The Cordova daily times., 1919-04-26
WAR BRINGS
 CREATBENEFIT TO SAL0NIKI

SALON1k1, April Correspond ence of the Associated Press) The war has wrought great changes in this ancient Thessalonian metropolis. Local merchants have grown inordi- nately rich from sales to the 500,0O0 British, French and Italian soldiers quartered here for four years. Every line of business has undergone extra ordinary expansion. Occupation by the allied troops has brought about great civil improvements in the city and its environs. The Saloniki area, which heretofore has been one of the dirtiest and most unsanitary in Eur ope, has been made at least habitable. New sanitary methods have been in- troduced by the British and French. Disease breeding swamps on the out skirts of the city have been drained. Water systems have been purified and drainage has been improved. Miles of new roads have been built. Number less stone and wooden buildings have been constructed and a score of mod ern hospitals established. Hundreds of miles of telegraph and telephone lines have been installed, and acres of arid soil have been converted into productive gardens.
 Only for the disastrous fire of Aug ust, 1917, which caused $200,000,OOO damage, the city and it's surroundings have been revolutionized. No steps have been taken by the Greek gov- ernment since the great fire to rebuild any of the devastated area. The ques- tion of undertaking it is one solely of labor and material. The funds are available for the work. Most of the 5OOOO persons made homeless by the fire are now living in tents and huts on the hillsides, or in the cellars and ruins of burned buildings where they live like rats. No ray of sunshine en- ters their wretched cellar abodes. They sleep on straw and live almost entirely on black bread and vege- tables. All are poor. They lack pro- per clothing, shoes and all the ordi- nary oonveniences of life. The Ameri- can Red Cross is helping them.
 At one time the center of learning of the ancient world, Saloniki today has little to show in the way of schools, libraries or academies. Noth- ing except a few broken columns re- main of it's ancient stadium, senate, hippodrome or temples. The few school buildings and churches are now filled with refugees. The best buildings have been converted into hospitals. The splendid theatres that existed in past centuries have been displaced by cheap moving-pfcture house. The only structures of merit that have stood the ravages of weather and battle are two triumphal arches built by the Romans. These are on the main street, which forms a part of the highway to Contantinople.
 The most picturesque features of the Macedonian capital are its great defensive walls, and the numberless | Turkish minarets that rise from al most every part of the town. These walls present today really formid- able defense to the city. The min, arots, though little used today, are reminders of time when the Turk ish empire embraced the whole of Macedonia and forced it's religion on all that came under it's authority.
 On Saloniki's principal street on the waterfront the American flag is always conspicuous, identifying the home and office of George Horton, the veteran American consul-general who has spent 25 years in the consular service MT. Horton is considered al most native of Macedonia, for he not only speaks the Greek language f1uently but his wife is a Greek woman.