It was reported, with what truth I know not, that these demonstrations were secretly encouraged by M. Stambouloff in order to bring pressure to bear upon the Porte. At Philippopolis eight thousand persons were said to have been present at a mass meeting. The peasants who attended the demonstration were armed with bludgeons, which, with a grim irony, they called " the Constitution," and which they applied freely to anybody who was supposed to be of a different way of thinking from their own. Similar indignation meetings were held at Shumla, Tirnova, Varna, and Rustschuk.

As an indication of the extent to which public sentiment throughout Bulgaria was excited on this question, I may mention that at this time the proprietor of the artificial lake in the Pepiniire Gardens at Sofia had been giving a series of public skating balls. The ice was not good, as the winter was then approaching its close, and the attendance at these night fttes had of late been scanty. Thereupon the proprietor announced that half the proceeds of the next fete would be devoted to the Bulgarian schools in Macedonia.

Attached to the handbills advertising the fete there was an extract from a Macedonian paper attacking the Sultan for not having allowed the Exarch of Bulgaria at Constantinople to purchase the late German ambassador's palace, an incident to which I have alluded elsewhere. The result of this announcement was that the fite was crowded by the townsfolk of Sofia, though the night was a most unfavorable one for an open-air entertainment.

It is certain that the anti-Turkish agitation in Bulgaria, even if it was initiated by M. Stambouloff, soon assumed proportions which alarmed the Ministry. Orders were issued to the local authorities all over the country to stop these public demonstrations, as being calculated to bring about a breach of the public peace. The step was a bold one, as it laid M. Stambouloff and his colleagues open to the charge of being indifferent to the wrongs of the Macedonian Bulgarians, and of being prepared to abandon their cause, supposing the Sultan continued obdurate.

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