red into by all
the Great Powers of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, relative to the trial
and judgment of Europeans, include Egypt as an integral part of the
Turkish Empire. Foreigners for this reason have the privilege of being
tried by European courts. But if one party in a case is European and
another Egyptian, there are special mixed tribunals, established in
1876, consisting partly of native and partly of foreign judges. These
tribunals settle civil and also some criminal cases between Egyptians
and Europeans, and in 1900 penal jurisdiction was conferred upon them in
connection with offences against the bankruptcy laws.

There are three mixed tribunals of the first class, with a court of
appeal, sitting at Alexandria. Civil cases between foreigners of the
same nationality are tried before their own consular courts, which also
try criminal cases not within the jurisdiction of the mixed
tribunals, in which the accused are foreigners. By this well organised
administration of justice, crime has steadily decreased throughout
Egypt, and the people have learned to enjoy the benefit of receiving
impartial justice, from which they had been shut off for many centuries.

About sixty per cent, of the inhabitants of modern Egypt belong to
the agricultural class--the fellaheen. The peasantry are primitive
and thrifty in their habits, and hold tenaciously to their ancient
traditions. They are a healthy race, good-tempered and tractable, and
fairly intelligent, but, like all Southern nations breathing a balmy
atmosphere, they are unprogressive. Centuries of oppression have not,
however, crushed their cheerfulness. There is none of that abject misery
of poverty among the Egyptians which is to be seen in cold countries.
There is no starvation amongst them. Food is cheap, and a peasant can
live well on a piastre (five cents) a day. A single cotton garment is
enough for clothing, and the merest hut affords sufficient protection.
The wants of the Egyptians are few. Their condition, now freed from
forced labour, called the "Courbash," as also from injustice, crushing
taxation, and usury, which characterised former administrations,
compares favourably with the peasantry of many countries in Europe, and
is equal, if not superior, to that of the peasantry of England itself.

Under the British protection there has been a renewal of the Koptic
Christian race. They are easily to be distinguished from their
Muhammedan countrymen, being lighte