Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-02-19
PORTUGAL, the "Cinderella of t

PORTUGAL, the "Cinderella of the
= Nations, "as some one dubbed her, be-
cause she seemed beautiful and promising
but most neglected, is apparently to man
ufacture her own fairy Prince, put on her
own democratic slippers, and transfer her
name, in the catalogue of the Powers, from
the column where, for eight long centuries,
it has stood among the rest of the Kingdoms,
to that growinglist which tiny Andorra heads.
1t has been said that Peru sums up within
her venerable self the history of the western
hemisphere. Her civilization was already
centuries old when the first English settlers
set foot in North America; when Harvard
was but an idea her University of San Mar
cos numbered its students by the hundred.
In much the same way Portugal may well
claim to represent the history of all Europe.
As Lusitania, she knew Roman rule nearly
two hundred years before the birth of Jesus;
she yielded to the onward march first of the
Goths and then of the Moors. Alfonso Hen
riquez, who set her free from that domino
ton, wrote his name with Occur de Lion and
Godfrey de Bouillon in crusading days, and
it was another of her Kings, Henry, called
the Navigator, who found for her the Azores
and Madeira. Vasco da Cana, Americus
Vespucius, and the poet Camoens all were
Portuguese, of the same stock as those sturdy
fighters who, when the Peninsular War was
on, just an even century ago, won from the
English commander Wellesley the phrase,
"These garnecocks who aid me SOL" France
could no better stand for an epitome of the
continents past; Switzerland could not fill
the bill by half.
All New In History
SETTING aside the oldest Republic of all
~ now existing, Andorra, whose one
hundred and seventy-five square miles of ter
ritory is perched high among the peaks of the
Pyrenees, with her six thousand none too
clearly people electing with one vote to
each family an annual council of twenty
four to rule over them, setting aside this
unique little State and its legends of how
Charlemagne himself called it into being,
away back in the eighth century, the present
day Republics span a period of only one
hundred and thirty-four years; taking their
start, indeed when the old Liberty Bell rang
out from Philadelphia belfry the message
that was to overturn so many monarchies.
And it is a remarkable showing that these
twenty-six Governments offer; for in their
one hundred and thirty-fcur years they have
fairly overtaken the lands where "by divine
right" still holds, more or less; lands, be it
remembered, that have had something like
sixty centuries to come to modern shape and
size. Of the earth's 40 ,O24 ,O21 square miles
of land area the Republics lay claim to
19.2O8,343, with the remaining 29,815,678
divided among the half-score great Powers
that rank as Empires, and the sixteen lesser
ones that call themselves Kingdoms or Prin-
cipalities. The Republican dooryard,"
rather more than a third of the habitable
globe, is a good bit larger than the King
doms; though the Empires surpass it.
KIoodons Reat In ponu1a tIon
TN the matter of population the older gov
1 ernmental systems have things much more
nearly their own way. The latest figures
available set the worlds population at
l .577 1886, 2S5, and of this only 277, 1890
live today under elective rule. The mighty
Indian peninsula can show almost as many
as this; for the 232 100000 usually attribu-
ted to her is considered under rather than
over the actual figures; King George V. has
something like 1896 100000 of them, and tiny
Pu-yi of China rules Through an uncle
proxy not less than 435,0OO,OOO.
Portugal, including the Azores and Ma
deira, but not including her nine dependen-