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Bulgarian Characteristics.
From a series of articles in the London Times
on Bulgaria, we take the following interesting
extracts :
There is a little formality to be gone through on
the Servian frontier besides the visa of passports,
for the coachman must lodge a deposit of 80 francs
to guarantee that he is not taking his horses over
the border for sale. If one of his horses fell ill in
Bulgaria he would have to procure one of the same
colour to come back with, for if he returned with a
gray starting with a brown there would he endless
worry. In Bulgaria no passports are asked, and
there is no stoppage until Zaribrod, where a couple
of gendarmes in brown tunics with green facings,
big boots, and caftans of Astrakhan fur, examine
luggage. The bearing of these mea and of Bul-
garian soldiers in general shows excellent military
training, and, indeed, one has not drive» five miles
over the frontier before the differences of the
characteristics of Bulgarians and Servians show
themselves in a multitude of signs. Tuikish
extortion, instead of making the Bulgarian care-
less and indolent, has rendered him thrifty to
niggardliness, and suspicious. He works as hard
as he can, has cows, pigs, and geese around
him in plenty, never spends a piastre when
he can help it, and hides away all his
money m some corner known only to himself
and his wife. The time has not come when seduc-
tive investments offering ten per cent, will tempt
the Bulgarian out of his savings, for he pins his
faith to cash and winces at all paper securities, in-
cluding bank-notes. The usurer who preys upon
the drunken Russian peasant has no hold on this
sober, canny Slav of the South. Drunkenness is
scarcely known among the people. They live in
the most temperate and wholesome fashion, on
fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, and dairy produce ;
mix their red wine with water, and treat coffee and
smoking as luxuries only to be indulged in on days
of rest. It is as rare to see a Bulgarian peasant
with a pipe in his mouth as it is to meet an Aus-
trian or German peasant without one. The man
only wants a decent cottage to make his prosperity
manifest ; unfortunately he was compelled to simu-
late poverty under Turkish rule, and he has not
yet grown ashamed of living in a hovel, his villages
therefore look filthy. But the outward transfor-
mation of Bulgaria will come very quickly, and
make it an Eastern Switzerland, if it does not fall
back under the barbarizing rule of Russia. Thir-
teen months ago the Bulgarian soldieu was still
being cuffed and sworn at by his Russian officers,
and he submitted to this treatment with the
too abject humility of a race long en-
slaved. It is doubtful whether he would do
so now, for there has been a Bparkle in his eyes
since he put the Servians to rout. His own officers
nover strike him, and they affirm that he seldom
requires punishment of any kind. He gives that
intelligent obedience which comes of an eager
desire to learn. In Bulgarian villages where
there is no school, men, women and children will
cluster of an evening round anybody who can read
to them or teach thecn something. Be the instruc-
tion what it may, it is listened to with a hard look
of strained attention. It is the same as regards
i-i-nrlo inarvnp+inn Tn Rnfin i-Vin hntldin«. «Í now
houses in European style has procured the employ-
ment of numbers of natives as masons, carpenters,
plumbers, and decorators. They seem slow to learn
the crafts, because they will not pretend to under-
stand until they understand thoroughly, but once
they begin to work their German or Italian foremen
can trust them without fear. A character so
patient, wistful and tenacious as that of the Bul-
garians could not but assimilate free political
institutions very readily ; and, in fact, the Consti-
tution of Tirnova has pushed on the political
education-or, shall one say, political cramming ?
of the country at an extraordinarily rapid rato.
Prince Dondoukoff Korsakoff, imagining that he
might be elected Prince of Bulgaria, originally
prepared a constitution which was all straps
and safeguards. Being disappointed of his
hopes, he encouraged the first Assembly at
Tirnova to take his work to pieces and
fashion a democratic constitution, which, as
he trusted, would make the country ungovernable
and soon cause the throne to he vacant. These
calculations were in part verified. The constitm
tion could not be worked with a Russian adminis-
tration ; the Russian party advised its abolition,
and afterwards intrigued with th<? Opposition to
get it restored ; but, in all this, Muscovite un
scrupulousness, as usual, over-reached itself. Using
Liberalism to combat the Prince, the Russians
were eventually reduced to employing revolutionary
Radicalism and Socialism to harrass the Radical
Ministry under Karaveloff, and thus they taught
the nation some political theories which will hence-
forth be turned against the teachers. Even the
impure flood of the calumnies directed against the
Prince by the subsidized newspapers of the Zankoff
party has left behind it a fertilising deposit, just
as the mud that remains after an inundation gives
manure to the fields. Whoever may be the next
ruler of Bulgaria, he must leave the Press free, or
else encounter the stubborn opposition of the
Radicals, who will not cease to cry that under
Prince Alexander newspapers said what they
pleased.
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