nion of all these nations
naturally led to that of a political one; and the Slavonians seeing that
their numbers amounted to about one-third of the whole population of
Europe, and occupied more than half its territory, began to be sensible
that they might claim for themselves a position to which they had not
hitherto aspired."

But the Wallacks, or, as we will now call them, Roumains, are not Slavs
at all; they are utterly distinct in race, though they are
co-religionists with the Southern Slavs. "The Roumanians," says Mr
Freeman,[7] "speak neither Greek nor Turkish, neither Slave nor
Skipetar, but a dialect of Latin, a tongue akin not to any of their
neighbours, but to the tongues of Gaul, Italy, and Spain." He is
inclined to think these so-called Dacians are the surviving
representatives of the great Thracian race.

Who they were is, after all, not so important a question as what they
are, these two millions and a half of Roumains in Hungary. To put the
statistical figures in another way, Mr. Boner,[8] writing in 1865,
calculates that the Roumains, naturalised in Southern Hungary, number
596 out of every 1000 souls in Transylvania. The fecundity of the race
is remarkable, they threaten to overwhelm the Saxons, whose numbers, on
the other hand, are seriously on the decrease. They are also supplanting
the Magyars in _Southern_ Hungary.

I have myself seen villages which I was told had been exclusively
Magyar, but which are now as exclusively Roumain. It is even possible to
find churches where the service conducted in the Magyar tongue has
ceased to be understood by the congregation.

To meet a Roumain possessed even of the first rudiments of education is
an exception to the rule: even their priests are deplorably ignorant;
but when we find them in receipt of such a miserable stipend as 100
florins, indeed in some cases 30 florins a-year, it speaks for itself
that they belong to the poorest class. The Wallacks lead their lives
outside the pale of civilisation; they are without the wants and desires
of a settled life. Very naturally the manumission of the serfs in 1848
found them utterly unprepared for their political freedom. Neither by
nature or by tradition are they law-respecting; in fact, they are very
much the reverse.

The Roumain is a Communist pure and simple; the uneducated among them
know no other political creed. It is not that of the advanced school of
Communism, which deals with social theories, but a