ROUMANIA AND ITS RUBICON 



195 



complexion. And just as the girls in our 

 own rural districts a generation ago 

 would get up before breakfast and steal 

 down unobserved on the first day of May 

 to wash their freckles away in the dew 

 of the morning, so the girls of Roumania 

 take red and white threads, twist them 

 into cords, from which they suspend 

 coins around their necks. These talis- 

 mans they wear from the dead of winter 

 to the moment they see the first blossom 

 of spring, feeling sure that thereby they 

 will guarantee themselves a milk-white 

 complexion, rosy cheeks, and ruby lips. 



BUCHAREST THE GAY CAPITAL 



But if there is primitive simplicity in 

 Roumanian peasant life, there is ultra 

 formality in the polite circles of Buch- 

 arest, the national capital. "The Paris of 

 the East" its inhabitants proudly call their 

 city, and in the character of its archi- 

 tecture, the ways of its people, the prices 

 in force at its hotels, it justly deserves 

 the title it has vauntingly assumed. 



This near-eastern metropolis is about 

 equal in size to our own National Capital, 

 and yet it has twenty times as many res- 

 taurants and cafes, ten times as many 

 street lights, and twice as many theaters. 

 It is regarded as the most expensive place 

 in the world for the well-to-do and the 

 cheapest for the poor. Prices at the 

 Hotel du Boulevard are higher than in 

 New York or London, and travelers who 

 have visited Monte Carlo's leading hotels 

 and then journeyed to Bucharest have 

 found its rates from 15 per cent to 25 per 

 cent higher than those obtaining in the 

 hostelries of Monaco. 



But if their prices are high, their serv- 

 ice and their food leave nothing to be 

 desired. The cuisine of the leading ho- 

 tels and private homes is French, and 

 money is no consideration — quality is 

 paramount. Some of the finest restau- 

 rants east of Paris are in Bucharest, and 

 the night life, with its passionate, pulsa- 

 ting gypsy music, its sparkling wine, its 

 "beautiful women, its scintillating jewels, 

 its handsome men, is as gay and alluring 

 as anything the world has to offer. 



As to clothes, everybody who pretends 

 to dress at all dresses in the mode of 

 Paris, and the gowns of the elite are as 



up-to-the-minute as those to be seen on 

 the Champs Elysees. 



Gambling flourishes openly, and high 

 stakes are the rule rather than the excep- 

 tion. Many of the players own farms as 

 big as an American county, and their in- 

 comes are proportionately large. 



RUSSIAN EXILES AS STRANGE "CABBIES" 



The source of the wealth of Bucharest 

 is the big country estates and the cheap 

 labor. The rich "boyar" has a whole 

 army of retainers, who receive little more 

 for their toil than did the slave in our 

 own country before the Civil War — their 

 "victuals and keep." The result is an 

 immense income, which finds its first ex- 

 pression in a very fine residence in Bu- 

 charest, and later in the maintenance of 

 an ultra-expensive establishment. It is 

 said that the Roumanian Government has 

 the finest home for its foreign ministry 

 to be found in all Europe. It was built 

 by one of these "boyars," or landed pro- 

 prietors, who had the misfortune to die 

 soon after his palatial home was com- 

 pleted. The government thereupon ac- 

 quired it. 



Nobody but the proletariat thinks of 

 walking in that picturesque capital. 

 Nearly all of the "cabbies" own their own 

 teams of long-maned, flowing-tailed Rus- 

 sian horses. They are Russian exiles of 

 the Skopti sect, who have a religious be- 

 lief that no family should have more than 

 one male child and who resort to a re- 

 ligio-surgical ceremony to insure this 

 condition. 



They wear great blue-black velvet 

 coats, the skirts of which reach to the 

 ground. Their waists are bound about 

 with multihued sashes, the flowing ends 

 of which drop back over the seat, and 

 one can guide his driver by pulling one 

 end or the other of this sash when lan- 

 guage difficulties stand in the way. 



If the presence of the landed aristoc- 

 racy in Bucharest reminds one of Buenos 

 Aires, the driving customs bring to mind 

 those of Mexico City. Every evening all 

 polite Bucharest turns out in its smartest 

 equipages and drives up and down the 

 beautiful parkway known as the "Chaus- 

 see." Along this superb drive the end- 

 less-chain procession moves in double 



