THE GREEKS UNDER TURKISH BONDAGE. 147 Hamlin furnishes conclusive evidence that the above reports from travellers in Greece during the time of the Turkish bondage are by no means exaggerations or inventions. It is one of the strangest occurrences that books are published and journals appear which deny or make little of the ill treatment the Greeks were subjected to by the Turks. Such whitewashing was done for political ends during the time of the Greek war of independence, and many writers of to-day either do not or will not search for his- torical truth. The nominal figure, says Bikelas, of the poll tax was not high. But the collectors, to whom the collection was sublet, always found means for extorting from the taxpayers at least double the sum which found its way into the treasury. The fifty per cent went, as a matter of course, into their own pockets. Even children of eight years in towns and five in the country were as- sessed. If, says Beaujour, the father of a little Greek raises any dispute as to his exact age, the tax gatherers measure the child's head with a cord, which is made to serve as a sort of a stand- ard, and, as they can make the cord what length they like, the father can always be proved in the wrong.
