Further, he was singularly cleanhanded, as Ottoman officials go. Even those who declared that he took bribes in his youth admitted that he refused them in his old age--"unless they were very big," they added. Well, for the bribes, what is an official to do, whose salary, is in the first place, wholly inadequate; and in the second, not paid? When he did not need them, he ceased to take them. "How otherwise? I liked him, I confess," as Browning put it, of a character that much resembled the old Albanian; whose name (by the way) is, being interpreted, "Innocent," and who had the reputation throughout his province of never sending a petitioner away dissatisfied, and yet of never making a promise that it was inconvenient to keep.
Moreover, there were times when Tahir Pasha could insist on justice; and the fact is rare in Turkey. In 1910 a particularly dastardly murder was committed in Mosul, the murderer being a Christian by race, a member of the "Chaldaean" or "Uniat Nestorian" Church; while the victim was of the older and independent Nestorian body.[38] The murderer was, most deservedly, sentenced to death; but that does not at all necessarily imply execution in Turkey. To begin with, Ottoman law lays it down that in a murder case the next of kin of the victim has the right to require the remission of the death sentence if he desires it. This is no doubt a relic of the days when every man could avenge or forgo his own quarrels as he chose; but in practice, it works out very inconveniently for the man in question, who, in addition to losing his own nearest relative, has to undergo a lot of "peaceable persuasion" from the murderer's relations, till he chooses to exercise the right. In this case, however, the next of kin, also a Nestorian, stood firm, and claimed his legal revenge.
On this the murderer showed the real depth of his Christianity by sending word to Tahir Pasha that if his life were spared he would turn Moslem. Whether the Mollahs were desirous of obtaining so doubtful a convert does not appear, but at least the Pasha was not eager.
"Of course, I am bound to be glad that he proposes to turn Moslem," he said grimly. "It may even be better for him in the next world. Still, his head has got to come off in this."