People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1893 — THE SULTAN’S BODYGUARD. [ARTICLE]

THE SULTAN’S BODYGUARD.

Half of Them Black, the Other Half White, and All Ruffians. For greater safety the sultan is always protected by both Nubians (blacks) and Albanians (whites), for these two regiments execrate each other, and in their divisions the padisha feels secure, says the New York Herald. The “black guards” are his favorites, for they are so exceedingly fierce when they have cutting down work to do, and they are also less rapacious than the Albanians, whose claws are always being extended for backsheesh. Taking them all round, however, the two corps of pretorians, black and white, form a gang of unmitigated scoundrels. They are superblooking ruffians, magnificently dressed, overfed, overpaid and enjoying practical immunity for every offense they may commit except that of being negligent on duty. They are the terror of the whole quarter surrounding the palace, and the sultan himself is so afraid of them that he is constantly trying to bribe them into loyalty by gifts of money. While the half-starved Turkish soldiers in Macedonia, Armenia and Anatolia often remain for weeks without pay, the Nubians and Albanians are capriciously regaled with -‘tips," which sometimes amount to £45 a man. The two corps have only to quarrel and the sultan immediately sets himself to smooth matters by pouring down a golden shower into their miscreant paws. On the other hand, if a soldier of one corps misbehaves by showing himself insubordinate or by going to sleep on guard a dozen soldiers of the other corps are called in to operate upon him. Then there is a private strangling or a private bastinadoing, as the. case may be. But in either event the work is executed with dispatch and gusto.