HEILOTES AND EPHOROI.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1832, 6 January 1880, Page 3

HEILOTES AND EPHOROI.

To the Editor of the Olobe. Sis, —The question raised by you in the footnote to my letter transcends in importance all the questions involved in the discussion, and, as 1 did not expect my statement about the Ephoroi to be disputed, I beg a small space to reach those hundreds who are interested in the discussion. In quoting those words from page 65 of Dr. Smith, you appear not to have noticed the following passages : —(64) “ An executive directory of five men called the Ephoroi,” and (65) “The Ephoroi may be regarded as the representatives of the popular assembly.” In the words taken by you at page 66 you left out the very words that showed the position stated by me —viz., “ They had the entire management of the interna' as well as of the foreign affairs of the State.” Lastly, the powers of the Spartan Ephoroi were not so great as English Cabinet Ministers. Did not Ephor Grey refuse to obey Dual King Normanby, and reprimand Dual King Beach, while Ephor Berry notoriously sets Dual King Beach at defiance? Who rules England, including India and Afghanistan ? Does Dizzy or Victoria originate the measures, carry them, or even bring “ peace with honor” in u carpet bag from Berlin, with a few balmy murders like Cavagnari’s included ? The English Ephoroi out off tho head of one king and turned tho royal family out of the throne. Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria holds tho throne of England, not by blood, but by a Parliamentary title. The Marquis of Normanby is nearer to the Crown by blood than the Queen, go are Richmond, Grafton, or St. Albans, but nobody dares to upset the Act of Settlement passed by the Ephoroi, the Gerousia, and the assembly. Then the Spartan Heilotes, badly off as they were, held a better life than the starving English poor. Space fails to tell of the press fang, the drunkard’s shilling, the laws more loody than the Spartan code. The Parliament one ms of perjury and bribery. The Crown seizing the power of the Pope. A Jew appointing Bishops, &?., Ac. For two hundred years, since the judicial murder of Sir Harry Vane on Tower Hill, there has not appeared one statesman or historian among tho English speaking people. At page GO (at par 13) you would think it was Now Zealand or England, and not Sparta, when you read —" One of the most celebrated measures was tho redivision of the land of the country. The disorders of the State arose mainly from the inequality of properly ; the greater part of the land was in the hands of a few rich men, whilst the bulk of the people were in hopeless misery. In order to remedy this fearful state of things, he resolved to make a new division of the lands, that the peopl; might live in equality. He divided Sparta into 9000 lots, Laconia into 30,000 lots, gave to each citizen one of the former lots, and to each yeoman one of the country lots.”

The E »rl of Derby, as you saw lately in the home papers, is ruling in the same direction, and is proposb g even to divide his own estates (parth) for the public good. Tne subject is too vast to deal with in one or two letters ; it requires a long four hours’ apeech; in the meantime the fact remains “ that while the details of the two political bodies are different, it is still true that the English speaking peoples have adopted the broad outlines of the Spartan code of Lukourgos everywhere, instead of the Gothic syztem of Localism, as shown first in the Ayleh Shemoth of the Thorough, and practised by our Gothic forefathers from Caucasus to Winchester Yours, &0., J. W. TEE AD WELL.

[We have found space for Mr Treadwell’s letter, as our columns arc open to the expression of all shades of opinion, and Mr Treadwell is entitled to a reply to our remarks. It is not apparent, however, that any good will be done by further discussion, and, therefore, we cannot undertake to insert any further correspondence on this subject.— Ed. Globe.]