In countries civilised according to the
European plan the work of trying to persuade tribunals is almost
all performed
By a set of men, the great body of whom very seldom
do anything else; but in Turkey this division of labour has never
taken place, and every man is his own advocate. The importance of
the rhetorical art is immense, for a bad speech may endanger the
property of the speaker, as well as the soles of his feet and the
free enjoyment of his throat. So it results that most of the Turks
whom one sees have a lawyer-like habit of speaking connectedly, and
at length. Even the treaties continually going on at the bazaar
for the buying and selling of the merest trifles are carried on by
speechifying rather than by mere colloquies, and the eternal
uncertainty as to the market value of things in constant sale gives
room enough for discussion. The seller is for ever demanding a
price immensely beyond that for which he sells at last, and so
occasions unspeakable disgust in many Englishmen, who cannot see
why an honest dealer should ask more for his goods than he will
really take! The truth is, however, that an ordinary tradesman of
Constantinople has no other way of finding out the fair market
value of his property. The difficulty under which he labours is
easily shown by comparing the mechanism of the commercial system in
Turkey with that of our own country.
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