NEWS OF THE WEEK • T HE news from the East
is becoming more serious. The Servian Government has raised a forced loan, has called out its militia, and refuses all demands from Turkey for explanations of its acts. The Russian Press encourages the Servians, and the Russian Telegraphic Agency, which is demi-official, declares that the Turkish barbarities are becoming worse and worse, and that Serbs cannot be expected to endure them. A grand con- ference of the leaders of the insurrection has been called at Ragusa, but they will not, of course, yield while there is a chance of Servian assistance, and the leader who is specially lie with Montenegro has declined to attend. Meanwhile the Turks seem to be in a dream. The Pashas in Bosnia will not hear of con- cessions, and in Constantinople a sum of money intended for the war was taken off the steamer on which it had been packed, by the Sultan's order, and carried to the Palace. Unless there is huge lying both at Ragusa and Constantinople, a catastrophe is fast coming in Turkey which may prove a most sanguinary one. The declaration of war by Servia, if it comes, may produce a massacre of the Christians of Bosnia, who will be denounced by their Mohammedan neighbours as traitors.
