rried off, or there would not have been even an agricultural
industry. But the time is not far distant when the advantages of
Roumania as a manufacturing country will become apparent, and when her
native products, coupled with her proximity to the Danube and Black Sea,
will enable her to compete successfully with other nations, especially
with those near neighbours from whom she is at present compelled to draw
her supplies of manufactured commodities.

Her statesmen already recognise these facts, and they are taking steps
accordingly. A new seaport is in course of formation at Constanta
(Kustendjie), which will be connected with Bucarest and the whole of
Roumania through the existing line to Cernavoda, and one in progress to
Bucarest.[50] Besides being useful as a defensive maritime station, this
new port will give an impetus to trade, which will be further stimulated
by the establishment of _entrepots_, hitherto confined to the seaports,
at Bucarest and elsewhere.

But we have devoted sufficient space to Galatz and the nascent
commercial and manufacturing industries of the country, and before
treating of what is by far the most important source of her wealth,
namely, her agricultural resources, we must say a word or two about the
old Moldavian capital, Jassy. This is picturesquely situated at an
altitude of more than 1,000 feet above the sea-level, on the railway
from Pascani (Galatz-Cernowitz) to Kischeneff in Russia. The number of
its inhabitants is uncertain, probably about 75,000, and includes a very
large proportion of Jews, who monopolise the trade and banking business
of the place.[51] It stands upon three eminences, and its principal
streets have been paved by contract with a London firm at a cost of
200,000L.[52] It is lighted with petroleum lamps, and is badly drained
and sewered, but possesses some important buildings, and contains many
fine residences belonging to the landed gentry. Besides a university
where there are some men of considerable attainments, it has a museum,
school of art, various secondary educational establishments, and law
courts, including a court of appeal. A noteworthy circumstance connected
with the inhabitants of Jassy, and which applies equally to the whole of
Roumania, is that the death-rate is persistently lower and the
birth-rate higher amongst the Jews than the Christians, and in fact
there have been periods when the Jewish population was increasing whilst
the remainder was at a