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GREECE - John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, vol. 2 East India Co. - Nullification [1881]

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Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States by the best American and European Authors, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1899). Vol 2 East India Co. - Nullification

Part of: Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, 3 vols.

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GREECE

GREECE, a kingdom in the southeast of Europe, consisting of old Middle Greece (Hellas), the Peloponnesus (Morea) and the islands Eubœa, the Cyclades, the Northern Sporades, and, since Nov. 14, 1863, of the Ionian islands, which up to that time had been an independent state under the protection of England. The kingdom of Greece has an area of 19,941 English square miles, and a population (1879) of 1,679,775, of which number 37,598 are Albanians, 1,217 Wallachians, a total of 29,126 foreigners, i.e., Germans, French, English, Italians, and comers from the Ionian islands. The rest of the population are modern Greeks; that is, descendants of the ancient Hellenes, with a mixture of Slave blood. They speak the Greek language. The majority of the population belongs to the orthodox Greek Catholic Church. In 1870 there were 12,585 Roman Catholics and 2,582 Jews in the kingdom. The capital is Athens, with a population of 68,677. Greece won her independence, after a long struggle, from Turkish rule, and was declared a sovereign kingdom by the London protocol of Feb. 3, 1830. A treaty between England, France, Russia and Bavaria procured for Prince Otto the Grecian kingly crown; and he continued to reign until Oct. 22, 1862, when a provisional government constituted at Athens declared him deposed. On Dec. 22, 1862, the constitutive national convention assembled at Athens, on the motion of the protecting powers, chose Prince William (George), second son of the present king, Christian IX. of Denmark, (Schlcswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg,) king of the Hellenes, under the title of Georgios I. But the constitutive national assembly established, in 1864, a new constitution of the monarchy, a constitution which King George swore to support, Nov. 26, 1864. According to the provisions of this constitution, the crown shall be hereditary in the male line of the king's posterity; it passes eventually to the younger brother of the latter; but in no case can the crowns of Greece and Denmark belong to the same monarch. The executive power is in the king, and in the legislature. The national assembly consists of a single chamber of 187 deputies. This chamber has taken the place of the former estates assembly, with two chambers. The members of the national assembly are elected at general elections, and by direct election. Elections for members of the assembly take place every four years. The supreme executive board consists of the council with the ministers of foreign affairs, of justice, of the finances, of worship, public instruction, war, the navy, and of the interior. For the purposes of administration the country is divided into thirteen nomarchies (government districts), at the head of which stands a nomarch (president): Attica and Beotia; Eubœa; Phthiotis and Phocis; Acarnia and Ætolia; Achaia and Elis; Arcadia; Laconia; Messenia; Argolis and Corinth; Cyclades: Corfu; Cephalonia; Zante. The subdivisions of the nomarchies are the eparchies, governed by an eparch. There are fifty-nine eparchies. The capital is under a special prefect of police. In the administration of justice the areopagus is the highest court. There are, besides a court of cassation at Athens, courts of appeal at Athens, Nauplia, Patras and Corfu. Subordinate to these are the sixteen courts, and courts of assize, besides which there are 175 "justices of the peace" for lesser civil cases and lesser criminal offenses. The metropolitan of the Greek Catholic church resides at Athens. There are fourteen archbishops and sixteen bishops. Roman Catholic archbishops are located at Romas and Corfu. There are four bishops under their jurisdiction.

—By a statute of Jan. 15, 1867, a law of military duty, applicable to all, was introduced into Greece. The time of service, according to this law, begins with a person's twentieth year. He must remain six years in the reserve corps and ten in the landwehr.

—According to the budget of 1880, the receipts of the Grecian state were estimated at 46,716,857 drachmas. The state debt amounted, in 1880, to 315,209,011 drachmas.

—BIBLIOGRAPHY. Blockhaus, Griechenland, geographisch, geschichtlich und cultur-historisch von der ältesten zeit bis auf die Gegenwart, 8 vols., Leipzig, 1870; Gervinus, Geschichte des 19 Jahrh., 4 vols., Leipzig, 1859-60; Schmeidler, Geschichte des Königreichs Greichenlands, Heidelberg, 1876; Bernardakis, Le présent et l'avenir de la Grèce, Paris, 1870; Campbell, Turks and Greeks, London, 1877; Carnarvon, Reminiscences of Athens and the Morea, London, 1870; Cusani, Mémorie storico-statische sulla Dalmazia, sulle isole Ionie e sulla Grecia, Milan, 1862; Digenis, Quelques notes statistiquessur la Grèce, Marseilles, 1878; Dora d'Istria, Excursions en Roumélie et en Morée, 2 vols., Paris, 1865: Kirkwall, Four Years in the Ionian Islands, 2 vols., London, 1864; Leconte. Etude économique de la Grèce, Paris, 1849; Mansolas, Rapport sur l'état de la statistique en Grèce présenté au Congrès International de Statistique de St. Petersbourg en 1872, Athens, 1872, and La Grèce à l'Exposition universelle de Paris en 1878, Paris, 1878; Maurer, Das griechische Volk in öffentlicher und privat-rechtlicher Beziehung, Heidelberg, 1835; Schmidt, Beiträge zur physicalischen Geoyraphie von Griechenland, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1864-70; Sergeant, New Greece, London, 1878; Strickland, Greece, its Condition and Resources, London, 1863; Tuckerman, The Greeks of To-Day, London, 1873; Wyse, Impressions of Greece, London, 1871.

K. BAUMBACH.