THE CONDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1200. 223 his property within the city was safe. The explanation of the fact is to be found partly in the deep-seated respect for law — a respect which made even tyrants like Andronicos go through the form of a trial before lie sent his victims to death or to blindness — partly in the remains of a healthy municipal spirit, which made the people act together against any unu- sual act of injustice to one of their number, but, above all, in the instinct developed by trade that the security of private property is the first necessity for commercial success. This latter is a feeling which the Turk never shares or has shared. lie himself rarely engages in trade. In the capital a Turk is almost certain to be in the employ of the State, and he is al- most as certain to regard traders as persons to be plundered. The Turkish attitude towards commerce has had much to do with the impoverishment of one of the most fruitful countries in Europe. In this respect the history of the city at its worst period before 1200 presents a favorable contrast to that which it has always presented under Turkish rule. To squeeze a wealthy rayah or a pasha has for centuries been the readiest resource of a sultan or a favorite in pecuniary difficulties. The practice is not yet forgotten, although the publicity which is afforded by foreign journals, and especiall}^ the fact that as soon as a man begins to amass wealth he takes care to obtain the protection of a foreign power in order to avoid such squeezing, has largely lessened the practice. Xor does the fall of the empire resemble that of the Otto- man Turks. The rule of the first fell after Ions: The fall of the • ,. i • , i - ^ two empires ccntunes of strugglcs With external enemies, and after a long period of success which had helped to demoralize the conquerors. Its rule had been weakened by dynastic struggles, due in part to the fact that the people were progressive, and that a more modern form of government — that of oligarchy — was being evolved from the older one of an absolute sovereign with divine attributes. The Ottoman Empire has lost successively its possessions in South Russia, in Hungary, in Roumania, Servia, Greece, Bulgaria, Asia Minor, and Africa in consequence of the incapacity of its rulers to govern, and, above all, of their powerlessness to absorb con-
