Accurate ethnological statistics of the population do not exist. In the European provinces under immediate Turkish rule, Turks (of Finno-Tataric race), Greeks, and Albanians are almost equally numerous, and constitute 70 per cent. of the population. Other races represented are Serbs, Bulgarians, Roumanians, Armenians, Magyars, Gipsies, Jews, Circassians. In Asiatic Turkey there is a large Turkish element, with some four million Arabs, besides Greeks, Syrians, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, Jews, and numerous other races.

The population of the chief towns is approximately as follows:

The Lebanon is governed by a Mutesarif (Christian), and has a special government.

Religion and Education.

Mahometans form the vast majority of the population in Asiatic Turkey, but only one-half of the population in European Turkey. Recognised by the Turkish Government are the adherents of nine non-Mahometan creeds-namely: 1. Latins, Franks, or Catholics, who use the Roman Liturgy, consisting of the descendants of the Genoese and Venetian settlers in the empire, and proselytes among Armenians; Bulgarians, and others; 2. Greeks; 3. Bulgarians, under the Exarch at Constantinople; 4. Armenians, under a Patriarch at Constantinople, but under the supreme spiritual control of a Catholicos at Echmidzin, in the Russian Caucasus. In 1903, the old dignity of Catholicos of Sis, in Cilicia, was restored and a new appointment made. There still remains in abeyance the seat of the Catholicos of Akhtomar (Van), an ancient dignity; 5. Syrians and United Chaldeans, under a Patriarch at Mosul; 6. Maronites, under a Patriarch at Kanobin in Mount Lebanon; 7. Protestants, consisting of converts chiefly among the Armenians; 8. Jews 9. Nestorians, or Assyrian Christians, under the Patriarch Mar Shimun of Kochannes. These religious denominations are in vested with the privilege of possessing their own ecclesiastical rule. The Patriarchs of the Greeks and Armenians, the Bulgarian Exarch, and the 'Chacham-Baschi,' or high-rabbi of the

Jews, possess, in consequence of those functions, considerable influence.

In Constantinople about half the settled inhabitants are Mussulman, the other half being made up mostly of Greeks, Armenians, Jews, native Roman Catholics, and Greek Latins. There is, besides, a very large foreign population of various professions. In the Turkish Islands of the Egean Sea the population is mostly Christian: 296,800 Christians to 27,200 Mussulmans. In various parts of Asiatic Turkey the estimates are: Asia Minor, Mussulmans, 7,179,900 Armenians, 576,200; other Christians, 972,300; Jews, &c., 184,600; Armenia, Mussulmans, 1,795,800; Armenians, 480,700; other Christians, 165,200; Jews, &c., 30,700; Aleppo, Mussulmans, 792,500; Armenians, 49,000; other Christians, 134,300; Jews, &c., 20,000; Beyrout, Mussulmans, 230,200; Armenians, 6,100; other Christians, 160,400; Jews, &c., 136,900; Lebanon, Mussulmans, 30,400; Christians, 319,300; Jews, &c., 49,800. The Mahometan clergy are subordinate to the Sheïk-ul-Islam. Their offices are hereditary, and they can only be removed by Imperial iradé. A priesthood, however, in the strict sense of a separate class, to whom alone the right of officiating in religious services belongs, cannot be said to exist in Turkey.

The number of mosques in the Turkish Empire is 2,120, of which 379 are in Constantinople. The number of the clergy is 11,600. Connected with the mosques are 1,780 elementary schools, where education is supplied gratis. The private revenue of the Evkaf (church), previous to the war of 1878, was 30,200,000 piastres (251,000l.) per annum, but they have now been reduced to 20,000,000 piastres (166,0007.). The expenses are reckoned at 15,000,000 piastres (125,0007.). The stipend of the Sheik-ul-Islam 7,031,520 piastres (59,0001.), and those of the Naïbs and Muftis 7,876,646 piastres (66,000l.), are paid by the State. The principal revenues of the Evkaf are derived from the sale of landed property which has been bequeathed it, and which is known under the name of Vacouf. Three-fourths of the urban property of the Empire is supposed to belong to the Vacouf. Purchasers of property of this description pay a nominal annual rent to the Evkaf; but should they die without direct heirs the property reverts to the Church.

