The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897

The Assembly has, however, passed the Charter over the Mayor's veto.

A number of New Yorkers who do not approve of the Charter are going to fight it in the Legislature, and try to get the State Senate to throw it out. If this fails and the bill passes both Houses, they will try and influence the Governor to veto it.

There is a good deal of trouble ahead for the Charter.

Some ambitious people want to make a State of Greater New York, and call it Manhattan. They think that it will be of great benefit to the city to be a State, and that if this is done the taxes will be much lower and the city will acquire many valuable rights.

The Tariff Bill has passed the House of Representatives, and is now before the Senate. The friends of this measure think that it is sure to pass.

But the bill seems to have as many enemies as friends, for the outcries against it are loud and long from every section of the country.

It is difficult for us to guess whether the bill is going to be useful or harmful to us.

On one hand, the people who are in favor of it are praising it to the skies, and speaking of the immense industries that are going to arise as soon as the bill is made law. The duty on raw sugar, according to these people, is going to encourage people to try and make the raw sugar over here, and the American farmers to grow beets to make beet sugar from. They claim that a wonderful new business is to grow out of this new industry, that is to make all farms pay and everybody happy.

The importers and people who do not approve of the bill are crying aloud that clothes and woollen goods are going to be so much dearer.

A picture was published of a lady and gentleman seated in a pretty room, talking the tariff over, their little girl playing beside them.

Every article of furniture in the room, every garment they wore, and the basket of marketing which the lady had apparently brought in with her, had a ticket on it, showing how much more expensive each article would be if the Tariff Bill became a law.

This picture, however, far from having the effect intended, of making people dislike and fear the Tariff Bill, makes thinking people approve it.

When we remember that this tax is only to be laid on foreign goods that are imported, we are bound to think that if it is really true that so many necessary articles are imported which we could just as well make in this country, it is high time our industries were protected, and that the vast and wonderful resources of our own country were developed to supply our needs.

So great a blow will the tariff bill be to the importing trade, that some of the foreign ministers have ventured to protest against the bill, because it will damage their country's commerce so much.

Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands have been the first to protest. Germany has sent a decided hint, through her Ambassador, that she will make such a heavy duty on American goods, if the bill is passed, that she will ruin our trade in Germany as surely as we shall ruin hers in America.

The most serious complaint against the bill comes from the business men. They say that business was just beginning to pick up again, and that the introduction of so disturbing a question as the Tariff, at this time, is killing business, and making it as bad as it was before election.

The Ceremonies for the dedication of the Grant Monument will be very grand.

A fine naval parade has been arranged to go side by side with the land parade, and the President has promised to be present and review both parades.

Boys from the public schools are to march in line.

During the last few days there have been most marvellous reports about an air-ship that is declared to have been seen in the sky.

The stories come from the West.

People in Omaha, Nebraska, Kansas City, and finally in Chicago have all stated positively that they have seen a strange light in the sky, which was as great as that of twenty stars, which they said could be nothing else but a searchlight on an air-ship.

Astronomers, after carefully looking at the light, declared it to be a star, one of the Orion group.

People, however, persisted in thinking it a searchlight on an air-ship, because three lights were seen—a red, a green, as well as this great white light.

The astronomers said that the particular star referred to did seem to shine,with red and green lights at times.

Still, people were not satisfied, and soon a report came that the object had been seen more closely, and a cigar-shaped outline had been observed behind the light.

From all over that section of the country people have declared that they have seen the thing, and that it is really an air-ship; but whether there is any truth in these reports or not, it is impossible as yet to tell.

One thing is certain, however, that a great many persons are experimenting with air-ships, for from five or six different towns word has come that so-and-so has been experimenting with an air-ship for a long time, and perhaps the object in the sky is his perfected ship.

We may live to travel by air-ship yet.

The New York Elevated Roads have put on bicycle trains.

Between certain hours of the morning and afternoon on Sundays, the trains will run bicycle cars.

These cars are made with a line of bicycle racks running down one side, and a row of seats facing them on the other.

The fare is fifteen cents, and none but persons with wheels are allowed to ride on these trains.

The experiment has proved such a success that the surface cars are talking of running trailer-cars for bicycles on Sundays, and, during certain seasons, on week-days.

War has been declared between Greece and Turkey, and the meddling of the Powers has brought about nothing better than a long delay, in which the angry feelings between the two countries have had time to grow so strong and deep that nothing but blood will satisfy them.

On April 16th Turkey formally declared war upon Greece.

The reason given by Turkey was that Greek troops had taken part in the last raid made by the brigands, and that therefore Greece had already commenced war.

In his letter stating his reasons for declaring war, the Sultan said he hoped the Powers would agree with him that Greece was really to blame for his action.

