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 CAUSES OP IMPOVEEISHMENT 419 became objects of envy to their Moslem neighbours and carefully hid their little savings. The want of security and the absence of roads were evils which the Christian shared, though to a less extent, with the Turk. All inducements to the accumulation of wealth, but especially for Christians, were removed, till at length all alike ceased to save or do more work than was necessary to keep body and soul to- gether. Nor can it be said that the condition of the population under Turkish rule has in this respect greatly improved at the present day. In the interior of the empire the man who has acquired a little wealth is careful not to appear better off than his neighbours. In the capital and a few seaports, Christians had a somewhat better chance, but even there the practice of squeezing a wealthy Greek or Ar- menian merchant and stripping him of his property lingered into the last century and is even yet not altogether extinct. Poverty as the consequence of misgovernment is the Population most conspicuous result of the conquest affecting the ished, population of the empire. Lands were allowed to go out of cultivation. Industries were lost. Mines were forgotten. Trade and commerce almost ceased to exist. Population decreased. The wealthiest state in Europe became the poorest ; the most civilised became the most barbarous. The demoralisation of the conquered people and of their and de- churches resulting from the conquest and especially from the poverty it produced were not less disastrous than the injury to their material interests. The Christians lost heart. Their physical courage lessened. In remote districts, and especially in mountainous regions, where the advantage of natural position counterbalanced the enormously superior numbers of the enemy, the Christians continued to resist. The Greeks in Epirus gave a good account of themselves during centuries, while the Armenians round about Zeitoun and the inhabitants of Montenegro even continued to keep something like independence. But the Greek, Bulgarian, and Armenian populations, all of whom had fought well in resisting the Turks, became less virile. Grinding poverty and constant, though usually petty, oppression even more E E 2