had to be ransomed at a cost of 250,000
francs.
Our brigands are nearly always Greeks. I
must admit that they plan ambushes, abduc
tions and robberies with an almost incredible
intelligence, but I wish they would work in
their own country. Unfortunately, if, by
chance, they are caught by our police, the
Greek Government Immediately claims them
as Greek subjects and so they escape hanging,
which is the only punishment that would check
their crimes.
UNUSUAL AMBITIONS OF EUROPEANS.
It has always been astounding to me to find
that a great many Europeans wish to take
service as guardians of my harem. I have re
ceived no less than three letters in one week
from well-educated Christians v/lio wished to
enter this peculiar career. One was a musi
cian in Paris, the second a German chemist,
and the third a Saxon merchant All of them
expressed the willingness to qualify fully for
the position.
What am I to think of the character of
Europeans when so many of them are willing
for pay not only to renounce their religion,
but to forfeit the title of man? Evidently they
knew that the position was handsomely re
munerated.
. I myself have always been In favor of abol
ishing the barbarous old guardianship of the
Imperial Harem, but it is difficult to interfere
with such a long-established practise. I deeply
pity the lot of these unhappy men who are
condemned to this cruel and degrading condi
tion in infancy through the greed of their
parents, but I can only feel contempt for adult
Europeans who are willing to enter ipto such
slavery. My body physician, Mavroyeni Bey,
informed me that 70 per cent of those des
tined for service as harem guardians die at
the outset of their career. I myself believe
that women and decrepit old men could per
form the service with perfect efficiency and
propriety
A censorship is an absolute necessity in
Turkey. It is foolish for foreigners to make
this institution u ground for criticising us. Our
conditions should not be judged from the view
point of the Occident. It may be that by reason
of the general education existing there a su
pervision of the press is unnecessary, but our
people are too simple, too credulous, too little
instructed. We must treat them as children,
for in the majority of instances they are noth
ing but big children. As European parents and
elders are accustomed to watch over their
children to see that no bad literature falls into
their hands, so must the Turkish Government
watch over the people to keep away evil and
poisonous literature. It Is extremely sad to
find that so many corrupting French novels
are finding their way into our Turkish harems,
poisoning the hearts and minds of our wives.
It is a poor consolation to find that these nasty
books are never sold by Turkish book sellers,
but always by Greeks, Armenians and
Europeans.
The Greeks and Armenians are amazing liars
and tale tellers. If the false reports which
they are constantly setting in circulation were
allowed to be published by the censor they
would cause serious disturbances among the
whole people and give foreigners an entirely
wrong impression of our conditions.
TAUGHT BAD HABITS BY GERMANY.
My friend, the German Kaiser, has just been
praising the progress which our officers sent
to study in Germany are making. I fear the
Kaiser is mistaken, for the report which my
special envoy to Berlin has sent me indicates
•hat these voung gentlemen are not doing much
good for their country. Naturally the Ger
mans are inclined to praise the system of send
ing our military students to their country, for
it costs us a great deal of money. I fepr that
these youths who go to Germany to study war
often forget the ancient virtues of the Osmanli
—simplicity and temperance—and learn habits
of immorality and beer drinking. They return to
us strutting peafcocks, who look down upon their
comrades, upon our old experienced generals
and upon our native customs. Osman Pasha
had no Prussian military training, but he was
a skilful and successful general. Theory and
book learning help little in war. Common sense,
courage and tenacity, and, above all, an un
swerving belief in Allah, are the qualities that
win battles.
It is a most important duty to people the
waste spaces within our empire, but the plan
of returning the Israelites to Palestine, now
supported by the wealth of the Rothschilds,
can do us no good. We should only tolerate
our own race and co-religionists within the
borders of our empire. We should rather seek
to bring back the flow of Mohammedan people
from Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria and other
parts of Europe. We should strengthen the
Mohammedan element as much as possible in
Roumelia and Asia Minor. We should, above
all, seek to assimilate the Kurds, who are good
Mohammedans, but somewhat restless.
(Note—The wild Kurds here spoken of with
approval by the Sultan have usually taken the
leading part in massacring Armenians.)
