SERVIAN PEASANT TRAITS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2727, 20 June 1906, Page 71

SERVIAN PEASANT TRAITS.

— Features of a Country That Europe v Just, Now Watching. — Although foi more than half a century the Balkan countries , have occupied a prominent place on the political stage of Europe they are little known to the travelling public in general. " Yet there are few parts of the world that will better repay an observant tourist. The standard of living, it is true, may not oe up to the average of that in the more highly civilised countries, but there are in none of the States south of the Save and the Danube the extremes of poverty and luxury to be found in the centre and west of Europe and in Italy. This is specially true of Servia, one rf the first pf the Balkan countries to liberate itself from the Turkish yoke. Its people are, after the Swiss, perhaps the freest ami best oif of any in Europe, there being 1 no paupers In the sense of, the term as understood in England ' arid other western European cftuntries. Three-fourths of the population, which numbers about two miE" lions .and* a-half , -is on the land and independent of industrial' labour for existence. So much is this the case that when one sees men and women engaged carrying bricks and mortar in house building or in similar work in the big towns they will be found to have come from * v • neighbouring kingdom of Hungary. The soil is fertile, and owing to the hilly and rolling nature of the country is well watered,- the forests bein<, carefully preserved and made, a source of revenue both to the State and the commune. The Servian peasant proprietor has always a full cupboard and dairy, besides his wine cellar, for the grape is almost universally culti-