File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎198v] (405/834)

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“It is reported that by these resources Javid Bey hopes to
reduce the premium on gold in the country, or, in other words,
to raise the value of Turkish Notes.”
Turkish Bank Nates in IJejaz.
King Husein informed Colonel Wilson recently that Turkish
notes to the value of L.T. 4,000 have been imported from Akaba
and impounded by the Jiddah Customs. They are to be returned,
by the King’s order, to the Akaba merchants who consigned
them. This statement should be compared with the report from
Palestine, on page 108, concerning the purchase of Turkish
notes by Akaba agents, which was detected in March last by our
officers at Bethlehem, Hebron and Gaza.
Turkish Women.
An Arab, who left Constantinople early in April and has
come through to Cairo, via Damascus, Jebel Druz, and leisal s
Camp, has much to say about the Turkish women : and since his
talk, whether well founded or not, helps to breed certain ideas on
this delicate subject, which go abroad among Arabs, it is worth
recording here. He says that discarding of the veil is becoming
general, especially among the many girls now employed in
telegraph and telephone service. The women of the capital
exert enormous political influence and, on the whole, support
Jemal’s party. Worse features are the great increase of brothels,
and the infection of a large part of the population—the informant
says ninety per cent—with venereal disease. Women in the
streets solicit quite shamelessly, catching hold of officers, chiefly
Germans ; the latter, thinking the same licence held in Damascus,
raised a riot there by free handling of women. The result was
the dismissal of the German Chief of Police. The Austrians
behave more decently, and are much less detested.
I T nrest in Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. .
The same informant reports that public insecurity is rife in
Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. , even along the railways. Paid Effendi, M.P. for
Jerusalem, was robbed on the way to Bozanti of AT 1,500 in
gold, and a merchant was robbed and murdered in our
informant’s train. Brigands infest the Brusa and Aidin
provinces, and the Government, unable to find men to send
against them, tries to buy them off. Soldiers sent to the front
are handcuffed and kept in locked railway carriages. There is
no longer the slightest military enthusiasm in Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. ; the
people are sick of the whole thing, are outraged by the irreligious
practices of the leaders, and have been giving ear to the Syrian
exiles in their midst.
Jiddah Sanitation.
King Husein, in the course of his efforts to cleanse the
Augean stables of Jiddah, has turned his attention to the
poisonous receptacles existing at present in the mosques for