Norwich bulletin., 1915-12-21

siderable share of the rest of the inhabited almost exclusively hg Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars or Austrians, as the case may be-
 The Greeks are probably the worst
 offenders at least in respect Of the eX-
 tent of their claims According to
 them, certainly all of the htoral and all of the Islands of the Aegean, and
 probably a very large part of the Eastern Mediterranean basin as well, including by all means Alexandria,
 should be Greek. Towards the north, more than half of Albania is claimed seized Old Serbia, including even Uskub: Roumelia, out of Bulgaria; and as for Turkey in Europe, the Greeks laugh at the idea that the lit tie that is left of the WesteTp Otto man Empire should fall to anyone but the Creeks, from Kirk-Kilisse and Adrianople to and including Constan- | tinople. For in the Greek mind, any | other disposition of Constantinople l than to place the Moslem city under ] Greek rule would be the rankest in ] justice nnder which Greece would never cease to eomplain-until pro | perly compensated.
 In view of the extravaganza of these ] national claims, it is most interesting ! to watch the change worked in Sa- i loniki in the course of comparatively l few weeks since the allied troops have | begun to land there. It is true that i Greeks, also. have poured in in even | greater numbers than the allies; but | the original population stood at about | 160, ,000 inhabitants, of which mum Der i S0,0O0 are Jews of Portugese and | Spanish descent, still speaking a sort 1 of bastard Spanish, in which several
 newspapers are printed. though | strangely enough, the Hebrew charac- | ters are employed to spell out these | Iberian words. Next in number came ! the Greeks themselves totallinE with officials, garrison and everything, ! only 10000 or less, while the Turks | ran them a close second with between | 3O.000 and 10000. The remaining population of normal times was that | cosmopolitan mixture so characteristic of every port. but especially of a port like Saloniki or Rotterdam, where the | territory served by the port and the port itself are in different countries Here, however, instead of simply haV- ing one other country as hinterland,
 as Rotterdar@ has Germany, Saloniki has two: Serbia and Bulgaria There
 were always, therefore, many Serbs
 and not few Bulgars to be found in
 Saloniki. For the same reason Aus trians were frequent in normal times,
 though less so since the war has cut
 Austria Hungary of from Salonlkl as
 port of outlet.
 To a population so divided there
 was first suddenly added about 100000 Greek. Macedonian and Tracian refu-
 gees-more than double the normal
 population of the city itself! A new
 city was built in the shape of brick
 barracks out at the edge of town
 where the refugees are housed in the
 utmost squalor and the most incredi- ble conditions of crowding. Natural
 ly, they prefer to spend most of theil
 time trying to pick up a few pennies | around the streets of the city to sit , 1 ting idle in the stench and filth of the barracks all day.
 l Scarcely had the population of Sa- loniki in a way disposed ofsthis sud- l den influx of strangers, when the | Greek mobilization was ordered ana soldiers from all over Greece began to arrive at the appointed trystine place-none other than Saloniki. Fol-