s, by far the larger proportion of the
prisoners are Roumanians who can neither read nor write.[72]

The total number of persons, men and women, confined in the sixteen
State prisons in Roumania in 1880, _including untried offenders_, was
5,252, or about one per thousand of the whole population. Of these 850
were undergoing forced labour in the mines, and 2,491 were imprisoned
for less serious offences. Only 265 were minors, and about 100 or 150
women. A strange contrast to our criminal statistics. Besides the
inmates of State prisons there were 1,665 persons confined in the
district prisons on January 1, 1881, who had been convicted of minor
offences.

[Footnote 72: In 1874 the Assize Courts had judged in all 1,493 persons
(1,441 men and 52 women). Of these there were:

|Peasants 961|Roumanians 1,394|Above twenty years of age 1,303|
|Artisans 186|All other nations 99|Above sixteen and under twenty 153|
|Traders 54| |Under sixteen 11|
|Officials 60| |Age unknown 26|
|Sundries 232| | |
| | | |
| _____| _____| _____|
| 1,493| 1,493| 1,493|

In looking over the statistics given to us (by authorities) we found
several small errors. In the main, however, they appear to be correct.]

III.

One of the most remarkable phenomena in the eyes of a stranger visiting
Roumania is the application of monastic edifices to lay uses. The
monastery of Sinaia is, for the present at least, a royal palace; the
Coltza Hospital at Bucarest is an old convent. At Brebu (or Bredu), near
Campina, is a monastery apportioned to the Asyle Helene as a holiday
residence for the girls; the State archives are deposited in the
monastery of Prince Michael in Bucarest, which has been set aside as the
residence of the learned philologist Professor Hasdeu, in whose charge
they are placed; and so, too, the 'intermediate' prison of Vakareschti
is a large monastery close to Bucarest, of which the towers are
conspicuously visible as one enters the city by rail from Giurgevo. On
approaching this building, which stands upon a considerable eminence, by
road from the capital, the only feature which attracts attention, and
shows that it is not an ordinary