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Show I SHOULD THERE BE A WAR. B It is said that the present Sultan of Turkey not being a fighting man but all the same an ex-El ex-El treme fanatic, has, anticipating the struggle that II must sometime come between the Christians and Mohammedans, been laying away immense sums for a war fund for his successor, hoping that he will be another Saladin; that he will gather the fiUhful from all the East, and make one more tremendous struggle to regajn the lost prestige of his people and empire and compel not only peace from Northern and Western Europe, but eact guarantees which will place his empire in the van of nations even as it was when tho crusaders shivered their spears in vain against Turkish power. There are movements throughout Asia which give a look of probability to this idea. By a sort of secret Free Masonry there is a stir through all Mohammedan countries, f-dnV tho heights of Persia to the flat lands of Arabia and Egypt and even in India. But if the cldsh comes Europe can swiftly break the Turkish arm. What Lord Kitchener performed on a small scale In upper Egypt can on a large scale swiftly drive the Turk from Europe and back into the strongholds, av.ay from the coast in Asia. But with such a war inaugurated in-augurated every Christian in Western Asia would bo massacred, unless with the declaration of war a fleet carrying an army could be sent swiftly down the Black Sea to a landing on the Northern coast of Turkey, to pursue a rapid conquest of the country while the fleets of the powers would be reducing the cities of the lower coast. The Turks can never put up any such a fight as the Boers did. They lack the elements. They ore fatalists. They are brave enough, but they can never be frontier fighters. With them whatever comes is the will of Allah, and they would last but a brief time before combined Europe But tho slaughter of men, women and children while the war lasted would make the world shudder. |