In Turkey, elementary education is nominally obligatory for boys from 6 to 11 years of age, and for girls from 6 to 10 years of age. Elementary instruction includes the Turkish language, the Koran, arithmetic, history, geography, and hand-work of various kinds, but as secular as well as religious instruction is entrusted to the Mussulman clergy, it is of little value. There are middle-class schools for boys from 11 to 16 years of age, who, in addition to elementary subjects, learn French, geometry, and various branches of physical and natural science. The schools of various descriptions within the empire number about 36,230, and contain about 1,331,200 pupils, or one to twenty-four of population.

The university which was nominally founded at Constantinople in 1900,

with 14 professors to teach theology (Mussulman), mathematics, philosophy, law, and medicine, has not yet (1905) got beyond the paper stage. The Imperial School of Medicine occupies an imposing site on the Scutari shore of the Bosphorus. There are an Imperial art school, a Great National School (Greek) of old foundation with 400 students, and a Greek theological seminary with 80 students.

Finance.

The Turkish Government publishes neither financial accounts nor estimates of revenue and expenditure.

The revenue is derived from tithes, land and property taxes, Customs, monopolies, and other sources; the largest portions of the expenditure are for military purposes and for debt charges. For the year 1897-98, the revenue amounted to about £T18,511,000, and the expenditure to about £T18,430,000.

The following table shows the course of Turkish indebtedness :--

The Ottoman Government when unable to meet its liabilities, made an arrangement with its creditors, confirmed by the Iradé of December 8/20, 1881. All the loans then outstanding (with the exceptions indicated in the table) were with the arrears of interest reduced and converted into four series denoted by the letters A, B, C, D. A Council of Administration at Constanti nople was appointed, and to it were handed over for distribution among the bondholders the funds derived from the excise duties, from the Bulgarian, Eastern Rumelian, and Cyprus tribute, and from the tax on Persian tobacco. The sum of 536,3631. was to be deducted for the service of the debt of 1878, and the balance was to be applied to the service of the four series, four-fifths to interest and one-fifth to amortisation. The interest was never to exceed 4 per cent., and any surplus was to be handed over to the Government. The interest paid has only been 1 per cent. (increased in 1903 to 14 per cent. but the reserve fund has accumulated to 1,330,6757. The bonds of the A series were paid off in 1898-99; those of the B, C, D series were unified

in 1903-04.

The gross amounts of the ceded revenues from taxes on salt, spirits, stamps, fisheries, and silk, and from other sources collected by the Council of Administration in two years have been :

-

The condition of the Turkish debt was as follows in the middle of

Of debts which are not loans, the most important are the balance of the Russian war indemnity, amounting to £T24,513,000 in 1898. An instalment of £T350,000 towards the payment of this debt falls due annually on January 14.

Defence.
I. FRONTIERS.

Turkey occupies the South-Eastern corner of Europe and the Western portion of Asia. Since the Greek war of 1897 and the bestowal of autonomous government on Crete its boundaries have remained unchanged.

European Turkey has for frontier States in the north, Montenegro, Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, and Eastern Roumelia. The frontiers are mountainous towards the east, but at many points passage is easy.

The western frontier of European Turkey is formed by the Adriatic and the Ionian Seas. Its southern limits are formed by Thessaly, the Ægean Sea, the Sea of Marmora, the Dardanelles, and the Bosphorus, both of which straits are strongly fortified.

Asiatic Turkey has for its northern boundary the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles.

The boundaries to the west are the Archipelago, the Mediterranean, Arabia Petrea, and the Red Sea. Its limits to the south are Central Arabia and the Persian Gulf, those to the east

foreign consulate being present to see that the trial be according to the law; the carrying out of the sentence, if against the foreigner, to be through his consulate. Cases between two foreign subjects of different nationalities are tried in the court of the defendant.

Under an agreement of August, 1904, schools directed by American missionaries and their scholars, are placed directly under American protection. This arrangement will chiefly affect Armenia.

Area and Population.

The total area of the Ottoman Empire (including States nominally subject) may be estimated at 1,662,000 square miles, and its total population at about 40,000,000, viz. :

The area and population by Vilayets, according to recent estimates, are as follows: