the end, irrespective of whether they should meet Albanians or the Triple Alliance as their opponents.

The Ambassadors at London submitted to the inexorable insistence of Italy and Austria to include the Northern Epirots in the New Albania. The public in France, England, and America recognized the injustice done to the Epirots, and the injury to the new Albanian state, for, the revolution of the Epirots precipitated the downfall of the New Kingdom. The Spectator wrote in April 11, 1914:

Northern Epirus has been spoken of as the Ulster of Greece. When the powers decided to create an independent principality of Albania, they did not include Northern Epirus within its boundaries without any reason. It was because they could not agree on any other solution, and merely accepted the place that divided them least. But, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that as Northern Epirus is largely Greek, the Epirots object to the decision of the powers.

And again:

The rising which is now embarrassing Prince of Wied, and causing him to contemplate taking the field at the head of an Albanian Army, was only to be expected.

It is true that men of Greek race, and speech in Northern Epirus are cut off from their natural affinities.

We have so far adduced the testimonies of eminent authorities to establish the truth of our contention that the Albanians have no national feeling, that Italy and AustriaHungary were the instrumentalities for the creation of the Albanian kingdom, and that their motives were, as Mr. Rénè Puaux says in his introduction of the La Malheureuse Epire "to make Albania as large as possible in order that they may divide it up between themselves later on;" or as Mr. André Chéradame writes in his Douze ans de Propagande en Faveur des Pays Balkaniques in order to embarrass Greece and Serbia, and to embroil the Balkan Allies into a civil strife."

We have, also, produced testimony as to the ethnological character of Northern Epirus, but, seeing that every dispute of an ethnological character will be solved as far as it is consistent with fair justice and feasibility, on the principle of

nationality, we deem it our duty to utilize the remainder of our paper in bringing additional authorities as to the ethnology, numbers, culture, traditions and the national aspirations of the people of North Epirus.

"The oracle of Jupiter was established in Epirus before the deluge of Deucalion by the Pelasgians who built him a temple. The Selles were his priests" (Herod. II, 54).

Achilles, the Thessalian addresses Zeus as follows: "Jupiter, King of the Pelasgian Dodona, in the vast abodes, God who presidest at Dodona, where the cold winters reign; around your altar live the Selles, your interpreters, who never wash their feet, and sleep on the ground." Book XVI, 233 and following.)

(2 III.

It would have been strange, indeed had the Epriots remained unaffected by the Hellenic culture, with thousands of Athenians visiting the oracle of Dodona. If the Epirots were not originally Hellenes, as in fact they were, they surely were Hellenized.

Pyrrhus was completely Greek, as Plutarch tells us. The coins of Pyrrhus bear Greek inscriptions.

When Paulus Aemilius defeated Perseus, Epirus fell to the Romans, and Duruy says, "Two thousand carriages loaded with statues from Macedonia and Epirus passed through the streets of Rome." Had Epirus been barbarian, she could not have possessed the art treasures which the Romans brought to the Imperial City.

Never before the arrival of the Turks had Epirus, as far North as Durazzo (Dyrrachion) formed one country with Illyria, modern Albania. Turkey joined Northern Epirus to Albania in the fifteenth century, and the Southern in the year 1800.

In 1806 Ali Pasha Tebelen became the first Albanian Pasha in Epirus. His proverbial villainy and cruelty are known. To him Epirus owes the Islamization of its inhabitants to the North. His aim was to Albanicize Epirus, but he did not succeed. The patriotism of the Epirots was more violent than the violent measures of Ali to extinguish it.

In 1885, V. H. Caillard who visited all Epirus, wrote in the April issue of the Fortnightly Review:

As for the Epirots they may be considered purely Greeks. Their language is Greek, their names are Greek, they are thoroughly Greek in thought and feeling, habits and religion.

We were met all along the road by deputations of villagers from far and near who prayed that at least they might be included in Greece.

The whole country seemed to ring from end to end "Viva Gladstone!" Mr. Gladstone was looked upon as the saviour of their country, the man in whom they trusted for coming prosperity and happiness, for reunion with their real fatherland.

We asked the inhabitants if they were satisfied with the existing régime. "No!" was the reply. "Our only remedy is to be joined to our mother-Greece. We have nothing in common with Albania. Taxes may be heavy in Greece. Yet, we should have improvements!"

"Our names are Greek, all names are Greek here, because in ancient times Epirus and Greece were one, and they should be so now. But it cannot be forever-our hope is in Mr. Gladstone."

If these are not considered sufficient proofs of the popular yearning to be united to Greece, we might go back into not remote history and remember that the Souliotes, a chiefly Greekspeaking tribe of Epirus, were not only continually at war with the Albanians, but were among the first to commence the Greek War of Independence, and that Bozzaris, of their numbers, was the greatest of heroes who fell in the early part of the terrible struggle. Epirus has, in fact, been Greek in all essential points from time immemorial, except only in name; it is to be hoped that, one of the most essential points to her, may be ceded to her soon.

