It is not fair to judge women or men upon a short acquaintance, and, although the stranger who visits Bukharest for a few days must necessarily carry away an impression of frivolity and extravagance, I am very sure there must be an undercurrent of earnestness and goodness where there is so much froth. The cafes are always open and one would think that the people of Bukharest never go to bed. The population is about the same as that of Washington, but there afe ten times as many street lamps, twenty times as many restaurants and cafes, and twice as many theatres. The gambling houses are wide open, and it is said that very high stakes prevail. The Roumanians are a nation of gamblers and many Russians go to Bukharest to play. They find much to attract them in other respects, and perhaps the reputation of the city has been injured by visitors from other lands.
In Bukharest one can hear genuine Tzigany orchestras and genuine gypsy music, of which that heard in London and New York is only a mild imitation. In every restaurant and caf^ there is a band — sometimes only two or three and sometimes a dozen musicians — constantly playing those ravishing rag-time barbaric melodies that have been conceived in the semi-savage brains of some gypsy genius. Occasionally a Tzigany girl sings to the accompaniment of the orchestra, wild, weird strains of the native music, which cannot be transplanted without losing its force and fascination. While we cannot understand the words, the meaning of the music is as plain as if it were written in English capital letters.
The Roumanian language is more like the Italian than the Russian, and has a Latin origin, because the popula-
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tion of the country is descended from the Roman legions that were sent up in the year 104 A.D. by the Emperor Trajan to hold the barbarians at bay and the name of the country is properly "Roman-ia." It is a liquid language and flows freely off the tongues of the people, who talk faster than any Frenchman you ever saw and gesticulate like the Italians. If any one should hold the hands of a Roumanian woman she would become dumb instantly.
The architecture of the business section is solid and regular, and would remind you of Frankfort, or Leipzig, or Dresden, or any city of similar size on the European continent, but the shop windows are more like those of Paris. We were told that the merchants put nearly all their goods in their windows, and that may be true, but they certainly arrange them with a great deal of taste. There is a number of newspapers, all intensely partisan, including a humorous publication of merit. Its cartoons are equal to those of any of the German funny papers.
There are two universities in the country, and the government pays 39,000,000 francs ($7,800,000) for the support of the schools. Education is free and compulsory, but there is a lamentable lack of schools in the rural districts, so that the purpose of the educational provision in the constitution is not fully carried out. Nearly 70 per cent, of the young men who report for military service can neither read nor write and only a little more than half the school population is in actual attendance.
The University of Bukharest has 3,443 students and the University of Jassy has 629. There are schools for engineering, agriculture, forestry, and art. There are various technical schools in the larger cities, all of them under the care of the general government, and they are well attended. The administration of King Carol is as thorough as the Germans in promoting technical education and in introducing scientific theories into practice in municipal and national administration. Many of the young men go to Paris or to Berlin for post-graduate courses, and several of them have become distinguished in science, literature, music, and art. The Roumanian taste for painting is as bizarre as that for music. The pictures by native artists in the art stores and galleries of Bukharest are vivid in colour and action and daring in their conceptions.