DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0193
THE SHRINES OF ATTICA 171
the Greek word for bank, just as the English word
bank is derived from the money-dealer's bench.
This is the Athenian Wall Street, and not a little
speculation is based on the ups and downs of the
drachma. The larger hotels and merchants with
foreign trade fix their prices on a gold basis. In
the smaller shops and at the market Greek paper is
taken at its face value. The market soon adjusts
itself to any rapid change in prices, but railroad rates
and many other fixed charges are reckoned in
drachmas; and as gold is sometimes at a premium
of from sixty to eighty per cent the holders seek
to sell it at a good advantage.
In the ancient Agora different sections were
assigned to different goods, as in the best markets the
world over. And so to-day they are grouped with
more or less definiteness in the streets of Athens.
The Bon Marche and the Magazin dn Louvre or
the Wanamaker establishment embracing the whole
range of human wants have not absorbed and di-
gested the small dealers, and these may be found in
large numbers grouping their specialties in different
streets. They are more picturesque in the poor part
of the city. The winding lanes lined with little open
shops, the out-of door fruit markets and the tempting
sidewalk display of baskets, pottery and embroidery
seemed to have a strange fascination for Mavilla and
Taphylle. They soon labelled the picturesque streets
with names of their own. What they called the
" Street of the Red Shoes " was their favorite. Up
and down both sides of the alley hung rows and rows
of bright red shoes dangling from the eaves of the
open shops and dancing perpetually like those in
the Greek word for bank, just as the English word
bank is derived from the money-dealer's bench.
This is the Athenian Wall Street, and not a little
speculation is based on the ups and downs of the
drachma. The larger hotels and merchants with
foreign trade fix their prices on a gold basis. In
the smaller shops and at the market Greek paper is
taken at its face value. The market soon adjusts
itself to any rapid change in prices, but railroad rates
and many other fixed charges are reckoned in
drachmas; and as gold is sometimes at a premium
of from sixty to eighty per cent the holders seek
to sell it at a good advantage.
In the ancient Agora different sections were
assigned to different goods, as in the best markets the
world over. And so to-day they are grouped with
more or less definiteness in the streets of Athens.
The Bon Marche and the Magazin dn Louvre or
the Wanamaker establishment embracing the whole
range of human wants have not absorbed and di-
gested the small dealers, and these may be found in
large numbers grouping their specialties in different
streets. They are more picturesque in the poor part
of the city. The winding lanes lined with little open
shops, the out-of door fruit markets and the tempting
sidewalk display of baskets, pottery and embroidery
seemed to have a strange fascination for Mavilla and
Taphylle. They soon labelled the picturesque streets
with names of their own. What they called the
" Street of the Red Shoes " was their favorite. Up
and down both sides of the alley hung rows and rows
of bright red shoes dangling from the eaves of the
open shops and dancing perpetually like those in