Show CABMEN OF OLD ATHENS THEY DIFFER FROM THEIR TRIBE IN OUR YOUNG AMERICA lie captured by one f them and yon mast ride in his nack the others will kot serre yon annoying experience of hone car in athene we were landing atthe piraeus just wed to the steps of as our gig was ro ap the landing place we saw a sturdy looking little fellow running with all his might to get at the top of the steps by the time we should arrive there he was a cabman he of all the cabeen cabmen had been the first to catch sight of us and as there were a dozen other cabeen cabmen op the spot this was quite a triumph on his part we surrendered ourselves into hia hands therefore with satisfaction for though he was not handsome being altogether a most disreputable looking little ragamuffin he had shown the possession of qualities and we had need of a cab bat when foU owing him through a malodorous crowd we arrived at his vehicle we were discouraged for the vehicle itself was a dilapidated ramshackle unclean thing and the two nags scarcely larger than goats were go bony mangy and miserable that it beamed cruelty to animals to consent to an arrangement that involved their dragging about three full grown persons in addition to the little driver We therefore decided peremptorily that as there was no contract made we should not get into that vehicle but would choose another to suit ourselves we decided this inside conr own heads but in BO doing we counted without the hosts of cabeen cabmen A DISCO BIGHTS having selected a good cab with a decent pair of horses and proposed a bargain to the driver without regard to the shrill and continuous clamor of our little ragamuffin we found that his eloquence had more cogency than our offer for the driver of the vehicle chosen would not accept us as his passengers because we belonged to the other man he had captured us had acquired a right of property in us which all other cabeen cabmen were bound to respect and every cabman to whom we successively aid dressed ourselves refused us in the same way we were boycotted the cab men of the piraeus were one and indivisible in their determination that wa should make our entry into greece behind the worst pair of horses ever seen or otherwise go afoot if the greeks bad stood together half as well in their dealings with the turks and other foes as they did on this occasion against three peaceful wayfare rs the famous dream that greece might still he free might have become a dazzling and magnificent ent reality but we had read long before this in a book by one plato called the republic that socrates and several other fellows had one day walked down from athens to the piraeus Pire eus and in fact that they had there talked among themselves the whole contents of that interesting book and we are reasonably sure that as to the walks and talks of socrates we are equal to the walks at least and so we would walk either with socrates or with the melodious irishman who when he did not walk rode in chaides chaises ch aises we walked therefore with the Irish mans alternative on our tongues and as we walked along the awfully dirty street with the ships on one side and the wretched little shops and vile smelling restaurants on tho other wretched shops and vile smelling restaurants tau rants having over their doors gran signs in greek which though bad was good enough to keep in ones mind the acci ent glories as we did all this actually passing on the way a monument with the head of on a doric column one little ragamuffin ofa driver followed us like a pestilent horse fly tearing ahead at full speed and halting in front of us and declaiming constantly that we were hia and that we were cheating him by refusing to ride with what immense energy he would dash ahead halt in front of us get down and open the door of his cab and appeal to us to enter but he appealed to hearts hardened with silent rage we were within a few miles of the where eaid savage things at the roaring sea with pebble stones in his month and if this fellow could have said all these things even if he had practiced with paving stones in his mouth he could not have convinced us THE HOESE CAB suddenly there camo an unlocked for solution to this mean little drama there appeared upon the scene here at the very end of the long walls that awfully modern contrivance a horse car now as a horse car is presumably the property of a corporation and as the great distinction of a corporation is that it has no soul one perceived that here we might be free from the immediate con odthe boycott and we entered tha horse car which by the way was certainly the cleanest vehicle in all that part of greece As soon as we entered the horse car we were out of all our trouble but vo were forced to reflect that we were not following the great example of socrates and to consider that if socrates had been able to return to athens m a norse car thia fact would have cut abort all that noble conversation lunder the trees and the world might have been without its first great an utopian state but it is evident that modern institutions are having fair play in greece the boycott and the horse car are doing what they may for civilization there and other fine things will follow meanwhile one sees enough to convince him as he wanders on the acropolis that the very rubbish of the parthenon is worth am the rest of greece as it is and it becomes a comfort to know that history has pretty well proved that the so called modern greeks are not greeks at all but only of s horde of wretched slavs who swarmed in and settled upon the land like locusts when war and pestilence together bad annihilated the grander race athens cor new york world |