Greece has been hoping that she could force Turkey to declare war, that she might escape from the penalties threatened by the Powers if she was the first to begin the fight. She is now free from any further fear that they will blockade her ports, and can fight the enemy without interference.

The various Consuls and Ministers have been recalled to Turkey from Greece, and the Sultan has issued an order that all Greeks must leave Turkish territory within fifteen days.

The fighting has been very furious on both sides.

The war broke out in two different places. On the west coast of Turkey is the Gulf of Arta. Here the Greek war-ships have bombarded the town of Preveza, and reduced it to ashes.

Farther inland a Greek force has crossed the border into Epirus, and driven the Turks before it. The Greeks are endeavoring to march on to Janina, the capital of Epirus. Epirus is one of the Greek provinces which King George desires to win back for his country.

On the frontier of Macedonia the Greeks have not been so successful, for the Turks have won from them a very important mountain pass, the Pass of Milouna, which opens the plains of Larissa to them.

This has been a very severe blow to the Greeks, and unless they can force the Turks back again they are in danger of losing the town of Larissa, where most of the supplies for the army have been sent; its loss would be a terrible one!

There is another pass to the plains of Larissa, called Reveni. This the Greeks are holding bravely; the Turks were defeated with great loss in their attack.

The Crown Prince has sent a telegram to Athens, saying that the victory lies with Greece so far, and that he intends to try and take back Milouna from the Turks.

It is said that Germany persuaded Turkey to declare war, and that the Kaiser is in full sympathy with the Sultan.

England has declared herself neutral, which means she will not side with either party; but it would appear that strong efforts are being made in the British Parliament to force England to aid Greece.

It is feared that if Greece should whip the Turks, the great European war can no longer be avoided. The reason for saying this is that, if Turkey is defeated, the Ottoman Empire will fall to pieces, and all the Powers may join in one free fight for a share of the plunder.

Genie H. Rosenfeld.

LETTERS FROM OUR FRIENDS

From Monterey, Cal., come the two following letters about books:

Dear Editor:

I thought that I should take much pleasure in writing to The Great Round World.

I have been reading your magazines for several months, and I greatly enjoy them.

Among the books that I like to read are those of the Stories of the Ancient Greeks, but for current events I greatly prefer The Great Round World.

Ever your reader,Rosa B.

Monterey, Cal.

Dear Editor:

I enjoy reading The Great Round World very much. I think it is very interesting, as well as instructive.

One of the books I like best is Kipling's "Jungle Book." I think all of the readers of The Great Round World would enjoy it also.

I will close now, wishing great success to The Great Round World.             Marion C.

Monterey, Cal., April 7th, 1897.

We are very much obliged to our kind young readers.

Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book," of which there are two volumes—"The First Jungle Book" and "The Second Jungle Book"—is a very delightful series of stories of Indian life, and those of our readers who have not yet read them have a great treat in store.

"The First Jungle Book" is perhaps the better of the two, and the tale of the little Mongoose Rikki Tikki is so delightful that you can read it again and again with pleasure.

Dear Editor:

I like The Great Round World. Mrs. Mills, my teacher, reads something out of it every morning that she has time. Will you please answer a few questions? Can the prisoners in Sing Sing prison talk together? If not, why not? Can they, after doing their day's work, do work for themselves and keep the money? Yours truly,

Carl C.

Cheyenne, Wyo., April 5th, 1897.

My Dear Carl:

The prisoners in Sing Sing are not allowed to talk together. This is part of their punishment. Prisoners cannot do work for themselves and keep the money. They used to have certain tasks given to them every day, and when these were done they went back to their cells. Under the present law they stay in their cells all the time, except for a certain period of exercise, when they go round and round the prison yard.

Editor.

ANCIENT GREECE

I have already told you some things about the old Roman Empire, which ran its course long before modern Europe came into existence.

Now I am going to tell you about a civilization so much older than that, that it makes the Roman Empire seem like a thing of to-day!

The Greeks are the most ancient people in Europe. Their early history, before there were books or written records, has come down to us through legends and tradition; that is, fanciful stories, in which fact and fable are mingled, handed down from generation to generation. These legends tell us that the founders of their nation were not men but gods, who came down from heaven and peopled the land; that the massive architecture (of which there are remains to-day) was the work of these gods, who were the ancestors of the Greek people.

But you and I know more about the origin of this people than they themselves did. And the wonderful story has all been found out almost in our own day!

Their ancestors did not come from heaven, but from Central Asia. Countless ages ago an Asiatic race, called the Aryans, began to flow westward into Greece. When they came, or why, nobody knows. But come they did, and for centuries like a great sea spread farther and farther into Europe, until at last the continent was covered. And you and I and almost all the people now in Europe are Aryans, and belong to this great Asiatic race.

It was a long time after the occupation of Greece that the Aryan wave reached Italy.