I deplore the luxury and extravagance both
in dress and living towards which our official
classes are tending. Our holy religion pro
claims the equality of all men, and we there
fore should aim at simplicity in our food and
dress. I set everybody a good example by
wearing a simple black coat at all banquets.
The extravagance of our functionaries to-day
is appalling. The Grand Vizier receives 350,-
000 francs a year, the Minister of Marine 414,-
000 francs, the other Ministers 330,000 francs,
and so on. We maintain no less than 40
Marshals and 60 Viziers, 30 Cabinet Ministers,
One of the Many Bitter Cartoons of Abdul Hamid When He Was Insti
gating the Armenian Massacres. These Cartoons, the Ex-Sultan Says,
Were Part of Europe’s “ Hypocritical” Campaign Against Him.
Types of Brigands Who Rob Europeans in
Turkey. The Sultan Says That No Brigand
in Turkey Is a Turk, and That European
Nations Made Him Pay for the Out
rages of Men of Their Own Race.
120 Companions of the Bala Order, 390 Com
panions of the Oula Order, 21 General Adju
tants, 125 Honorary Adjutants, 31 Acting Adju
tants, and so on. It is extremely difficult to
return to our old ideals of simplicity. The
lesser officials are the greatest sufferers by
the extravagance at the capital. While the
higher officials are excessively paid the poorer
ones receive nothing at all.
Our worst troubles are due to the machina
tions of the European Powers. If they would
only leave us alone for ten years we could ac
complish as much as the greatly admired Jap
anese. They are more fortunate than we, for
they lived too far away to be reached by the
long fingers of the Europeans. We,
unhappily, have pitched our tent
at the entrance to the den of the
European hyenas.
My Vizier. Kutschul: Said, has
made a singular proposal to me.
He says that Broussa should be
made the capital of the empire in
stead of Constantinople. It would
certainly be very difficult to carry
through such a project. All our
great memories are associated
with Constantinople. There we
have our ancient venerated
mosques and the relies of the
prophet. It would cost millions to
transfer our official hierarchy to
Broussa. It is true that we are
sitting upon a powder mine In
Constantinople, and that is why I
have taken Said’s plan into seri
ous consideration. If the Russians
should one dav seize Constanti
nople we should also lose the Cal
iphate. which would fall to the
Arabs, and then we should no
longer be the champions of Islam
throughout the world.
Are we Turks without honesty?
The European Powers seem to
think so. We have permitted them
to establish their own post offices
in Turkey, which can only mean
that Turks are not to be trusted
with the letters and valuable mall
of Europeans. Said Pasha in Ills
recent negotiations to have the
foreign post offices removed
from Turkey made a very sad
fiasco. The institution of foreign post offices
arose in this way: My predecessors on the
throne with good-natured carelessness long
ago permitted the official messengers of the
European Ambassadors to carry private let
ters. In this way a system was established
which has gradually grown into the vast for
eign postal system of to-day. Enormous sums
of money are lost to us through this institu
tion.
It is not fair to say that our post masters
are not fit to be trusted witli foreign mail
matter. Our post masters would do their duty
very w'ell if they were regularly paid. We
should remember that unpunctuality in paying
money and in other matters was never com
manded by the prophet. Little Japan has
succeeded in making the European Powers
remove their post offices from her territory,
and our country is the only one of importance
that still suffers this humiliation. Austria
possesses 30 post offices in the Turkish Em
pire, Russia 24, Franco 20, Italy 8, Germany 5,
England 4. and India 2.
TREACHERY OF THE YOUNG TURKS.
The Young Turks have had the impudence
to hold a regular congress In Geneva. Al
though the sessions were secret I am well in
formed about them. My informant has given
me a list of seventeen prominent names of
those who were present. Under the hypocriti
cal pretense of seeking to advance progress and
enlightenment the Young Turks are really
aiming to overturn the existing state of things,
to throw aside old and tried institutions and
establish new ones in their place. They wish
to take the places of good and honorable men
who have done their best for their country.
