The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

Sunday morning everybody goes to market, and the display of fish, meats and vegetables is large and interesting. On one side of the principal square were butchers, hucksters, and dealers in knickknacks from Servia, while everything on the other came from Hungary, across the River Save, and paid duty. The latter and their wares were much better looking, and the venders wore better garments than the Servians, many of them appearing in the Hungarian national costume. Their butter and cheese were more appetizing and were displayed in a neater manner; their vegetables were superior to those of Servian growth, the meat was of a better quality, and it was, therefore, not surprising when we were told that the wealthy class of the population patronized the Hungarians and paid a little more for their supplies. The common people buy food at the Servian end of the market. The fruits were beautiful, especially the grapes and plums. From those plums are made the prunes of commerce, and a large part of our supply comes from Servia. Plums are the largest and most valuable crop of the country. The exports of dried prunes were more than forty thousand tons in 1901, and from thirty to forty thousand tons were used in the distillation of plum brandy.

Servia is an agricultural country, and out of a population of 2,312,000, eighty-seven per cent are engaged in farming, the number of individual farms being 293,421, generally comprising from twenty to thirty acres each. Over 300,000 acres are devoted to plum trees. The next best crops are wheat, grass and corn. Pigs are one of the staple products. After the war with Bulgaria a few years ago, in which Servia was defeated, it was proposed to pay an indemnity of a million and a half of swine instead of cash. There are large flocks of sheep and a good deal of wool is handled, and the ranges are well stocked with cattle.

Whenever Servia has a period of peace the flocks and herds increase with great rapidity, and the wealth of the country grows like compound interest. Servia has been extensively advertised as “a poor man’s paradise,” as the soil, climate and other conditions are favorable for people of small means. Farms can be bought for small sums of money, and the ranges for cattle and sheep are usually public lands, which cost nothing except a small tax which is paid into the treasury of the township or commune. Recently several new industries have been established. A German company has built a large beet-sugar factory within sight of Belgrade, and a linen manufactory has been erected by Belgian capital. There are several match factories, flour-mills, tanneries and breweries, and the government is proposing to pay subsidies to encourage the introduction of woolen mills and other mechanical industries in different parts of the country. Servia is prospering. There is plenty of work at good wages, but at the same time considerable emigration to the United States and to the neighboring countries, because of a disinclination among the young men to spend five years of their lives in the military service.

A GLIMPSE OF OLD BELGRADE

At market we saw a bride in the native dress, who had just come from the church where the marriage ceremony had been performed, and was receiving the congratulations of her friends and neighbors, while her proud husband stood at her side and was envied. She was a buxom damsel of the Swedish type, with blond hair and a clear blue eye. Her head was covered with a peculiar turban, from which hung clusters of silver coins. Long strings of coins were suspended from a necklace and a girdle, and hung over her shoulders and hips, and must have been very heavy. These were her dowry. She had begun to save them during her childhood, and instead of putting them in a savings-bank had strung them together for ornaments and had worn some or all of them on festive occasions to attract the attention of the eligible young men of the neighborhood. They were of different denominations, large and small, and were arranged with a good deal of taste. The custom of the country permits a bride to control her dowry after marriage, and many women are able to preserve their wedding coins and transmit them to their children. Sometimes they are exchanged for a piece of land, a cottage, or cattle, and sometimes the coins are taken, one by one, from the string, to meet emergencies in domestic economy. As a rule, however, the peasants of Servia are well-to-do, and as long as peace can be preserved they are able to live comfortably and save money.

The city of Belgrade lies upon a narrow, elevated peninsula between the River Save and the Danube. It has improved considerably during the last quarter of a century. The streets are wide and lined with fine buildings after the Austrian style of architecture, with frequent open squares which the public uses for market-places. The older part of the city, nearest to the banks of the rivers, which was built during Turkish domination, is composed of low buildings of adobe, with roofs of red tile, fronting upon narrow and crooked streets and abounding in filth and bad smells. One part is given up to the Jewish population, who are huddled together in narrow quarters called the Ghetto, although many are supposed to be rich and to own large areas of valuable real estate in other sections of the city. There is no persecution of the Jews in Servia. Freedom of worship is granted by the constitution, although the state religion is the Greek orthodox. Out of a total population of 2,312,484 souls 2,281,018 are communicants of that church. The Roman Catholics number 10,411; the Mohammedan gypsies, 11,586; Turks, 2,489; Jews, 5,102; Protestants, 1,002.

The prevailing prejudice against the Jews is due to their success in business rather than to religious scruples. They are not allowed to hold office, although there is no legal prohibition, and are often hooted at in the streets. In ordinary business transactions the keen rivalry of the Jews is exasperating to their Christian competitors, and their commercial enterprise in all directions has interfered considerably with the prosperity of the natives. In the mercantile trade they have the best shops and undersell the Christians; in brokerage and the commission business they show a shrewdness and prudence which enable them to make money while others lose, and they have thus acquired wealth and commercial influence which make them objects of envy. I did not hear any Christian say a good word of a Jew in Servia, but at the same time I was not able to discover an instance in which a member of that race has failed to fulfill his contracts or has asked more than his due. The persecution of the Jews in the neighboring Kingdom of Roumania, where they form a large portion of the population, is becoming desperate. There the restrictions of the Middle Ages are still in force. Jewish children are not allowed to attend the public schools; Jewish students are not admitted to the technical schools or the university; Jewish operatives cannot be employed in manufacturing establishments; the Jews are prohibited from practicing professions and engaging in certain kinds of commercial business, the object being to drive them out of the country. All this is in violation of the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin, under which the Kingdom of Roumania received the protection of the great Powers, but it is useless for the Jews to appeal because they cannot get a hearing. There is no such trouble in Servia or Bulgaria, and for that reason a considerable emigration from Roumania is moving that way.

Since the time of King Michael, Servia has had an excellent school system and a law making education compulsory. All children between the ages of seven and fourteen must attend school, and since 1865, when only four per cent of the population could read and write, there has been remarkable advancement. There are a number of academies, a school of commerce, an agricultural college, a school of wine-culture and a university with four hundred and thirty-six students, of whom twenty-eight are women. In addition to these there are also twenty-seven hospitens, or guests—students who are too poor to pay the matriculation fees, but are allowed to attend the lectures and enjoy the full benefit of the university training without receiving degrees. The university occupies a fine building opposite the principal square, and has a well-selected library of forty thousand volumes. The entire expense of the university is paid by the national treasury, and during the year 1900 was $109,000. There are four faculties—law, medicine, science and philosophy.

Some of the school buildings are excellent examples of modern construction and convenience, and they show an educational enterprise that is creditable to the country. The government supports a museum of natural history, a theater for the encouragement of opera and the drama in the native tongue, and a small picture-gallery, which contains an interesting collection of portraits of national characters and several examples of old masters which have been presented from time to time. There are also a number of paintings by native artists. One of them, representing the coronation of an early king of Servia, was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1900, and was purchased by the government as an encouragement to other artists. Nearly all the pictures by native artists relate to historical events—warfare, massacres and assassinations, dying women and headless men, for the history of Servia has been a chronicle of horrors.