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Show i Maritza River, Limit of European Lands Offered Victorious Turks, Has Long Been Bone of Contention T WASHINGTON. Sept 28 The Maritza Ma-ritza river, which has within the last week come to the front In the day's nQWfl BLf the limit of European t- irl-I6t$ irl-I6t$ the tlllied pciwcrs ife willing' to Rl o Die vibtorlOua TUrkB Is described ;is Tuntejra "fifty-foUf-forty or fisrht'' In :i bulletin iMUid today by the Na-lionnl Na-lionnl Geographic society. ' Tho Maritza river, like tho Rhine bCltWeen France nnil Germnnv, Is n aymbol and a bone of contention among the Bulgar, Greek end Turk," the society says; "fiaeh or these thre, pedplei has claimed the Murltr.u valley A3 belonging to It on ethnic a''Jnd9 and BllCh 19 the racial mlxup In Thraco and thj portion of Macedonia whh Ih adjoins it, that eaoh has some excuse ex-cuse rof Us claim. Thrac liaK for 60 yeard hern in the ahamoloui con- lition of being Turkish territory yet tnor "'nrisilun than M"h:immedan, more alien thai) Turk Moreover the non -Tu rks-n on-Mohammedans wore more Intelligent and more Industrious than th:- Moslem, a fact which has heightened the non-Turkisb aspect of the country in favor of thi burden of n6flvj taxation, bcectiatlon and mas-sacre mas-sacre which the non -Turks have had piled on their fchoulders TiKKs OUTOLAteEI) - "More or less unconsciously tUs; Tui-ii.s seern throughout their tenure of half of a millennium In ESurcpt, to hnVe 'in9idered themselves engag-1 ed In fl mllltar occupation In the, trade and industry of the towns and Ottlea they did not and could not r compete with the Greeks and Jews and Armenians: and In the agricultural agricul-tural pursuits nf the country thc were Squally outclassed by th Bulbars and Vlat til and I be occasional Greeks who ar farmers. Many of the Turks enn- fined their activities to the cities Jwbeio they wpre rulers or soldier. I These who led the Uvea of peasants I nOVer a holly shook off their nomad-ISm, nomad-ISm, Thi"N- wore less efficient than thlr despised Christian neighbors, a , tact trhicn led to many a pillaging and masencrlng expedition) for the Moslems, Mos-lems, howflvor, humble their station, eefe armed, while tho ChrlsMans were not. FURIOUS FIGHTING i "ISaStSfn Thrace between the straits land the. Maritza river Is of little value 1 agriculturally. It Is an unattractive, dreary, monotonous plain with herb 'end there swampy depressions Lnrpe areas of the territory are untitled :and In summer they give tho country , tho appoarance of a desert Furious fighting, with little quarter, raged ov-jcr ov-jcr this region urlng the Balkan war of 191-18, as BUlgat and Turkish iarnis were alternately successful. Turkish villages were destroyed first, and SOOn after the Bulgarian villages suffered u similar fate When the BulfariaM finally controlled thj reg-j ton many Turks resigned to fale, tfekked to Asia Minor; and under th? I Greek control of toe past few ycaiS that movemenl has continued. Ah a result the Thrace of todny Is evenl more strikingly non-Turkish than In the tiast." |