ying to the courts of law; but this is not the case.
A special tribunal, consisting of administrative officers of the Crown,
and municipal authorities, and from which lawyers have been always
carefully excluded, is appointed to judge summarily all cases relating
to the tenths. The infamous conduct of these administrative tribunals
excited general discontent, and an article has been inserted in the
constitution abolishing them, and sending all the pending cases to the
ordinary courts of law. Government, however, defended them to the last,
and even pressed for decisions down to the very hour in which King Otho
took his oath to the constitution. There is here, however, some ground
for consolation; for it is clear that the Greek ministers fear the
ordinary administration of justice as being above their control.

It is needless to say, that under such laws the improvement of
agriculture in Greece is impossible. No green crops can be grown with
profit at any distance from a large town. The tenth of garden produce
and green crops being generally valued and paid for in money, the
disputes concerning the valuation, and the impossibility of obtaining
any redress, in case of injustice, have induced the cultivators to give
up such cultivation. We have known proprietors pay half the value of a
crop of potatoes as the value of the tenth; and in one case, on our
asking the farmer of the tenths, who after all was not a bad fellow at
heart, though he wished to make his farming of the revenues turn out a
good speculation in his hands, what he would recommend a proprietor to
do in order not to lose money by cultivating potatoes; he looked grave,
and after a few moments' thought, candidly replied--"Never to plant them
as long as the present law remains in force!" Vineyards which have been
planted with care, and cultivated for eight years, have been lately
abandoned, as the high valuation of their produce renders them
unprofitable. The only agriculture which can be pursued in Greece
without loss, is that in which only the simplest and rudest methods of
cultivation are followed. The land only yields a rent when it is in the
immediate vicinity of a large market, or when it is of the richest
quality; the employment of capital in improvements only opens new
channels for the extortions of the farmers of the revenue. No money can
be safely invested on mortgage in such a country, and no loans by the
Three Allied powers to the Government, no nationa