They are a miserable gang of hypocrites, who
have betrayed their religion and their Father-
land, for they are co-operating with our mortal
enemies, the Christian Powers, to bring about
the ruin of our faith and our race.
In order to give my Vizier a good example I
cut down my civil list (yearly expenditure)
by $250,000. It was thereafter $2,885,000 in
stead of $3,135,000. I have been criticized in
the European press because of the vastness
of my expenditure and the great state in which
I lived. My critics did not know that I had
to support a whole city, including my harem,
my guard, the enormous retinues at Yildiz
Kiosk and other palaces. I am not only the
Sultan, but the Caliph of the Faithful and the
father in a sense of all Islam. My purse be
longs to the Moslems of the whole world.
Allah knows that 1 have very little use for it
myself! My fortune has greatly increased dur
ing my reign through my economy and the
excellent care of the Ministers I have em
ployed. My forests and lands all return a
larger revenue than they ever did before. I
owe a largo increase of revenue to the clever
idea of Agoss Pasha, Minister of the Interior,
who suggested to me that I should declare all
unoccupied lauds in tho empire not belonging
to private persons to he the property of the
Sultan. My Secretary of the Treasury, Raghlb
Bey, also made a great deal of money for
mo by very successful speculation. His op
erations in South African gold mine share*
were especially profitable.
THE SUCCESSION TO THE THRONE.
I have long been considering the wisdom
of changing the method of succession to the
throne which has prevailed in the house of
Osman to that which obtains in European
royal houses, where the eldest son always
succeeds. Our family law, by which the oldest
member of the fatqily succeeds to the throne,
and not necessarily the oldest son. has ten io
many bloody wars In our country, as history
proves. Tho custom of succession by seniority
is a good one in family life among a simple
people, for the oldest surviving member o'
the family can best be relied on to watch over
his younger relations. When the succession
to r. great throne Is In question, however, it Is
wrong, for it leads to too much uncertainty
nnd rivalry. The rivalry of the brothers and
cousins of tho sovereign in the house of Osman
haB been the cause of many of our misfor
tunes. I informed the Sheikli-ul-Islam (the
highest spiritual authority of the empire, who
must sanction all laws) of my desire to change
the method of succession to the throne. He
agreed with me, but was unwilling to face the
storm of opposition which he knew would be
aroused. A cliango will be made when the
time is ripe! Yawash! Yawash!
CHRISTIANS IN THE TURKISH ARMY.
The idea of having our non-Mohammedan
subjects serve In our army is a foolish Utopian
scheme. It would be suicide for us to admit
to our army men of an alien religion on equal
terms with faithful believers. The next step
would be to introduce Christian priests as
chaplains, and after that to establish Christian
chapels in our barracks. These would perhaps
be the means of ruining many of our faithful,
but simple-minded, followers of the Prophet by
persuading them to desert their religion.
Equally foolish is the proposal to ..rente
Christian regiments In our army. Then we
would have Greek and Bulgarian regiments,
and in case of war we would find them shoot
ing our faithful Mohammedan soldiers in the
back. Truly, a fine idea and quite worthy of
the Young Turks!
Wo have every reason to distrust the Chris
tians whom we have permitted, with weak
good nature, to settle in our empire, for on
all possible occasions we find them conspiring
against us with the European Powers. Only
after a separation between Church and State
in the Turkish Empire could a common mil
itary service of Mohammedans and Christians
become thinkable. No Caliph can think of
such a disastrous measure. Islam must re
main a State religion.
The work of Baron von Oppenheim "From
the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf” proves
in a very striking manner the agricultural
value of the territory between the Euphrates
and the Tigris rivers. This shows that the
project of the Bagdad Railway, which I have
supported with all my power, is a very wise
one. We must push through this railway in
spite of all the efforts which England is mak
ing to upset our plans. This railway will re
store to use the ancient route by which the
trade of Europe went to and returned from
India, and the route will bo in Turkish hands.
With the help of irrigation Mesopotamia will
become once more the earthly paradise that it
was thousands of years ago. Tho branch of
the road leading to Syria and Palestine will
tap another tremendous source of commerce.
