Roumania Past and Present by James Samuelson (lightweight ebook reader .TXT) 📖

many of the higher class of artisans occupy their own houses. Land is comparatively cheap, and a workman may procure a cottage with a couple of parlours, a small kitchen, and a little garden, for about 3,000 francs, or 125£. The cost of a residence in the best part of the city where land is comparatively dear, with six rooms, stable, and garden, averages 80,000 francs, or 3,200£., land varying in value in the city from two to twelve francs per square yard.

Much of the rougher work is done by gipsies, but the better class of Roumanian artisans, such as carpenters, joiners, painters, tin workers (who cover the roofs of buildings), receive from five to seven francs per day, working from sunrise to sunset, with two hours for meals, or on an average twelve hours per day. Italians and Germans, of whom many are employed, receive one or two francs more than natives, whilst engineers and fitters are paid eight to ten francs per day. A great deal of time is lost in Roumania through feasts and holidays, of which there are, including Sundays, over a hundred in the year. During this time not only is there no production, but time spent in idleness leads to the same demoralising waste there as elsewhere. The working classes are seen hanging about wine-shops, as they congregate about public-houses here; and, although it is a very rare thing to see people drunk in the streets, many are heavy drinkers, consuming large quantities of rachin (grain-spirit) and sour wine.[34]

The cost of living is moderate. Dark bread varies from 1 d. to 1-1/2 d. per lb., white from 1-1/2 d. to 2 d. , almost as dear, therefore, as with us. Roumania is essentially a stock breeding country, and whilst butcher's meat varies from 4 d. to 5 d. , mutton costs 3 d. to 3-1/2 d. per lb. Common wine is 3 d. to 4 d. per pint; fruits of all kinds are very cheap, and afford an article of luxury to almost every class of the population. Tobacco is dear, owing to the monopoly. We believe there was an attempted revolution over the tobacco question in 1805, which, had to be put down by military force. All kinds of clothing for the poorer classes are imported, and a suit of best clothes costs about thirty francs, a pair of boots eleven to twelve francs. This does not, however, apply to the country. There the women, besides doing field work and managing the household, make all the clothes, the men's as well as their own; and by that is meant that they spin, weave, and make up the garments. The custom, already referred to, of wearing the national costume by ladies in the country and on state occasions in Bucarest, gives very lucrative employment to the native women, and such costumes are exposed for sale in the shops of the capital at prices varying from 6 l. or 7 l. to anything the wearer likes to pay. Many of these costumes testify to the exquisite taste of the females by whom they are made; for the combination of silk, wool, and thread, and the beautiful lace-work, the effect of which is heightened by diminutive spangles of gilt and silver, cannot fail to challenge admiration. These costumes are, however, better adapted for young girls than for ladies of a maturer age.

[Illustration: FRUIT-SELLER OF BUCAREST.]

Not only the women, but the men also, wear much livelier descriptions of dress than we are accustomed to in the west of Europe; and whilst the frilled unmentionables of some of them would excite ridicule amongst our hardy operatives, the brocaded vests of others would perhaps be regarded by them with envy.

[Illustration: GIPSY FLOWER-SELLER.]

The preceding remarks concerning the working classes do not, however, apply to common labourers. These are chiefly gipsies, hundreds of whom, men, women, and children, may be seen carrying bricks and mortar, and performing every kind of drudgery, for which they receive about one or two francs per day. If they are engaged upon the erection of a building, they work, cook, and sleep in it; otherwise they find shelter where they are able. They are frequently half-naked, the children sometimes completely so; and their chief, if not their only food, which they eat in common with all the poorest classes, is mamaliga, or maize-meal boiled and flavoured with a little salt. This is sold at about 2 d. for 3 lbs., but its price depends upon the maize crop.

[Footnote 34: It is not so much a question in Roumania of time actually lost; for if we add the longer working hours on the one hand, and deduct the Saturday half-holiday of our operatives, probably there will not be found to be much difference; but it is the recurrence of feast-days and holidays at irregular intervals, as is the case in those trades in England where men go off 'on the spree' for a day or two at slated or unstated periods. In Romania this is, in its way universal.]


V.

As to the gipsies themselves, concerning whom our readers will no doubt have heard a great deal in connection with this country, they formed, until recently, a nation within a nation, and even now they speak a language of their own, and to some extent stand aloof from the remaining population. They are the same people variously named Bohemians by the French, Zigenner by the Germans, Gitanos in Spain, Tschinghenneh by the Turks, and Tsigani by the Roumanians, who look upon them pretty much as the white man regards the negro, between whose nature and that of the Roumanian gipsy there is much that is analogous. That they are of Hindoo origin few doubt, for their language has great affinity to the Sanscrit; and when they first entered Roumania, probably early in the fifteenth century, they were simply a race of wandering barbarians, a later arrival, who were soon enslaved by the boyards. Many of them followed the occupation of gold-washers in the Carpathians, and part if not all the product of their labour fell to the portion of the wives of the Voivodes; indeed, according to some writers, a considerable number were slaves, whom the princess or her officials did not hesitate to sell, maltreat, or even put to death with impunity.

