Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1894 — A BANKRUPT KINGDOM. [ARTICLE]

A BANKRUPT KINGDOM.

Greece, since the dawn of civilization, has been a most interesting country. The scene of some of man’s greatest triumphs in arms, in art, and literature and song. Tragedy and religion, mythology and necromancy, have thfre had their birth, and growth and maturity. Socrates and CicAro and Diogenes and Paul and Dionysius are names forever as-

sociiated with its history. The glamour of an ancient past that stretches back and back and ever backward ta an unknown source still hangs about its urtcient temples and histone hills. The average reader finds it. fliffimiH to comprehend the fact that the same race of people that gave to the world its literature and its first lessons in architecture still survive upon the soil that nurtured their heroic ancestors whose works still remain as monuments to almost superhuman skill. Yet such is the incontestible fact. Nor are they a degenerate race. Physically, they are still remarkable for their beauty and symmetrical proportions—with Jovian heads and Apollo limbs. Mentally they are still ambitious and often learned beyond the common lot of men, acquiring languages with a facility unknown to other races. The little Kingdom has simply become overshadowed by the great world that has grown and spread, waye following wave, from its enchanted shores to lands beyond the seas. Ambitious yet, its statesmen have perfected and carried to completion great public works that were inaug-* urated before the beginning of the Christian era, and in so doing have saddled the ancient Kingdom with a debt that has made it practically bankrupt. The most eminent statesman of Greece, M. Tricoupis, has given notice to bondholders that, until the finances of the country can be placed in better shape, but onethird of the interest will be paid. Grecian statesman have evidently overrated their ability to pay for their vast system of public works, forgetting or ignoring the fact that all the triumphs of their ancient builders of vast public structures were accomplished by despotic edicts whibh secured a servile obedience from countless slaves to work a tj-rant's will.