ckwall dinner into dim eclipse, and which no other waters of Europe
could probably rival:--since, in Mr White's usual course of digression
upon digression, the mention of the Fishmarket Gate, the usual place
of executions, leads him off again at a tangent to the consideration
of the criminal law, and its present administration in the Ottoman
Empire.

There is no change among those wrought since the introduction of the
new system, more calculated forcibly to impress those who had known
Constantinople in former years, than the almost total cessation of
those public executions, the sanguinary frequency of which formed so
obtrusive and revolting a feature under the old _regime_. Since the
fate of the unfortunate Pertef Pasha in 1837, no one has suffered
death for political offences:--and the abolition by Sultan Mahmoud,
immediately after the destruction of the janissaries, of the
_Moukhallafat Kalemy_, or Court of Confiscations, put an end to the
atrocious system which had for centuries made wealth a sufficient
pretext for the murder of its possessors. In all cases of banishment
or condemnation to death, however arbitrary, confiscation of property
inevitably followed: but the wealthy Armenians and Greeks were usually
selected as the victims of these ruthless deeds of despotism and
rapacity; numerous records of which may be seen in the Christian
burying-grounds, where the rudely-carved figure of a headless trunk,
or a hanging man, indicates the fate of the sufferer. But the humane
and politic act of Mahmoud, which rendered riches no longer a crime,
has produced its natural effects in the impulse which has been given
to commercial activity and public confidence by the security thus
afforded to life and property. "The government finds the Armenians
willing to advance money in case of need; and there is scarcely a
pasha of rank who has not recourse to their assistance, which is the
more readily afforded, as the Armenians are aware that their debtors'
lives and property, as well as their own, are secure, and that they
shall not endure extreme persecution in the event of suing those on
whom they have claims."

In criminal cases, the administration of justice by the Moslem law
appears at all times to have been tempered by lenity; and the extreme
repugnance of the present sultan to sign death-warrants, even in cases
which in this country would be considered as amounting to wilful
murder, has rendered capital punishments extremely