Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

TYPES AND TRAITS 159out a Lincolnshire threshing-machine.The localauthorities opposed it, saying it was an inventionwhose object was to diminish the part of the cropdue to Government. The British Minister atAthens was appealed to, and it was allowed. Butthe demarch (thevillage mayor) secretly forbadethe peasants to bring their corn to be threshedby it, and one night an important part of themechanism mysteriously disappeared ; so thethreshing-machine, like the ploughs, was abandoned,and the people returned to the threshingfloor,with its studded planks drawn round andround by horses, a system by which a fifthof the grain is lost or damaged, and the strawspoiled.A similar fate overtook the saw-mill erected byMr. Noel. By it more wood could be sawn ina day than by the old methods in a month. But itwas always out of order. Teeth were broken,replaced, and broken again, and it had to begiven up. A large portion of the estate wasforest, but foreigners were not allowed totheir own forests,exploitnot even for their personal use,without permission of the Government, and theprocess, of obtaining this was so slow and expensive,that it was found to be cheaper to importtimber to a place surrounded by splendid oaksand pines. Once Mr. Noel was attacked by menarmed with guns, severely wounded, and robbedof £600. The robbers were not even pursued.The nomarch (governor of the province) said,