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, be