Introduction, 1 1 



cedonians, have been admitted into the corps of Transylvanian 

 Noblesse. 



The Jews form a very numerous body in Hungary, where 

 their number amounted, in 1805, to 128,000; they must be 

 considered as a particular people, as they marry only among 

 themselves, and are not denizens in the eye of the law. In 

 the middle ages, all the financial operations of the state passed 

 through their hands ; they only understood the art of coining, 

 the rates of exchange, and the business of trade in general. 

 The sovereigns, when their treasury was low, had no other 

 resource than the speculations of Jewish capitalists ; from 

 these they obtained ready money, but it was by means ruinous 

 to the state, though profitable to the speculators. M. Schwart- 

 ner reports, that during the expedition of Andrew II., in Pales- 

 tine, the finest domains or estates were alienated, and the 

 royal rights, as to coinage and the salt duties, were transferred 

 to the Jews, and that the dilapidation of the revenue made it 

 necessary to declare the goods of the crown unalienable. The 

 Jews were then excluded from the management of the finances; 

 and later, under Lewis the great, their residence in Hungary 

 was prohibited : but Sigismund, who was always in debt, re- 

 established them in the kingdom, and in some measure legal- 

 ised loans at usurious interest. The like disorders occurred 

 under Lewis II., and in 1524, we find a Jew, named Isaac, at 

 the head of the mint of Kaschau. 



At pre?2nt the situation of the Jews is very different. They 

 are subjected to a surveillance rather rigid, which includes a 

 particular tax, called the Toleration. They are prohibited by 

 law from residing on the frontiers, as also from entering the 

 mine towns. This extends also to several other places, so 

 that, for the most part, they are held in little consideration. 



The cantons wherein I observed the greatest number of 

 Jews, are the frontiers of Galicia, and the banks of the Bodrog, 

 in the eastern part of Hungary, and the comitat of Stuhlweis- 

 senburg, in the western part, and many remain at Karlsburg, in 

 Transylvania; elsewhere they are scattered along the roads and 

 in the villages, where they live in huts or keep little pot-houses. 

 Many tramp about as pedlars, carrying on a small trade in 

 wares of every kind. Their apparel has something in it odd, 

 forbidding, and apt to excite distrust. It consists of a long 

 robe of woollen or black silk, fastened about the body by a 

 black-coloured girdle, a large broad-brimmed hat or high bon- 

 net, of hair or black sheep skin, to which, add a long beard 

 and an air of slovenliness in general. 



In the last rank of human beings that inhabit the soil o f 

 Hungary, are the Zingares, by the Germans named Zigeuner, 



