The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-08-25
THE MODERN GREEKS
Gossip About the Brightest and
Brainiest Nation of the Orient.
SUNDAY ELECTIONS AT GREECE.
How the Athenians of To-day Boom Their
Political Candidates - Improvements
in Greece-Its New Railroads.


ATHENS, July %, 1Ss9.-[Special Core
spondence Of THE HERALD. The Athens
of to-day is a city of the nineteenth cen
fury It's buildings are the two and three
story houses of brick and stucco which you
find in the towns of France and Italy
They are rooted with red tiles, and they
+ are built in blocks with all
THE REGULARITY OF MODERN CIVILIZATION
[ The streets are paved with cobbles and the
sidewalks are tagged with blocks OF stone
The stores are of the same description as
those of any American city, and thell
plate glass windows show stocks OF goods
which will compare favorably with those
Of Washington or Denver. The streets
cross each other at right angles, and street
car tracks run through the busiest OF
them. You can ride in the Athenian tram
way for 3 and cent fares over the same
ground which Alcibiades dashed in his
seven horse chariots, and the steam
whistles of the locomotives which draw
trains along the railroads to the Plreus
and Corinth, reverberate against the time
Colored marble pillars Of the. Parthenon,
which, standing on the mighty Acropolis,
still look over the city as in the days
when
PERICLRs HAD HIS GOLDEN RULE,
nearly twenty five hundred years ago. 1t
is the oldest of the old looking at the new
est of the new Modern Athens has been
built within fifty years. At the time OF
the Greek independence in 1884, 1t was
dirty village of 800 miserable houses. BY
10 prnN1atp0
it has now los, 900 people, and 1t has nearly
doubled its population within the past ten
wears. The Greeks themselves look upon
their country as that of a nation reborn,
and upon Athens as city, rising PhGnlX
like to a brighter and better existence from
, the dusty ashes of its past.
The Athens of to-day lies partly on and
partly off the site of the ancient city. 1t
is on the edge of plain with the hill OF
the Acropolis rising upward sheer 200 feet
at its back, and with the low mountain OF
Hymettus at one side. Near this are other
mountains, and away to one side across the
plain are the blue waters Of the Medlter-
rancan sea. From the AcrOpolis you can
see
THE PLAINS OF MARATHON,
on which the great battle was fought
where the Greeks, under Mlltlades, de
feated the Persians, and away to the west
are the Due WALTERS VI IllC utiA VI
where XerXes, the Persian king, watched
the destruction of his thousand war yes
sells by the Grecian fleets. At the side OF
the Acropolis is a rocky hill about one
hundred feet high, and more of cliff than
a hill. on which St. Paul preached and on
which the court of Areopagus was held, to
which the old Athenians passed sentences
of life and death, and where Demosthenes
was tried for bribery and convicted.
Every surrounding is historic and classic,
and the sky, the hills and the sea are the
same The heavens are to-day as wonder
fully blue as they were in the days of
Homer. The poppy flowers mixed with
the wheat are of as blood red as they were
, when Plato sat among them and talked
philosophy, and the dark hemlock on the
hills is as green as when it furnished the
poison which killed Socrates. Mount
Hymettus, with its rocky silyer-gray sides,
furnishes as sweet honey to-day as when
THE GREcIAN POETS SUNG ITS PRAISES,
and from the quarries on Mount PenteGllos
over there comes for the new public build
mos of Athens as pure white marble as
that with which PhidiaS worked and out
of which Praxities Clipped his famous
statues.
1t is only in respect to its natural sur
roundings that Athens remains as 1t was IN
the past. Its buildings have all the fresh
greenness of the nineteenth century, and 1t
is a town of hotels, theatres and news
papers. 1t is a business town, too, and the
modern Greeks are among the brightest
business men of the east. The Turks have
a proverb which says: 'From the Greeks
of Athens from the Jews of Salonika and
from the Armenians everywhere, good
Lord. deliver us!r 1t is also said i'll the
east that one Greek is equal to at least two
Jews, and you will find no Jews in Athens,
SaattnrnH oil other
parts of the levant. The storekeepers
have no fixed prices, and you bargain for
everything you buy. The rule IS to offer
not more than one-third of what is asked,
,and YOU must bargain with your butcher,
7 your tailor, and with even your druggist.
ALADY OF ATHENS
was describing to me last night the pur-
chase of her last spring bonnet. Said she:
Il went into the leading millinery shop of
the place and picked out well trimmed
piece of lace and straw, and asked the
price,
at will be one hundred francs" was the
reply.
think fifty francs enough for it and will
giveno more"
THE merchant looked at me and said at
once that it was impossible, then seeing
that was about to leave. he said: We'll,
madame, if YOU think fifty francs is enough
YOU may have it for that And con
Guided the lady who is a Greek, lit is so
All over Athens. You must never pay
what the people ask you. Then you will
see in some of the stores prices marked on
the goods, and the notice that there are
none but fixed prices al such places. But
This is a fraud. You must tell them you
can not pay so much, and you will get the
goods for less"
I have tried this plan during the past few
DAYS. and / find / can get a considerable
reduction, even in sedlitz powders and
quinine.
THE MODERN ATHENIAN
does not like manual labor, and the result
is that most of the Greek citizens of
Athens are in mercantile or professional
business. ] find that there is little Of what
we would consider square dealing among
the merchants. They try to get advantage
of those who trade with them in every way.
The money used in the stores and in
Athens generally is dirty, greasy, paper
money. issued by the national bank, and
the shin plasters, which are in some de-
nominations not bigger than a special de
livery stamp, remind one of the fractional
c11rrencv which prevailed in America
some wears ago. The ten franc or % notes
are of about the size and shape of our
preeubaclzs, and as there are no 81 notes,
fhe people provide for this by chopping or
cutting the - notes in halves, and these
halves mass as good. This money is at a
discount of about 20 per cent, and in
changing gold you make 20 odd cents on
every dollar. There are few foreign banks,
and the changing is done by men who have
little counters with glass money boxes upon
them, and VINO make commission on every
Athens is the capital of Greece, and it is,