Of equal importance is the construction of
the Mecca line, because it is desirable in the
interests of our pious Moslem pilgrims. These
works will be carried through by German en
gineers, with German capital and the help of
Allah. Tho important thing at tlijs moment
is that German diplomacy shall not permit
itself to be “bluffed” out of this railroad en
terprise by tho hypocritical English. My sup
port of these projects is n sufficient disproof
of tho calumny so often spread against me by
Europeans that I am an enemy of progress.
Professor Munsterberg s Plan for Finding the Right Place for Every Man
T he Noted Harvard Psych
ogist Details His Methods o
of Choosing Efficient
Motormen and
Other Workers
“P
SYCHOLOGY and Industrial Effi
ciency,” by Professor Hugo Mun-
sterberg (Houghton and Mifflin
Company, Boston and New York), Is the most
important work yet published on the applica- •
tion of scientific psychological methods to the
problems of everyday life.
Professor Munsterberg outlines the methods
by which a boy may be guided scientifically
into the calling for which he is best fitted and
the employer obtain the most efficient em
ployee.
“No waste of valuable possessions is so
reckless aB that which results from the dis
tributing of living force i5y chance methods
instead of examining carefully how work and
workmen can fit one another.” says the Pro
fessor.
"The laborer w ho In spite of his best efforts
shows himself useless and clumsy before one
machine might perhaps have done satisfac
tory work in the next mill, where the machines
demand another type of mental reaction.”
Professor Munsterberg makes an interest
ing argument that only by laboratory methods
can the mental aptitudes of a person be ac
curately measured. He then proceeds to
■^escribe some practical psychological tests,
which he has devised for use in some of the
most important business callings.
Perhaps the most valuable experiments
carried out by Professor Munsterberg were de
signed to test the efficiency of telephone
girls. This work is, of course, extremely ex
acting. From the moment the speaker takes
off the receiver to the cutting of the connec
tion, fourteen separate psychophyical proc
esses are necessary, and even then it is pre
supposed that the telephone girl understood
the exchange number correctly. As a rule,
ihose demands cannot be satisfactorily ful
filled when a telephone girl has to handle
nniri than 225 calls in an hour. This num
ber is, however, often exceeded, and in ex
treme cases may rise beyond 300.
Inability to sustain these exacting require
ments for eight or nine hours a day, fre
quently leads to the nervous breakdown of
the employee. The Bell Telephone Company
employs sixteen thousand operators. Of these
more than one-third leave during the first
half year on account of unfitness to carry on
the work.
The object of Professor Munsterberg’s ex
periments was to select girls who could meet
the requirements without undue nervous
strain. He made experiments on thirty young
women who had recently entered the tele
phone training school. He resolved tbjlr
work into its psychological elements and this
led him to examine them with reference to
eight different psychological functions.
First he gave them a memory examination.
This consisted of reading to the whole class
first, two numbers of four digits, then two of
five digits, then two of six digits and so on
up to figures of twelve digits. He required
that they he written dow n as soon as a signal
was given.
To test their attention function, he required
them to cross out a particular letter in a con
nected text. Every one of the thirty women
in the class room received the same first page
of a freshly printed newspaper. As soon as
the signal was given, each one of the girls
had to cross out with a pencil every "a” in
the text for six minutes. After a certain time
a bell signal was given and each had to be
gin a new column. In this way he could
find out first, how many letters were correct
ly crossed out in those six minutes, secondly,
how many letters were overlooked, and. third
ly, how the recognition and the oversight
were distributed in the various parts of the
text.
The test revealed several classes of per
sons. Some crossed out many “a’s,” but also
overlooked many, others hardly overlooked
any, but proceeded very slowly. Others did
poor work at first but improved as they went
on, while others again started well, but soon
grew tired.
Another test was for general intelligence.
It consisted in reading to the pupils a series
of twenty-four pairs of words of which :hc
two members of the pair always logically be
longed to one another. Later one word of each
pair was read to them and the girl: had to
write down the word which belonged with it
in the pair. If the subject wrote down tin
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Card Deviled by Professor M- n-
i berg. Which Tests the Elements
of the Mental Function* of
the Perfect Motorman.
