Note 492 — TALE OF NÚR AL-DÍN ALÍ & HIS SON BADR AL-DÍN HASAN (continued 2)

Usually by all manner of extortions and robbery, corruption and bribery, the ruler's motto being

Fiat injustitia ruat Cœlum.

There is no more honest man than the Turkish peasant or the private soldier; but the process of deterioration begins when he is made a corporal and culminates in the Pasha. Moreover official dishonesty is permitted by public opinion, because it belongs to the condition of society. A man buys a place (as in England two centuries ago) and retains it by presents to the heads of offices. Consequently he must recoup himself in some way, and he mostly does so by grinding the faces of the poor and by spoiling the widow and the orphan. The radical cure is high pay; but that phase of society refuses to afford it.