The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-11-01
About the Bulgaria Peasant


From the London Post.
 At a time when the desirability and
 problem of getting a people back to the
 land," and keeping those who are there
 on it, is exercising the minds of home
 politicians, the peasant folk of Bulgaria tenacious of the soil and thinking in
 parishes, supply an interesting study.
 The capital city if you take away It's
 ministerial offices and it's diplomatic col
 ony, Is large village, and the peasant IS quite as much at home therein as in his own straw yard. It is, as matter or course, that he wears in the streets, Tn 1 the parliament, in the cathedral or
 wherever his business may call hlm' tne
 costume of the country, the same Tn which he tiIls his fields and herds his cattle. There are, of course, degrees Of i comparison in the garments according to the affluence or inclination of the wear CTS, but the prevailing features are a short round jacket, usually black. over white shirt worked with red and indigo embroidery, and coarse, white neither garments, gartered in with multitudinous tapes over the legs. and fitting elsewhere as negligently as the hide of the Indian rhinoceros. On days when any festival
 or councib of rural notables is being held in town you may see strings of quaintly appointed vehicles pumping along the converging roads. Four horses are driven abreast, the two outside ones be- ing obviously misfits as far as the har- ness is concerned. and one of the team
 possibly lame-but still four horses. The
 vehicle, itself is a species of phaeton.
 which has seen better years-a great l Lott in luip from
 pearance-and seated therein in solitary
 state is some person of local importance, a mayor or headman, from some distant | village whose self appreciation does not ebb away as he jolts into the streets of the metropolis.
 As a tradesman, dealing in the shop
 wares of a town, the Bulgar is not at
 his best The simple cunning and uncon-
 scious suspicion of the peasant is ill-
 suited for the disposal of goods which are bought wholesale at market price "a market which is hundreds of miles away, and can not be influenced by the heavy infantle wies sacred to the village
 huckster-and which mus, be sold in con formity with the the charges current in neighboring shops. The customer in quest of bottle of ink or a china cup will find the vendor of these things drink ing watery tea and holding interminable
 discourse with a group of neighbors, and his presence will be slowly recognized
 rather as an unwelcome interruption to the conversation than as hopeful oc- cason for effecting sale. If the object
 of purchase is not in immediate evidence, the shopman has a tendency to take re- | fuge in a familiar ''Nyema," which seems ever at the tip of his tongue, and to turn back to his tea and small talk with the
 least possible delay. This inaptitude for | the disposal of shop wares is somewhat characteristic of the Slav races, and is l accounted in some way for the Hansa | domination of Russian trade in the days 1 of Great Novgorod and for the ineradica- ble foothod of the Jewish element in | later times for the absence of the mid ! die class in Poland and for the long sur vival of the German element in Bohemia. ! In Bulgaria and Servia of the present 1 day it has opened the door to a consid- | erable incoming of Austrian trade con- | trol.
 An exception, however, must be made