Hsyal2iau\3\i\a
How
the
Candidate
for
Motorman
Uses
the
Card
in
the
Teat.
The
Rows
Appear
Through
a Window
in a
Black
Band.
Quickness
in
Picking
Certain
Fixed
Number*
Determine*
His
Fitness.
entirely unrelated word she was evidently
lacking in general intelligence.
The last experiment was an association test
The Professor called six words like “book.”
“house,” “rain," and had them speak the first
word which came to their minds. The time
was measured in fifths of a second.
In studying the results the Professor found
that in memorizing up to ten digits the small
est number of actual mistakes was two, the
largest twenty-nine. There were fifty-four
possibilities of mistakes.
The professor graded each girl according
to her success in each test and then drew an
average which indicated her efficiency. With
this rank list he compared the practical re
sults obtained by the telephone company after
three months in the school. The result
showed that the women who had proved most
able in practical service Btood at the top.
Correspondingly those who stood the lowest
in the psychological rank list had in the
meantime been found unfit in practical service
and been eliminated. It is Important to note
that the telephone company had introduced,
unknown to the professor, several very ex
pert employes among the novices. If the
psychological experiments had indicated that
these women were inefficient, tho experiments
would have been completely discredited, bu!
in fact they confirmed the efficiency of those
employes.
Damages awarded against street railways
for accidents, due to the mistakes of inotor-
men, have amounted to 12 per cent of tho
gross earnings of some companies. Thore
are motormen, it is said, who never have an
accident. The professor therefore set him
self to devise a series of tests which would
secure men approximating this highly effi
cient type.
He ascertained that the essentia! function
of a perfect motorman is "a particular com
plicated act of attention by which the mani
foldness of objects, the pedestrians, the car
riages and the automobiles are continuously
observed with reference to their rapidity and
direction in tho quickly changing panorama
of the street.”
The professor found that a small model of
the trolley car and the street would not be
satisfactory as a test apparatus. Such an
apparatus requires a man to think himself
in’o the miniature situation, and uneducated
persons are often unable to do this, Even
naval officers giving testimony before naval
courts at e often unable to realize the push ion
of small ship models quickly and clearly.
To test tile motormau’s mental aptitudes. Pro
fessor Munsterberg devised a card nine half
inches broad and twenty-six half-inches long,
representing the street. Two heavy lines halt
an inch apart go lengthwise through the cen
tre of the card. The twenty-six squares which
lie between these two lines are marked with
the letters of the alphabet from A to Z. These
two heavy central lines represent the electric
railway track on a street.
The squares on each side are marked with
the numbers 1, 2 and 3, sometimes red and
sometimes black. The digit 1 means a man,
who will move one square at a time; the digit
2 a horse, which moves two squares at a
time, and the digit 3 an automobile, that moves
three squares at a time. The black digits
stand for men, horses and automobiles, which
move parallel with the track and are not to be
regarded In looking out for dangers.
What the motorman has to look out for it
the red digit whose number will bring it on
the track in the next move. Thus a red 3,
three squares away from the track, is a dan
ger point, hut a red 1 is not a danger point
unless it is next to the track
The professor provided twelve such cards,
with variations in each, lying under a glass
plate in a box. A black hand with two win
dow's in it was arranged over this. The motor- .
man by turning a handle could make one win
dow pass over the track. As lie did so he was
required to call out the letters on the track
where a red number at the sido would mean
danger. When the motorman reached the let
ter Z the professor withdrew one card and the
motorman immediately started over the track
again with the other w indow.
in order to value the factors according to
their importance the professor multiplied the
number of omissions by ten and added them
to the number of seconds. On tho basis of this
calculation he found that the old. well-trained
motormen came to an average result of about
450.
If the figure shown by the test is less than
350 the man’s mental fitness for the avoidance
of accidents is very high, between 350 and 450
fair, and more than 550 not acceptable under
any conditions. Ho found his psychological
i.st confirmed by the fact that first-class
motormen showed good results under it.
Professor Munsterberg also devised a test
to ascertain the quality of decision in ship's
officers He states t’'st he had begun to work
on this before the Titanic disaster.