obably from Galicia as poor as a rat, he settles
himself in the village, and sells _slivovitz_ on credit to the foolish
peasant, who, besotted with drink and debt, gets into his meshes; in the
end, the Jew having sucked the blood of his victims, possesses himself
of their little property, finds himself the object of universal hatred,
and then he moves on. He makes a fresh start in some other place,
beginning on a higher rung of the ladder; and you will find him sitting
in the highest seats before he has done."

"If your people were less of spendthrifts and managed their affairs
themselves, then the Jews would cease to find a harvest amongst you."

"Yes, that is true," he answered; "but we are not practical; we do not
organise well. The Jew always manages to be the middle-man between
ourselves and the consumers."

"But without the Jew you would perhaps not even get so near to the
consumer," I observed quietly.

My host puffed out a volume of smoke, and after a pause observed, before
he placed his pipe again between his lips, "In this part of the country,
in the Szeklerland, the better class of merchants are nearly all
Armenians."

Apropos of the tax question, I have looked into the matter since, and I
am rather surprised to find the proportion not so heavy as I thought; on
the whole population it is about L1 a-head--certainly less than is borne
by many other states. In England, I believe, we are taxed at over L2
a-head. Then, again, it is true that since 1870 there has been an annual
deficit, and the equilibrium of income and expenditure can hardly be
counted upon just yet; still things are moving in the right direction.
The Hungarians have been reproached for managing their finances badly
since the compromise with Austria in 1867, when the revenue came
exclusively under their own control. But in answer they say, that having
so lately entered the community of states, they found themselves in the
position of a minor who comes into house and lands that have need of
every sort of radical repair and improvement. Hungary has had to spend
heavily upon road-making, bridges, railroads, sanatory and other
economic improvements, and very heavily for rectification of the course
of the Danube; in fact they have ambitiously set themselves too much to
do in the time. They have rendered Buda-Pest, with its magnificent river
embankments, one of the finest capitals in Europe. The Magyar does
everything with a degree of splendour tha