"THE TRIBUTE OF CHILDREN."

BY HELEN P. JENKINS.

I am going to tell you, Young People, something about a once famous body of men called the Janissaries. You may pronounce the word as if spelled Yanissaries.

A few hundred years ago, when the nations of Europe were more given to fighting than they are now (though they seem in this day to like it pretty well), the most celebrated soldiers in the world were the Janissaries. At that time armies were not drilled as thoroughly as they are to-day, but so well disciplined, so fierce, and so successful were the Janissaries that their name became a terror throughout Europe.

Who these soldiers were is a curious and a sad story. They were Turkish troops, but they were not Turks by birth, and that is why the story is a sad one. The Turks came from Asia into Europe about six hundred years ago. They conquered the southeastern part of Europe, which is called Turkey, and little by little, by dreadful fighting, they got possession of Greece, and several states north of it. Finally they took the beautiful city of Constantinople, which the Christians so long and so gallantly defended. The Turks brought with them a religion, a costume, and a government different from any the people in Europe had been accustomed to. They were Mohammedans, while the people of the conquered countries were Christians. You can easily believe that the Christian people did not love the race that had robbed them of their country and their freedom, nor did they submit very willingly to their fate.

Now the Turkish government took a very cunning and cruel way to increase the strength of its own army, and weaken the people they were conquering. It took from the Christian people every year one thousand of their brightest boys to train them for the Turkish army. This is called in history "the tribute of children." Some historians say that all the boys over seven years of age "who promised any excellence in mind or body" were captured by the Turks; but probably the "annual tax of one thousand children" is a more reliable statement. As this "tribute of children" was kept up for over three hundred years, not less than 300,000 noble Christian children were torn from their homes, and their strength turned against their own people. The delicate and deformed and dull were not taken, for the Turkish government wanted to make a body of soldiers the finest in size and strength and courage the world had ever seen; and, besides, the puny and dull boys would never be of much service to the Christians; so it was very safe to leave them with their own people.

Can you think of a meaner way of gaining victories than to kidnap the finest children of a conquered race, so there should be no grand, strong men among them, and then to make these boys, when grown to men, fight against their own flesh and blood? I do not think history records anything more base.

How glad a Christian mother must have been if her boy was pale and puny, or her children were all girls! Do you not believe that parents sometimes hid their boys in the mountains when the Turkish officers were about, or taught them to look sick or silly? I have never read in any books that they did do so, but I do not doubt it myself. Yet it is said that so much care was given to the training of these bright boys, and such honors sometimes conferred upon them by the government, that the very poor people were sometimes willing their sons should go away from them forever to enter the service of the Turks. It seems to me it must have been a dreadful poverty and ignorance that could have made Christian mothers willing to give up their sons to the enemy of their country and their religion.

These boys were taken from their homes so young they soon forgot kindred and country, the religion, and even the language of their fathers. They were usually carried to some portion of Asia Minor, where they were trained severely to abstinence and endurance of all kinds, to fit them for service. Those who proved greatly superior in mind were fitted for places of trust in the government—some were made pages in the Sultan's palace—but those who were strong and large of stature were trained for war. And it was these Christian boys who constituted the celebrated Janissaries, and won such great victories for the Turkish nation for three hundred years, that its influence and power was felt and dreaded throughout the civilized world.

It was the first instance of a "standing army" in Europe. Charles VII. of France is usually considered the originator of the "standing army," perhaps because the Turks were not considered a European nation; but the Janissaries were in existence a century before Charles's time. They were organized in 1329, and Charles was not crowned until 1422.

The Janissaries fought in many important battles and sieges in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They figured in the sieges of the islands of Rhodes and Crete and Malta, and at the famous battle of Lepanto, which you will read about when you are older. They wore, even in fighting, flowing robes and white caps with black plumes, and fought with cimeters. We can believe their flowing robes were somewhat inconvenient in battle, especially at the siege of Malta, where they had to scale high parapets of rocks.

The Janissaries were in the height of their splendid fame during the reign of the Sultan Solyman the Magnificent, in the seventeenth century. After a time this celebrated corps lost its superiority. The "tribute of children" had, after three hundred years, gradually ceased, and the force was kept up by volunteers of any kind. The Janissaries became corrupt and insubordinate, and instead of making conquests for Turkey, they often turned upon their masters, and became more terrible to the Sultans than to the nations around. They deposed Sultans, and murdered Sultans, and made new ones, and Turkey was cursed by the very troops of which she had once been so proud.

Mahmoud II., who was a fierce and daring man, resolved to save his own head, and protect Turkey, by destroying this dreadful soldiery. In 1826 he led the rest of the army against the Janissaries, surprised them, and after a dreadful battle defeated them. Eight thousand were burned in their barracks before they could escape. Fifteen thousand were slaughtered in the struggle to defend themselves. The rest were banished from the country, and became scattered among the armies of Europe. The Janissaries were forever dissolved, and their name lives now only in history.