established religion of Roumania is that of the Greek church, to which nearly the whole population belong; but all forms of Christianity are tolerated, and their professors enjoy equal political rights. At the head of the Greek clergy stand the metropolitan archbishops of Moldavia and Wallachia, the latter of whom is primate of Roumania. Every bishop is assisted by a council of clergy, and has a seminary for priests; the superintendent of the preaching clergy is the protoRapa of the diocese. The ecclesiastical wealth of the country was formerly very great, but the increased expenditure that followed the union of the two states rendered"a scheme of spoliation the only means left to the government to extricate itself from its difficulties—in a word, the convent-properties were wrested from the hands of the Greek monks, and placed tinder the administration of the state. had been the fashion to establish such con vents in Turkey as Supports to theotthodok tuitlr, and the* histitittionsin_the principality itself were richly endowed in land and other ways: it was resolved to apply the revenues to the relief of national needs, such as schools, hospitals, the support of the poor, etc., and to give only the overplus to the clergy. This has considerably increased the revenue of the state. The administration, however, is now put upon a better footing.
are upwards of 2,000 elementary schools, besides normal schools, gymnasia, private schools, etc., in all about 2,500 schools. There are two universities. Education is gratuitous and compulsory. There are numerous French boa•ding-schools, and French is now the language of the educated circles, especially ladies (as Greek used to be), but the state language and the proper national tongue is the Romanic.
military force of Roumania is organized on the plan of the Russian army, and the staff-officers are principally Russian. The militia is formed by the peasantry in the proportion of two men for every 100 families; but along the banks of the Danube nil the inhabitants capable of bearing arms are organized into a military force. By the law of 1872 all natives of Roumania iron twenty to forty are liable to military service in the standing army, four years active and four in the reserve. The militia is composed of all who have been inathe standing army at any age between twenty and thirty-six. in 1877 the entire Roumanian military force numbered 144,668 men, but of these only 42,449 belonged to the regular or "permanent" army.
total value of the imports of Roumania in 1874 amounted to 92,000.000 lei ( =a franc), or about ..-c_.'3,700,000; and of the exports, 158,000,000 lei, or about £6,320, 000. The principal article of export is grain, especially wheat and maize. Roumanian industry has largely profited by the construction in recent years of several lines of rail way. In 1869 the first line, 42 English miles in length, was opened from Bucharest to Giurgevo on the Danube, and in subsequent years a network of railways was completed, connecting the capital with, estern Europe through the towns of Pivesti, Buzeo, Tekutch, Roman, and Suceava, and from thence to Lemberg in Austria. In 1878 there
were also 2,750 miles of telegraph in the principalities. The estimated revenue in 1879 was £4,366,500, just balanced by the expenditure; the public debt was, in 1680, about £24,400,000.
Race, Language, and great majority of the.inhabitants are known in western Europe as Wallachs, but they call themselves Rom6ni. The Wallachs, however, are not confined to the principalities, but inhabit also the southefn part of Bukowina, the neater part of Transylvania, eastern Hungary, a part of the Banat, Bessarabia, some .
districts in Podolia and Khersom and portions of eastern Servia. They are also found in 'Macedonia,- Albania, and Thessaly. They are a mixed race, produced by the amal gamation of the emperor Trajan's Roman colonists with the original Dacia]] population, and subsequently modified by Grecian, Gothic, Slavic, and '1 urkish elements. This mixture is seen in their language, -three-fourths of the words of which are Latin (the Dacian has disappeared), while the remaining fourth is made up of words from the other four languages. Wallachian literature is rich in popular songs; since the 16th c. many works in prose and verse have been printed, and of late years two political journals in the Wallachian tongue have been established, one at Bucharest, and another at Jassy. A. Grammatica was published by Johann. Alexi (Vienna, 1826); and a Hietoria Lingua! by Lanianus (Vienna, 1849). A large Latin-Romanic Hungarian dictionary was carefully executed by the bishop of Fogarasch, Joh. Bob (3 vols. Klausenburg, 1839).
Social recent statistics on this point are not attainable. In Moldavia them are rather less. in Wallachia considerably more than 3,000 bojars, besides whom there is an extensive inferior nobility. In Wallachia every twenty-eighth man is a noble man; every one hundred and thirty-third a merchant; and in the capital every twentieth is a merchant. The free peasants, or yeomen, called Remselts, are not numerous—in all Wallachia there are under 5,000. Gypsy communities are an important element in the population; upwards of 150,000 of this mysterious race are or were serfs belonging to the rich bojars and the monasteries. In 1844 about 80,000 were emancipated, and settled in colonies in different parts of the land; they call themselves Romnitschcl or Romni. The common people are on the whole good-humored; frugal, sober, and cleanly; murder and larceny are almost unknown. Their dwellings, however, are, as may be supposed, of the most wretched description; composed cbhfly of interlaced willow-withes, covered with mud, cane, and straw.