of the Slavonian towns.
The population of the country is composed of various nationalities. The conquering Hungarians did not oppress the ancient inhabitants of the land but left them undisturbed in the use of their native language, and, even in later days, their tolerance went so far as to actually favor foreign, and, more particularly, German immigrants, and to this exceptional forbearance alone must be traced the survival of so many nationalities, and the lack of assimilation, after so many centuries. Classified as to languages spoken by the inhabitants, the chief nationalities number as follows: 1, Hungarians or Magyars, 6,500,000—the ruling, and, so to say, the political nationality of the country, their language, the Magyar,* being the language of the state; 2, Germans, 1,900,000; 3, Roumans, 2,400,000; 4, Slovaks, 1,800,000; 5, Croats and Serbs, 2,400,000; 6, Ruthenes, 350,000. Besides these there are other nationalities but in insignificant numbers.
* The language of the Hungarians, or Magyars, belongs to the Uralo-Altaic stock, and must be classified with those mixed languages which have sprung up from the amalgamation of different branches of the said race. In the case of the Hungarian language we have before us a mixture of the Finnic-Ugrian and the Turco-Tartar idioms, and the question of its fundamental basis has been constantly a matter of dispute between philologists.
Its phonetic system, as a strictly Asiatic language, being essentially different from that of the Indo-European or Aryan languages, we give here the following rules of pronunciation to be used in this book:
| Vowels: | Consonants: | ||
| Hungarian. | English, etc. | Hungarian. | English, etc. |
| a | o in hot. | cs | ch in chalk. |
| á | a in far. | cz | ts in charts. |
| e | e in net. | gy | dy in how d’ you do. |
| é | ai in fail. | ly | gl in Italian gli. |
| i | i in pin. | ny | gn in Italian ogni. |
| í | ee in deer. | s | sh in shirt. |
| ó | o in no. | sz | s in saint. |
| ö | eu in French meuble. | ty | ty in hit you (tu in tune) |
| ö | eu in French deux. | ||
| u | u in full. | zs | s in pleasure. |
| ú | oo in too. | ||
| ü | u in French juste. | ||
| ü | u in French dur. | ||
The relative numbers of the various religious denominations are, in round figures, as follows: Roman and Greek (united) Catholics 60%; Eastern-Greek (non-united), 16%; Lutherans, 7%; Calvinists, 13%; Unitarians, ⅓ %; Jews, 4%.
With respect to their cultural condition, the people may be said to be abreast of the nations of Western Europe in every thing but industry, commerce, and some branches of science. In recent years especially a great improvement has taken place in popular education, owing to the large and daily increasing number of schools, and the law which compels children to attend school. There are, for the purpose of advancing learning and cultivating the various branches of science, a variety of conspicuous scientific institutions, literary societies, reading clubs, and public and private libraries. In journalistic literature the country is equal to any country on the European continent.
The constitution of the kingdom is one of the most liberal in Europe. The estates were represented at the Diet up to 1848, but under the present constitution the government is based upon popular representation. The Parliament or National Assembly consists of two Houses, the House of Representatives and the Upper House, or House of Lords, and in these two bodies and the king is vested the legislative power. The national affairs are administered by eight ministerial departments; the affairs in common with Austria are settled by a delegation from the two Houses of Parliament which meets an Austrian Parliamentary delegation once in every year, and administered by three common ministerial departments—for foreign affairs, for the common army, and for the finances, respectively.
In conclusion it may be added that the description given above of the favorable concurrence of soil and climate is fully borne out by the abundance of fine cattle of every description possessed by the country, by a bountiful production of cereals which has earned for Hungary the name of the granary of Europe, by the growth of the greatest variety of fruit and forest trees, and finally by the rich products of the mining regions we have adverted to before.
This chapter, however, would be incomplete were we not to mention the gigantic efforts made by the national government in every direction during the last two decades to raise Hungary from a mere agricultural state to an industrial and commercial state as well, by fostering her domestic industries and providing good highways, a fine net of railways, steam and other navigation, in order to afford an easy and cheap outlet to the abundance of natural products with which nature has blessed her.
These patriotic efforts, considering the short space of time they cover, have been attended with signal success, and have culminated in the National Exhibition of 1885, held at Buda-Pesth, which fitly illustrated to its many visitors, amounting to nearly a million, the extraordinary progress made by the country in the last years.
