17 
The Palace of Justice, the Stock Exchange, the Grand 
Hotel, the Market Place, and the Opera House are all beautiful 
buildings. The opera is, it may be said, subsidised by the 
state, and hence the charges for admission are veryTnoderate. 
The music is distributed to all parts of the city by means 
of the telephone, so that people are able to enjoy the pleasures 
of an opera without leaving their homes. They also have a 
telephonic newspaper with its editors, reporters, etc., whereby 
information is collected but nothing is printed, the news 
being supplied to the subscribers by means of the telephone, 
all at a very small cost to the subscriber. The theatre at 
Budapest is also state-aided. Every Monday night one 
of Shakespeare’s plays is given ; this has been done for fifty 
years and the theatre is crowded on each occasion. Shakes- 
peare is loved and studied there much more than here. 
One of the features of the town is the magnificent collection 
of agricultural exhibits. The collection is absolutely unique 
and is visited by experts from all over the world. A move- 
ment is on foot to establish a similar exhibition in London. 
Pipes from the hot water springs are laid in the town and 
taps are in several of the streets. Perhaps nowhere else are 
the inhabitants of a town provided with a natural supply of 
water in this way. Railway travelling in the country is 
exceedingly reasonable, due to the fact that the state owns 
and works the railways. The longest journey, third class, 
costs only 8s. 4d., which is at the rate of about 2-1- miles for 
a penny. 
Model farms are to be found all over the country. The 
Government acquires the land, puts up the buildings, and 
provides the stock. The tenant is selected largely by the 
vote of his neighbours. He is called upon to set a good 
example to his fellows and to assist them in account-keeping, 
lend them implements, advise them when necessary, and 
generally to do his best to promote the improvement of the 
agricultural industry. On the River Tisza and other Hun- 
garian rivers may be found hundreds of floating corn mills, 
to which the peasants bring corn to be ground. Steam mills 
also abound. Indeed, in Budapest they are as numerous 
and as large as in Chicago. 
The preservation of useful birds is a department of the 
Hungarian Government. Such birds as will destroy noxious 
insects, or will otherwise be useful to mankind, are carefully 
preserved, and during the winter proper food and shelter is 
provided for them in the state forests, nesting boxes being 
attached to tree-trunks for them. This is done on a large 
scale, and subsidised steam factories produce an immense 
number of boxes annually. 
