Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1901 — THE SULTAN S PALACE. [ARTICLE]

THE SULTAN S PALACE.

It 1. Proof Against Assassins, Bombs and Fires. According to a writer in the World’s Work, the sultan’s Yildiz palace at Constantinople is a monument to fear. It is assassin-proof, bomb-proof, earth-quake-proof, fire-proof, microbe-proof. Architects and engineers are building and rebuilding incessantly. Some new secret retreat is always under way. The entire domain is surrounded by an Immense wall, thirty feet high, and the choicest troops of the empire stand guard around it. An Inner wall, twelve feet thick, with gates of iron, incloses the private residence itself. The walls of the sultan’s dwellings are filled with armor plate, to resist projectiles. It is said that a mysterious passage connects with ten secret bed chambers, forming an intricate labyrinth. No one but his body attendant knows where the sultan may sleep during any particular night. He has electric lights and telephones in his own apartments, but forbids them in Constantinople. Telephones might prove handy for conspirators and he believes that a dynamite cartridge could be sent over a wire into the palace. He fears electric explosions, so Constantinople gets along with gas light. He hates the word dynamo, because it sounds like dynamite. Balloons are tabooed, lest one should pause over him long enough to drop a chunk of explosive. As to the real luxury of the Yildiz that is a matter of course. The domain is a small world in itself. Eive thousand people live within the outer wall, not counting a small army of workmen and the 7,000 imperial guardsmen. There are shops, factories, arsenals, stables, a library, museum, picture gallery, theater and even a menagerie. The monarch loves trees but he keeps their branches well lopped off, so that he can see to the farthest corner of his grounds.—Chicago News.