Page:Martyred Armenia - El-Ghusein.djvu/10

8 book by a Turkish writer, who states that it is the official computation made by the Government previous to the Balkan war; he estimates the Armenians residing in Roumelia at 400,000, those in Ottoman Asia at 1,500,000. The Armenians in Russia and Persia are said not to exceed 3,000,000, thus bringing the total number of Armenians in the world to over four and a half millions.

—The Vilayets inhabited by Armenians are Diarbekir, Van, Bitlis, Erzeroum, Mamouret-el-Azîz, Sivas, Adana, Aleppo, Trebizond, Broussa, and Constantinople. The numbers in Van, Bitlis, Adana, Diarbekir, Erzeroum, and Kharpout were greater than those in the other Vilayets, but in all cases they were fewer than the Turks and Kurds, with the exception of Van and Bitlis, where they were equal or superior in number. In the province of Moush (Vilayet of Bitlis) they were more numerous than the Kurds; all industry and commerce in those parts was in Armenian hands; their agriculture was more prosperous; they were much more advanced than the Turks and Kurds in those Vilayets; and the large number of their schools, contrasted with the few schools of their alien fellow-countrymen, is a proof of their progress and of the decline of the other races.

—The Armenians possess learned and political Societies, the most important of which are the “Tashnagtziân” and the “Hunchak.” The programme of these two Societies is to make every effort and adopt every means to attain that end from which no Armenian ever