Then after long ages another Aryan branch, called the Keltic, came into Western Europe, and overflowed what we now call France, Spain, and the British Isles. Long, long after that, still another, the Teutonic branch, flowed over Central Europe, and became Germany. Then, last of all, came the Slavonic, which occupied the eastern part (Russia); and then—the Asiatic Aryans had possessed themselves of the entire Continent of Europe.

It is a strange fact that knowledge and civilization have always, like the sun, arisen in the East, and moved steadily toward the West!

Probably the first spot in Europe touched by the rays of the coming day was the little island of Crete! Minos, who was King of Crete in this time of fable, was always worshipped as the deity who first established civilization and social order!

Theseus also, King of Athens at this time, was one of their great heroes. And you must read about his slaying the Minotaur in Crete, and about the beautiful Ariadne who fell in love with him, and gave him the clue to the labyrinth where her father, Minos, kept the monster hid. These things about the classic little island have an especial interest for us now.

At this earliest period the people were called, not Greeks, but Pelasgians. In the course of time the Hellenes, a more powerful Aryan race, overpowered them, and after that their country was called Hellas, and its people Hellenes, until a much later period, when they were known as Greeks.

The Hellenes, like the ancient Pelasgians, had a system of religion which we call mythology. They worshipped twelve principal deities and countless smaller ones, who, they believed, ruled the lives and fortunes of men. Jupiter was the chief of these, and his will and that of the other gods were communicated to the people by priestesses, in the form of "Oracles." These were mysterious utterances, the meaning of which had to be guessed like riddles. But for centuries no war was undertaken nor a single important thing done without first consulting the "Oracles."

The "Heroic Age" (as it is called) is all so vague and shadowy, we should know nothing about it were it not for the great poet Homer. But, strangely enough, about nine hundred years before Christ, Homer gathered all that was then known about the early life and habits of the Hellenes into two great poems, called the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey."

In describing an ancient war which took place between the Hellenes and the Trojans—a people in Asia Minor—he so minutely pictured the people engaged in the struggle, their habits of life, their thoughts and feelings, with the minutest details of the circumstances in which they lived, that it enables us to know what would otherwise be impossible.

This marvellous work, produced more than a thousand years before there was a Germany, or an England, and almost a thousand before there was a Roman Empire, is still the world's great masterpiece, and is to-day an indispensable part of education.

At the close of the "Heroic Age" something happened, which had the same effect upon Ancient Greece that many centuries later the descent of the Goths and Vandals had upon Southern Europe. Greece, too, had its northern barbarians. Some stronger and fiercer Aryan tribes poured down from Epirus, and for a time upset everything, just as the Goths did in Europe.

The Dorians, a stern, unrelenting tribe, took possession of the southern extremity of the peninsula, called the Peloponnesus; and the city of Sparta was the head of their State. There were other States, too, in Greece, and each had its king and separate government. But although jealous of each other and almost always at war, they worshipped the same deities, consulted the same Oracles, and all alike gloried in being descended from the same gods and in being Greeks.

The two most powerful States (or cities, which meant the same thing) were Athens and Sparta. But they were as widely separated in character and habits as if they did not belong to the same family. Athens was the brain, and Sparta the rough, strong arm of Greece.

Athens delighted in poetry, music, art, and eloquence. The Spartans despised all these things. They scorned to use three words where two would do, and aimed only to make their youth fearless and terrible defenders of Greece.

When a child was born, if it did not give promise of being physically strong and perfect, it was cast into a ravine and then left to perish. When the boys who were permitted to live were seven years old, they were taken from their mothers and made to endure cold, hunger, and inhuman severities. They were beaten until the blood flowed, simply to teach them endurance, and a Spartan boy would die under the lash rather than endure the disgrace of uttering a cry of pain. There was never any family life, nor pleasure.

Every boy was trained to be a soldier; and until he was sixty years old the man belonged to the State absolutely. And all those years he ate his black broth at a public mess, seasoned only with fatigue and hunger. A witty Athenian said he did not wonder the Spartans were brave in battle, for death was preferable to their life.

The severe code of laws by which they were governed was established by Lycurgus, about 770 b.c. (before Christ).

Athens had her days of severity and cruelty, too, under Draco, who established her first laws. But the people rebelled, and in 594 b.c. Solon, a man of great sagacity, prepared a constitution, which was a model of wisdom, justice, and even of gentleness. The government established by Solon was an aristocratic Republic, in which the common people had no part. The Chief, or Archon, as he was called, was chosen by the nobles, and served for a stated time, like our Presidents.

But the supreme authority lay in the "Court of Areopagus," whose members had already served as Archons. The Areopagus really ruled the State, a Senate of four hundred members preparing the cases which were to be brought before it for decision.