Leake, Pouqueville, Hobhouse, who travelled through Epirus, are teeming with testimonies of the Hellenic character, and Hellenic aspirations of the Epirots from Avlona to Preveza.

But the Albanophiles object to such statements. They say that Northern Epirus must be considered Albanian because a large portion of the population speaks Albanian.

To these objections we consider our duty to oppose without acrimony the disinterested opinions of men like Dr. E. J. Dillon. In the Contemporary Review of April, 1903, he wrote:

For the past ten years or more the Albanians have been slowly extending their territory, and without serious opposition. The

Christians who occupied their own land were either killed off or driven away in large numbers from the Villayets or Provinces of Kossovo, Monastir and Salonica.

Thus the chivalrous brigands have succeeded in forming the majority of the population, and where they are in minority they are predominant, seeing that they carry weapons and know how to use them, while Christians, Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgars are by law unarmed.

The land-owners dwell in fortified houses, their retainers are armed to the teeth, and the wherewithal to live is furnished by the Christians-Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars, who wise in their generation, lay in corn, fruits and money, which the enemies enjoy. The Malsia tribe, for instance, is supported, almost exclusively by the proceeds of organized depredations on the Christians who try to live and work in their neighborhood.

In the Fortnightly Review, in 1885, F. P. Caillard wrote:

In 1806, Ali Pasha Tebelen became the governor of Epirus. It is hardly necessary to say that misrule and oppression soon began. In a short while Ali had confiscated most of the property worth having, and had transferred it to some of "My Albanians." The Epirots protested to the Porte. On failing to obtain redress, emigrated en masse to Zante.

Ali was bitterly reprimanded, and recalled the Epirots, but soon he reconfiscated their lands and gave them over to his "Albanians." Nevertheless, Ali's attempt to Albanicize violently the Christian Epirots had no practical success.

From the foregone quotations it is easily understood that the Christian Epirots who were of Greek race, and of Greek sentiment, under the savage oppression of Turkey, and of the Albanians, were reduced to the condition of slavery. The educated Greeks fled the country; the wealthier went to live in the Heptanese, at Athens, or in the Peloponesus; and the paysants, in order to mitigate the fury of their oppressors tried by all means to hide their national feelings, and to learn the language of the Albanians in order that they might the easier beguile them. Thus the language, as it has recently happened in Alsace-Lorraine, under persecution has been altered. The Greek Epirots were forced to learn to speak Albanian and to forget their mother tongue, as the younger generation in Alsace-Lorraine is forced to learn German and to forget the mother tongue-the French. Other such examples of oppressed nationalities, which have altered their languages but not their national feelings are

the Armenians, who, for the most part, speak Turkish; the Greeks in Brussa, who likewise speak only Turkish, and the Danes in Schleswig-Holstein. Language, therefore, is not the test whereby we should judge the nationality of the Northern Epirots, although almost all of the Northern Epirots today speak Greek.

So much for the national aspirations of the Northern Epirots. We shall conclude this article by producing statistics about that portion of Epirus claimed by Greece as rightfully belonging to the Hellenic patrimony.

The frontier proposed by Greece in Epirus would leave to her the Vilayet of Jannina, the sandjacks of Jannina, Prevesa and Goumenitza (or Rechadié) in full, the larger portion of the sandjack of Argyrocastron, and, in the sandjack of Korytsa, the cazas of Korytsa and of Colonia in full, and about half of the caza of Starovo.

These territories contain a population of 477,383 souls of whom the two-thirds are Greeks and the other third Mussulmans, or to be more accurate, 316,651 Greeks and 154,413 Mussulmans, without taking into account 5,104 Jews.

Upon an analysis of these proportions, it is evident that in the most important districts, the majority of the Greek element reaches in the caza of Pogoni 96.4 per cent, in the sandjack of Prevesa 91.7 per cent, in the sandjack of Jannia 88.6 per cent, in the caza of Delvino 75.2 per cent. Elsewhere the majority of the Greek element falls below this proportion of 2 to 1; in certain districts the two elements are about equally balanced; in a very few others, finally, the majority passes over to the Mussulman element.

The table given here below shows the detail of this distribution in the different districts.

These numbers are drawn from the statistics compiled in 1908 by the Ottoman Government in view of the parliamentary elections, in order to determine the number of the electors and that of the deputies to be elected. Such statistics, if they do not always conform to the real proportions between the two elements, cannot be construed as biased in favor of the Greek element. The truth is that they have been compiled in the same anti-hellenic and gre