ABDUCTION

is the act of any person who unlawfully takes, or causes to be taken, any unmarried girl under the age of sixteen years out of the po e ion, and against the will, of her parents or guardians; liable to two years’ imprisonment, whether the girl consents or not, and whether the person charged believed her to be over the age of sixteen. of Turkey; risings in Crete and the Balkans, Bulgarian atrocities, and a conspiracy forced him to abdicate (1876); a a inated some days later. of Turkey s. of Ahmed ITI.; suce. bro., Mustafa ITI., in 1773. He became the 34th Sultan of Turkey on his acce ion to the throne in 1876, son of the Sultan Abdul ul Medjid. He came to the throne as a result of the deposition of his elder brother Murad V. At the very outset of Abdul Hamid’s reign Turkey was almost overthrown by the defeat in 1877-78 she sustained at the hands of Ru ia. He was obliged to surrender territories in Europe and Asia by the terms of the Treaty of Berlin, signed July 13, 1878, and to recognize the independence of the Balkan States. In 1895-96 during the ma acre of the Armenians he endeavored to appease the Huropean powers by promising reforms. These reforms, however, never were put into operation. In 1897 Greece, on account of conditions in the Island of Crete, went to war with Turkey, later joined by Great Britain and Ru ia, who forced Turkey to evacuate the island. As he grew older the Sultan became steadily more despotic, so much so that he was called ‘Abdul the Damned.’ A revolt in Macedonia in 1908 forced the Sultan to restore the Constitution he had shoved aside thirty years before. Under the Constitution the new Turkish Parliament met on Jan. 15, 1909. On April 14 the Sultan again threatened to abrogate the Constitution but fatled and the new Turkish party called the Young Turks captured Constantinople and with it the Sultan. Abdul Hamid was banished Leonia to Salonica. Again brought back November 12, 1912, to Constantinople, he was confined to a palace on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.