Athens prospered under this rule. But an ambitious noble stirred the people to believe they were unjustly excluded from office and from power, and produced a new government, which, under the cloak of a democracy, was really a despotism, with the scheming Pisistratus at its head, or, as it was called, its "Tyrant" (meaning simply ruler).

But Lycurgus did something else besides placing an austere and merciless system upon Sparta. He helped to re-establish the famous and ancient Olympic Games (776 b.c.).

You know how we feel about our great baseball and football games; how excited we are, and how glad or how sorry if one team or the other is defeated. Well, suppose, instead of these, there was one great game every four years, in which all the country could compete. And suppose the victor in this great game was crowned and treated like a king forever afterward. That would be what the Olympic Games were in Greece.

Every four years the young Greeks from all parts of the country met at Olympia and contended for prizes in athletic games. There was running, jumping, wrestling, boxing, the throwing of javelins and quoits (the "discus"), and races of horses and chariots. For one month, during this great festival, wars were suspended throughout Greece.

The only reward of the victor was a crown of wild-olive leaves; but this was regarded as the dearest prize in life and the greatest honor a Greek could attain.

The wearer of the olive crown was carried home like a king, with processions and songs of triumph, and all his life afterward he was a privileged and honored person. He had conferred everlasting distinction upon his family and his country, and his statue was erected in the Sacred Grove of Jupiter, in whose honor these festivals occurred.

Other festivals were established afterward in honor of Apollo, called the Pythian and Isthmian games, in which there were contests, not alone in gymnastics and in chariot races, but in music, poetry, and eloquence; and these prizes were also sought as the richest rewards life could bring. The Spartans took no part in them. But it was the Olympic games which brought together all of Greece every four years, cemented the states with a common sympathy, and kept alive the fraternal spirit.

This national festival was to them what the Christian era is to us. The interval of four years between the games was called an Olympiad. And time in Greece was measured from the First Olympiad, which occurred, according to our reckoning, b.c. 776-772.

With such a stimulus for effort, every young Greek was straining every nerve and every muscle to win the olive wreath. He was training his body to the finest perfection for the one prize, and his powers of intellect and his genius for the others. This goes far to account for the physical beauty and the supreme excellence which made this race like their own progenitors of the Heroic Age, more like a race of gods than of men.

But they were great in other things besides athletics and accomplishments. The shores of Asia Minor and of the Mediterranean were soon fringed with rich Greek colonies. Every place they touched blossomed into beauty, with temples and houses adorned with sculpture and painting. One of their cities on the coast of Italy was called Sybaris, and it has given us the word "sybarite," which means a person who abandons himself to luxury.

We may form some idea of these Greek cities from Pompeii, which was still existing on the coast of Italy at the time of the Christian era, and which has been preserved in its bed of ashes as if to show to a later age refinements of luxury, so far exceeding its own.

While during five hundred years Greece had been thus developing, its separate and discordant states were held firmly together by just three things: They all had the same religion and sacred rites, they were all striving for the same prizes at the Olympic Games, and all alike revered their poet Homer. The "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" were, in fact, the Greek Bible. It was the final appeal in matters of religion, and it was the history of their divine origin and ancestry. Boys studied it in school, and men never ceased to study it—many Athenians being able to recite both poems from beginning to end.

At the time the Greeks were thus becoming a great nation, there was in Asia an old and powerful empire called Persia. Some of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor were accused by the great King Darius of inciting his own people in Asia Minor to revolt. And he sent an army, which punished and subdued the offending Greeks. King Darius then decided that he would invade Greece itself. He thought he could easily master that little scrap of territory, and capture its straggling colonies along the Mediterranean coast, and thus extend his own dominion into Europe.

Athens and Sparta were, as usual, engaged in a small war; but at the news of a threatened Persian invasion, the Greek States sprang solidly together.

The armies met on the field of Marathon (490 b.c.), and the Asiatic host, after a desperate conflict, turned and fled. So confident had the Persians been of victory, that they had brought a mass of white marble with which to erect a monument on the plain of Marathon. This Phidias, the great Greek sculptor, carved into a gigantic figure of Nemesis, to represent Divine vengeance.

The proud and arrogant Persians were not used to defeat. For ten years they brooded over it and prepared to wipe it out by an overwhelming victory. Darius was dead; but his son Xerxes, in the year 480 b.c.., appeared on the coast of Greece with a vast army, which he himself led.

The first incident in the war was the most renowned in the history of the world. If you do not know of it already, you will often hear how Leonidas, with his little Spartan band of three hundred, defended the narrow rocky pass at Thermopylæ against the whole Persian army, and how they stood their ground until every man was killed.

The Persians pressed on into the heart of Greece. Athens was abandoned, and then burnt by the conquerors. What made the cause of Greece still more desperate was the dissensions between the Athenians and the Spartans, who insisted upon concentrating their forces to guard their own Peloponnesus. But finally all united in a great battle at Salamis.