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ROUMANIA. 



RUSSIA. 



and financial business of the country. The 

 right of citizenship and of owning real estate 

 was denied them. Without these mediaeval re- 

 strictions the land-owners could not have pre- 

 served their estates. In the recent advances 

 of Roumania toward equal rights and consti- 

 tutional liberty the civil disabilities of the 

 Jews have been removed, but only in form. In 

 the revision of the Constitution in 1879 all con- 

 fessions were placed on an equal legal footing. 

 Every application for naturalization must be 

 passed upon by the Legislature. No Hebrew 

 has any prospect of receiving the rights of citi- 

 zenship, however long his family may have 

 been settled in Roumania. Not only have the 

 old restrictions been thus retained, but attempts 

 are made, since the participation of Rouma- 

 nians in mercantile and other middle-class oc- 

 cupations, to exclude the Jews from the call- 

 ings which have hitherto been followed by 

 them exclusively. Legislation for this purpose 

 is directed ostensibly against all foreigners, in 

 order to satisfy the provisions of the Constitu- 

 tion. In the last two years, by a series of laws 

 and Cabinet orders, foreigners have been shut 

 out from all licensed and semi-official occupa- 

 tions. According to the license law of 1874 

 foreigners were denied the privilege of keeping 

 public-houses in the villages. A ministerial 

 order recently extended this regulation to the 

 smaller towns. In like manner foreigners have 

 been excluded from the tobacco-traffic. The 

 professions of the law and teaching have been 

 also closed to them. More recently a law was 

 enacted, according to which no foreigner can 

 be licensed as a broker on the bourse. In the 

 custom-house regulations, voted by the Legis- 

 lature in the session of 1882, the right of 

 official intercourse with the custom-house was 

 restricted to Roumanian citizens. This rule 

 affected not only the Jewish custom-house 

 brokers, but all importers, actual foreigners as 

 well as Jewish merchants. The Austrian Gov- 

 ernment protested against it, as contrary to 

 treaties. It was not enforced by the Rouma- 

 nian authorities on this account. The new 

 restrictions against the Jews, which threatened 

 to deprive many of them of their livelihood, 

 caused the Jewish community to think of emi- 

 grating from this inhospitable country. A 

 large number of Roumanian Israelites embraced 

 Oliphant's scheme of recolonizing Palestine, 

 until the emigration to the cradle of the race 

 was stopped by the action of the Turkish Gov- 

 ernment. 



The Chambers passed a measure providing 

 for the definitive acquisition of the entire rail- 

 road network by repaying and dissolving the 

 Roumanian Railroad Company. They also voted 

 for building several new railroads and laying 

 out others. 



A new military law was enacted, by which 

 the effective strength of the army was in- 

 creased. 



In August occurred another ministerial crisis 

 and a reconstruction of the Cabinet, again in a 



conservative direction. Demeter Sturdza en- 

 tered the Cabinet as Minister for Foreign Af- 

 fairs, Bratiano taking the portfolio of Military 

 Affairs, and Chitzu that of the Interior, while 

 Anghelesco and Urechia, the Minister of Edu- 

 cation, retired, the latter giving up his place to 

 Aurelian, who, like Sturdza, belongs to the 

 moderate wing of the National-Liberal party. 

 Statesco took the portfolio of Justice. 



C. A. Rosetti, the intellectual leader of the 

 National Liberals, after retiring from the min- 

 istry and carrying his agrarian reform bill as 

 an independent member, took up the question 

 of electoral reform, which he pressed vigor- 

 ously in his organ, the "Romanul." Before 

 the close of the spring session he resigned his 

 seat in the Chamber, as a protest against the 

 opposition which his reforms met, not only 

 from the Conservatives, but from the aristo- 

 cratic element in the National-Liberal party. 

 This party, recently so preponderant, showed 

 signs of disruption. Its weakness is not due 

 merely to the divergence of opinion on the 

 reforms advocated by Rosetti, in which social 

 questions the politically strong aristocratic ele- 

 ment are inclined to stand by their order, but 

 also to the repugnance of this same element to 

 the class of professional politicians which has 

 sprung up in the party, and the corruption, 

 more or less shielded and glozed over by the 

 leaders. 



RUSSIA, an empire in Eastern Europe. The 

 law-making, executive, and judicial authority 

 is concentrated in the person of the Czar, who 

 is also the spiritual head of the Church. His 

 absolute will is unlimited, except by the law of 

 succession, embodied in a decree of Peter I, 

 requiring the Emperor and his family to be 

 members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and 

 one of Paul, issued in 1797, introducing heredi- 

 tary descent in the order of primogeniture, 

 with female succession only in default of male 

 heirs. The latter rule annulled the decree ol 

 Peter I, issued in 1722, ordaining that the 

 Czar should select his successor from among 

 the royal family. 



The government of the country is under the 

 supreme direction of the Emperor's private 

 Cabinet. Subordinated to the Imperial Cabinet 

 is the Council of the Emperor, divided into a 

 legislative, an administrative, and a financial 

 department, the functions of which are to su- 

 perintend the administration of the laws, and to 

 suggest alterations and amendments. A second 

 great council is the directing Senate, which is 

 the highest court of judicature, besides exer- 

 cising a control over the other tribunals of the 

 empire. It is divided into eight sections, each 

 of which acts as the court of final resort in a 

 particular branch of the law. A third great 

 governing body is the Holy Synod, which has 

 the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. All its 

 decisions must be ratified by the Czar. 



The Imperial Cabinet is divided into eleven 

 departments. The Minister of the Imperial 

 Household is General Count "Worontzov Dash- 



