506 



GEEECE. 



being supplied to it though a rubber hose from 

 one of the ship's boilers, it discharged its 

 water through one of the coaling ports, and 

 was kept at work until the last plate was ap- 

 plied, steam being still kept up in the boilers 

 of the centrifugal pump so that it might be set 

 at work in case of accident. The work of ap- 

 plying the plates to the ship's side went on 

 night and day, under the direction of the en- 

 gineers of the ship, Messrs. Rorison and Beck- 

 with. The fracture varied in breadth, being 

 in some places 4 feet wide. To cover the in- 

 dented plates, and restore the form of the ship, 

 the patch of new plates was 93 feet long by 

 from 6 to 10 feet in breadth, | inch thick, ap- 

 plied crosswise of the ship with lap joints. 

 The work of applying the plates was com- 

 menced at the after end, the cross timbers were 

 cut away to make room for the plates, and tem- 

 porary shores were driven between the plates 

 and the bottom of the caisson as the plates 

 were put in place. Everything now went on 

 quietly and rapidly. The job was completed, 

 and, on inspection by a number of engineers 

 and nautical men, was deemed very satisfactory. 

 The accident has demonstrated in a most practi- 

 cal manner the value of the cellular system of 

 construction. The outer skin was so abraded, 

 torn, and indented that, had it been the only 

 protection, the ship would have sunk imme- 

 diately. As it was, with only the immense 

 fracture of 86 feet in length closed, and the 

 others only temporarily stopped, she has made 

 her return trip successfully and safely. Similar 

 plans have been previously adopted for the re- 

 pair of ships' bottoms, but the magnitude of 

 the caisson 104 feet long by 15 wide is un- 

 precedented, and complicated the work. The 

 hose packing, which conduced, perhaps, more 

 than anything else to the success of the un- 

 dertaking, is, it is believed, a novelty, and was 

 devised by the Messrs. Renwick, who projected 

 the plans for the repair of the ship, and di- 

 rected the whole work. 



GREECE, a limited monarchy in the S. E. of 

 Europe, having an area of 18,244 square miles, 

 and a population of 1,067,216 inhabitants, or, 

 adding the Ionian Islands, which the British 

 Government have given the opportunity to 

 unite with the Greek kingdom, 19,250 square 

 miles, and 1,313,699 inhabitants. Greece is now 

 under a provisional government, of which De- 

 metri Bulgaris is president, with two vice-pres- 

 idents and a council of seven. 



During the past year Greece has undergone 

 a revolution, which has resulted in the over- 

 throw and banishment of the late King Otho I. 

 A brief explanation of the causes which led to 

 this revolution may properly preface an account 

 of it. Greece, which since the 15th century 

 had been under Turkish domination, worn 

 out with the constantly increasing oppression 

 of the Ottoman power, revolted in 1821, and a 

 war of seven years, marked by terrible atroci- 

 ties on the part of the Turks, followed. In 

 October, 1827, the Greeks, aided by a combin- 



ed English, French, and Russian fleet, gained 

 the battle of Navarino, which broke the Turkish 

 power, and led to the acknowledgment of their 

 independence, under the protection of the three 

 powers who had contributed to their libera- 

 tion. At first the government was nominally 

 a republic, and Count Capodistrias, a Greek 

 statestuan, long in the service of Russia, was 

 president ; but the three protecting powers 

 decided that they must have a monarchical gov- 

 ernment, and on the assassination of Count 

 Capodistrias in October, 1831, these powers, 

 after some deliberation, selected, as their 

 king, Otho, second son of the king of Bavaria, 

 born in 1815. He arrived at Nauplia in 1833, 

 and at first assumed the government under a 

 regency of three, selected by his father, all 

 Bavarians, and two of them utterly ignorant 

 of the country, and even of its language. In 

 1836 the king married Amelia, daughter of the 

 grand duke of Oldenburg, and took the man- 

 agement of affairs himself, or rather committed 

 them to the queen, as the abler member of the 

 royal firm. Otho was not by nature cruel or 

 tyrannical, but he was weak, indolent, and self- 

 ish, and wedded wholly to Bavarian ideas. His 

 queen was far more capable, but imperious, 

 selfish, and bent upon the gratification of her 

 own will, and scrupled at no tyranny which 

 should extract from the Greeks the money ne- 

 cessary to carry out her plans, while she was 

 unwilling to do anything to promote the inter- 

 ests of the people. The result has been that 

 oppression followed oppression till all motive 

 for enterprise or improvement was lost, and the 

 country sunk into a state of apathy, from which 

 it was only roused by occasional spasmodic ef- 

 forts to throw off the hated Bavarian yoke. 

 The municipal governments of the villages, a 

 relic of ancient Greece, which had been pre- 

 served through three and a half centuries of 

 Turkish domination, were discontinued ; the 

 monasteries were abolished, but their lands 

 and funds, instead of being applied to the pur- 

 poses of education, were taken as the property 

 of the crown, which further became the pro- 

 prietor of about two thirds of the cultivated, 

 and four fifths of the uncultivated lands of the 

 kingdom. On these lands the tenants were 

 required to pay 15 per cent, of the gross prod- 

 uct of the land in kind, as rent for its usufruct, 

 and in addition a land tax of from 3 to 10 per 

 cent, also in kind ; and these taxes and rents 

 were exacted in the most aggravating and 

 wasteful manner. The whole taxes and rents 

 were farmed, and the cultivator could neither 

 reap nor thresh his crop without the permis- 

 sion of the farmer, who often withheld the per- 

 mission, till the crop was nearly worthless, in or- 

 der to extract more from the hapless cultivator. 

 The crop when gathered must be transported 

 from five to twelve miles over the most abomi- 

 nable roads, to be threshed, that there might 

 be no withholding of the farmer's portion, and 

 when brought to the threshing floor, it was 

 often many weeks before permission to thresh 



