FACTS ABOUT GREECE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 24 November 1915, Page 8

FACTS ABOUT GREECE.

SOME PECULIAR CUSTOMS. Since the Balkan War the Greek army has made enormous strides, both in strength and organisation. The full ipeace strength is 300,000 men. j This by no means represents the whole armed strength of Greece, for there are 200.000 men of military age .■who will he available to replace wastage. The Greeks are peculiarly sensitive about their language. There are two I forms of Greek spcken —the pure language, used by the newspapers and ! spoken by the educated class, and the I popular or “vulgar” language, which | contains a number of Italian and Turkish words. Between the partisans of i those two forms of Greek there is keen discussion and rivalry. I The extreme politeness and hospitality of the Greeks is one of their 'chief characteristics. Tradespeople i whose business it is to sell liquor often j insist on “treating” the foreigner free | \ i of cost, or at least give him something 'extra as a present. In Greece both men land w*cmen wear a wedding-ring. In Corfu, as soon as a peasant girl jis betrothed, she wears a vast mass of false hair padded out at the side of her face and braided with stripe of I red material. The hair thus used is worn all through married life and goes

down from generation to generation. A quaint custom characterises the marriage ceremony of the peasant. When the bride reaches the bridegroom’s house after the wedding cere-

mony she smears honey in the centre of the door; then, standing back a little, aims a pomegranate at the spot until she breaks it. If the seeds do not stick to the doer it is considered unlucky.

Greek funerals strike Europeans as

uncanny. Giving to the usual practice of carrying a dead person through the streets -with the face uncovered. The boots of the dead a(re always put on in token of his long journey, but they are removed before burial. Drunkenness is an uncommon vice in Greece. In food, too. they are very abfTfruinous. Some pesaants eat nrnat only twice cfr thrice a year; but there is much less poverty among them than in Italy.