DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0253
THE SHRINES OF ATTICA 229
vidualistic. To me this is one of the surest evidences
that the Greeks are children of their fathers. Not
even a dozen newspapers can express all the shades
of party feeling or of public opinion. You must go
to'Constitution Square in times of political excite-
ment, hear the hum of excited voices round the res-
taurants, and see the very air dizzy with discussion.
You will not be surprised, therefore, as you take
your breakfast, to find one paper pitching into the
Prime Minister without gloves, while another is return-
ing blows dealt by its adversary in a previous issue.
You will not be surprised to find editors making ugly
faces at the royal family, shrugging their shoulders
at the amount of the royal budget, bewailing the
inefficiency of the army, or attacking the financial
policy of the government; and you may be sure that
somebody else will speak in their defence. In Ger-
many these doughty editors would be put in prison
after due or undue process of law; in Greece, criti-
cism exhales freely into the air. The liberty of the
press is not abridged. On account of the repeated
attacks of that paper on the army, a club of army
officers foolishly attacked the office of the Acropolis
and destroyed a good deal of property; but they
really damaged their own cause by this cowardly
method of mob violence, and public opinion con-
demned them. The absurd practice of duelling still
exists in Greece, but fortunately most of it is done
with pen and ink.
The best papers furnish news as well as opinions.
It is served in readable paragraphs, telegraphic
flashes, in letters of correspondents, and industrious
scissoring. There is an abstract of debates in
vidualistic. To me this is one of the surest evidences
that the Greeks are children of their fathers. Not
even a dozen newspapers can express all the shades
of party feeling or of public opinion. You must go
to'Constitution Square in times of political excite-
ment, hear the hum of excited voices round the res-
taurants, and see the very air dizzy with discussion.
You will not be surprised, therefore, as you take
your breakfast, to find one paper pitching into the
Prime Minister without gloves, while another is return-
ing blows dealt by its adversary in a previous issue.
You will not be surprised to find editors making ugly
faces at the royal family, shrugging their shoulders
at the amount of the royal budget, bewailing the
inefficiency of the army, or attacking the financial
policy of the government; and you may be sure that
somebody else will speak in their defence. In Ger-
many these doughty editors would be put in prison
after due or undue process of law; in Greece, criti-
cism exhales freely into the air. The liberty of the
press is not abridged. On account of the repeated
attacks of that paper on the army, a club of army
officers foolishly attacked the office of the Acropolis
and destroyed a good deal of property; but they
really damaged their own cause by this cowardly
method of mob violence, and public opinion con-
demned them. The absurd practice of duelling still
exists in Greece, but fortunately most of it is done
with pen and ink.
The best papers furnish news as well as opinions.
It is served in readable paragraphs, telegraphic
flashes, in letters of correspondents, and industrious
scissoring. There is an abstract of debates in