A recent Report from the British Vice-Consul in Bulgaria, abstracted
in Tuesday's Times, gives a curious picture of that dogged little Principality. Its area, including Eastern Roumelia, is about 38,000 square miles, of which only one- quarter is under cultivation The population is over 3,000,000, 75 per cent. of whom are Bulgarians, 20 per cent. Turks, 2 per cent. Greeks, and the remaining 3 per cent. Servians, Roumanians, Russians, and Gipsies. The people are chiefly engaged in rural pursuits ; but Sofia has 30,000 and Philipp°. polis 33,000 inhabitants, and four other towns each something between 20,000 and 30,000. The Bulgarian Debt, all told, is less than £6,000,000, or about £2 per head. The Report also includes an account of a very curious system of co-operative agriculture carried on in Bulgaria by associations known as Zadrougas." Similar organisations for market-gardening are often very successful, and are extended to places as far distant as St. Petersburg or Brussels. During the Franco-German War, a body of co-operators wandered as far afield as Metz, and amassed a large sum of money by selling vegetables at famine prices. In 1888, no less than 9,555 gardeners left their villages to join such associations. The Bulgarian people have obviously many of the qualities of the Scotch and the Swiss ; and unless all historical analogies are utterly misleading, they will succeed in their efforts to prevent themselves from being absorbed by Russia.
Previous page
