The Slavonic races occupy an unfavourable geographical position in Hungary, which, together with their internal feuds, weakens their influence. The Slovak, who lives chiefly in the north-west, is “poor, hard-working, honest and superstitious,” full of curious beliefs; but the epithet “stupid” cannot be applied to a race which, apart from Pan-Slavist writers like Kollar and Stur, produced the great Magyar poet of the revolution, Alexander Petöfi, and the great Magyar national hero, Louis Kossuth. The Ruthenian also is poor and backward; his holdings are minutely subdivided, and he lacks education. Croat and Serb are on a somewhat higher plane, and in spite of their intestinal quarrels they are by no means a factor to be neglected. The Wallachs or Roumans again, in spite of their numbers, are plunged into depths of ignorance and superstition, from which their Popes are unable to rescue them owing to their own ignorance and lack of moral influence over their flocks. The Magyar looks down upon the Wallach with an amused contempt, while the Saxons regard them very much as the Boers regard the Kaffirs. While speaking of the races of the Dual Monarchy we must not forget two important, though scattered, divisions of the people to be found all over Austria and Hungary. These are the gipsies and the Jews. The gipsies, in Hungarian “csigany” or “tsigane,” are an integral part of the nation, and the Hungarians would be hard put to it to know how to do without them, as they appear at all festivities of a social kind and play to the dancing or singing of the merry-makers. There is a gipsy quarter in every village, and its inhabitants are generally very poor, the children often running about without a strip of clothing on their little bodies. Both men and women are very dark, with gleaming white teeth and wild black hair. They are crafty, wheedling, and dishonest, and not averse from horse-stealing, but passionately fond of music. They are as a rule a fine upstanding race, and pride themselves on their small hands and feet; they can endure great fatigue and are practically weather-proof. Childishly light-hearted and vain, quick-tempered and with their hand against every man, to them the races who are not gipsies are dull and heavy-witted, stupid and slow, made to be taken advantage of. The gipsies develop quickly, and grow old, especially the women, before middle life, but the old gipsy crones seem even more able to wile the money from the pockets of the Gentiles than the younger members of the race, and their skill in fortune-telling is certainly remarkable. Their origin is disputed, but the common idea that they are somehow connected with Egypt is erroneous, though gipsies are found in Egypt as well as in almost every other country in the world, and they are there celebrated for their skill in snake-charming.