Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/724

G92 P E S T H includes the new houses of parliament, the academy, the exchange, the redoute, a large structure in a mixed Romanesque and Moorish style, erected for balls and other social purposes, the Greek church, the parish church, the old town -house, the extensive custom-house at the lower end of the quays, and several fine hotels and insurance offices. In the Radial Strasse are the new opera-house, the academy of music, the exhibition build ing, and the national drawing-school. The largest building in Pesth is the so-called New Building, in the Leopoldstadt, erected by Joseph II., and covering as much ground as an ordinary London square. It is at present used as artillery barracks ; and the Carl s Barracks in the inner town, also used for housing troops, are little inferior in size. Another large military establishment is the Ludoviceum, or officers college, at the south-east end of the town. The remaining buildings remarkable for their size or interest are the new town -house, the post-office, the national museum, the theatres (of which there are about half a dozen), and the palaces of several of the Hungarian magnates. To the south-east of the town lie the new slaughter-houses, which are admirably fitted up, and, with the adjacent cattle- market, cover nearly 30 acres of ground. The artistic and scientific culture of Pesth, and indeed of Hungary, finds its most conspicuous outward expression in the academy of sciences and the national museum, two large and handsome modern buildings. The academy, founded for the encouragement of the study of the Hungarian language and the various sciences, possesses a library of 100,000 volumes, and harbours the national picture gallery, a good collection of 700 to 800 works, formed by Prince Eszterhazy, and purchased for 130,000. The national museum contains extensive collections of antiquities, natural history, and ethnology, a gallery of mediocre paintings, and a library of 150,000 printed volumes and 12,000 documents. Pesth also possesses numerous societies for the cultivation of science and art, most of which, however, limit their usefulness by publish ing their proceedings in the Magyar tongue alone. The university of Pesth, the only one in Hungary proper, was established at Tyrnau in 1635, removed to Buda in 1777, and transferred to Pesth in 1783. It is attended by up wards of 2000 students, and possesses the usual medical and scientific collections, an admirable chemical labora tory, a botanic garden, and a library of 120,000 volumes. Pesth also contains a Protestant theological college and a rabbinical institute. The second place among the educa tional establishments of the town is taken by the Poly technic Institute, with its three faculties of applied chemistry, engineering and architecture, and mechanics ; it is attended by about 1000 students. The other schools comprise six gymnasia, six normal seminaries, and a large number of special and elementary schools, in spite of which 32 per cent, of the adult population were unable to read or write in 1880. The charitable institutions of the city are on a liberal scale. Characteristic of Budapest is the large number of its public baths, the most interest ing of which are at Buda. In commerce and industry Budapest is by far the most important town in Hungary, and in the former, if not also in the latter, it is second to Vienna alone in the Austrian- Hungarian monarchy. The chief articles of manufacture are machinery, railway plant, carriages, gold and silver wares, chemicals, cutlery, starch, tobacco, and the usual articles produced in large towns for home consumption. The great staple of trade is grain, of which about 4| million bushels are brought into the town annually. One-fourth of this amount merely passes through Pesth, while most of the remainder is ground into flour and exported in this form. Other important articles of commerce are wine, wool, cattle, timber, hides, honey, wax, and "slivovitza," an in ferior spirit made from plums. The imports, so far as they do not belong to the transit trade, consist chiefly of manu factured articles and colonial produce. The four annual fairs, formerly attended by many thousand customers, have now lost ir.uch of their importance. The swine market of Steinbruch is the largest in Hungary, about half a million animals being annually disposed of. The trade of Pesth is in great part carried on by the Danube, the navigation of which has increased enormously since the introduction of steamboats in 1830 ; but the town is also connected by railway with all the chief places of Austria and Hungary. The largest and most popular of the public gardens and promenades in Pesth itself is the Stadtwaldchen on the north-east side, with its pleasant lake and trees. A still more delightful resort, however, is the Margaret Island, a long narrow island in the Danube, laid out in the style of an English park, with fine trees, velvety turf, .and a group of villas and bath-houses. Few European towns have grown so rapidly as Pesth during the present century, and probably none has witnessed such a thorough transformation in the last twenty years. In 1780 Festh was still a badly-built town of the third rank, with only 13,500 inhabitants, and it was not till 1799 that its population (29,000) surpassed that of Buda (24,000). By 1840, however, Buda had added but 14,000 souls to its population, while that of Pesth had more than doubled ; and of the joint population of 270,000 in 1869 fully 200,000 fell to the share of Pesth. In 1880 the population of Budapest was 370,767 souls, including a garrison of 10,000 men, showing an increase since 1869 of 32 per cent, and since 1800 of an average of 6 per cent, per annum. Of this total 198,746 were returned as having Hungarian for their mother-tongue, 119,902 as Germans, and 21,581 as Slovaks. Divided according to religious sects, we find 242,981 Roman Catholics, 70,879 Jews, 42,254 Protestants, and 3014 members of the Greek Church. Of these the Jews show the greatest relative increase since 1869 (56 per cent.) and the Roman Catholics the least. Of the gross increase of population in Hungary between 1869 and 1880 no less than two-thirds are due to Budapest alone, which in the same interval rose from the twenty- third to the fifteenth place among the towns of Europe. About 25 per cent, of the population are supported by trade and industry, 20 per cent, are engaged in service, and 4 per cent, belong to the pro fessional and official classes. Nearly 50 per cent., including women and children, are returned as belonging to the non-working classes, but less than 1 per cent, are described as living on their capital or property. In spite of the large proportion of one-storied houses, the ratio of inhabitants to each dwelling-house is somewhat high (33, as compared with 8 in London, 35 in Paris, and 59 in Vienna). As Paris is sometimes said to be France, so may Pesth with almost greater truth be said to be Hungary. Its composite population is a faithful reflexion of the heterogeneous elements in the empire of the Hapsburgs, and the trade and industry of Hungary are centralized at Pesth in a way that can scarcely be affirmed of any other Euro pean capital. In virtue of its museum and academy it is also the scientific centre of Hungary, and nine-tenths of all books in the Magyar tongue are published here. The average rate per head of imperial taxation is five or six times as great in Pesth as in the rest of Hungary. The recent patriotic movement in favour of Magyarizing all institutions has found its strongest development in Pesth, where the German names have all been removed from the streets and buildings. It is found, too, that the children of German parents born in Pesth easily become Magyarized, while a survey of Hungary at large during the last sixty years shows a relative increase of barely 1 per cent, in the Hungarian as opposed to the German tongue. The inhabitants are good-natured, hos pitable, and fond of luxury and display. The upper classes are much addicted to sports of all kinds, and cultivate horse-racing, fox-hunting, and rowing with energy and success. Almost the only popular festival of importance is that of St Stephen on the 20th August, when thousands of people flock to inspect the relics of that saint in the palace-church of Buda. History. The origin of Pesth proper is obscure, but the name, apparently derived from the old Slavonic "pestj," a stove (like Ofen, the German name of Buda), seems to point to an early Slavonic settlement. The Romans never gained a foothold on this side of the river, though Aquincum, on the site of old Buda, is believed, from the extant remains, to have contained about 80,000 inhabit ants. When it first appears in history Pesth was essentially a German settlement, and a chronicler of the 13th century describes it as "Villa Teutonica ditissima." Christianity was introduced early in the llth century. In 1241 Pesth was destroyed by the Tatars, after whose departure in 1244 it was created a royal free