[Illustration: GIPSY MUSICIANS.]

Wilkinson has given us anything but a flattering description of them in his day (1820). The Principalities, he says, contained about 150,000 of them, and 'they make a more profitable use of them than other countries do by keeping them in a state of regular slavery.' They were able to undergo constant exposure to the rigours of the weather, and were fit for any labour or fatigue, but their natural indolence caused them to prefer all the miseries of indigence to the enjoyment of comforts that are to be reaped from industry. They were thieves from choice, but 'not with a view of enriching themselves, and their thefts never extend beyond trifles.'[35] The women were well-shaped before they began to have children; both sexes slovenly and dirty in the extreme. An account of their habits in the coarse language of the historian would be unfit for our readers' perusal. There was no regular traffic in them, 'both purchases and sales being conducted in private, and the usual price for one of either sex was from five to six hundred piastres.' He says the Government owned 80,000, consequently more than one-half of them, and they were 'suffered to stroll about the country, provided they bound themselves not to leave it, and to pay an annual tribute of the value of forty piastres each man above the age of fifteen.' They lived in tents near the large towns, and seem only to have worked as much as was requisite to keep body and soul together. But, he adds, 'they possess a natural facility and quickness in acquiring the knowledge of the arts,' and musical performance was their forte. They were also employed as slaves in the households of the boyards, especially in the kitchens, which they made 'not less disgusting than the receptacles of swine.' They were bastinadoed, often in the presence of the master or mistress, and 'the ladies of quality, however young and beautiful, do not show much delicate reluctance in similar instances of authority.' Other punishments, some very inhuman, were inflicted; and although the owners had no power of life or death over them, if the latter were the result of too severe beating 'neither the Government nor the public took notice of the circumstance.' Not only was it 'under the care of these depraved servants that the boyards were brought up,' but as the women of the higher classes were not in the habit of nursing their infants, they placed them in the hands of gipsy wet-nurses, who imparted to them their diseases, and no doubt influenced the morals of their after-life.[36] Although the gipsies were nominally freed in 1848, their condition remained unchanged after the revolution was suppressed, and it was not until 1854 that they were permanently liberated. To-day there are nominally 200,000 of them in Roumania, and until recently they were divided, or divided themselves, into distinct castes following various occupations. The highest of these were the Laoutari, or musicians, who generally perform in bands consisting of four or five men each. These usually play upon one or two violins, a mandoline, and the Pandean pipes. Their music is wild and plaintive, giving the impression from a distance that two or three bagpipes are being played. They have the credit of being very good musicians, and of being able to perform national airs from the ear alone. Some of them have risen to the position of acknowledged composers, and indeed, for that matter, many individuals amongst the gipsy race occupy comparatively high posts in other departments of human intelligence.

[Illustration: ROUMANIAN GIRL.]

[Illustration: GIPSY.]

Another section are workers in metal, such as tinkers and brass-founders; a third work in wood, and perform various duties connected with the building trade; but a large proportion are still vagabonds and thieves, who infest the country, and are a nuisance to the honest peasants and labourers. The last-named class profess no religion and obey no law, excepting the criminal law when they are forced. The settled part of the gipsy community belong to the national Church; the women are chaste as against the Roumanians, but their morality is said to be very lax amongst themselves. It is, however, hardly fair to speak in these general terms of the gipsy race at present. As already stated, many of them occupy very honourable positions in society; and some years since a German writer predicted what is now taking place, namely, a fusion of the gipsies with the Roumanians.[37] We were informed by a learned philologist in Bucarest that this process is rapidly going on; the castes are not so clearly defined; intermarriages with Roumanians are of daily occurrence; many of the gipsies do not even know their own language; and their number is rapidly diminishing. Intellectually they are talented, but lazy. Many of the men, and still more of the women, are very handsome. Although every gradation of shade is to be found amongst their faces, pretty much as one sees in the negro race in the United States, the features of the Roumanian gipsies are generally well-formed Indo-European. Nothing is more striking than to see two women pass each other, or walking side by side: the one a Roumanian, fair, florid, and blue-eyed, the other a gipsy with a skin as black as a sloe, jet-black hair, and black eyes, and yet the features similar in both cases, and each woman in her way handsome.[38]

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