The powerful nobles, with great landed estates, in the year 1222 exacted from their King the so-called "Golden Bull," in which their privileges were recognized, much as they were at almost exactly the same date by the Magna Charta in England. Kings were several times elected by the Diet or Assembly of the nobles. In this period begins the settlement of Germans on the southeast border of Hungary, in the mountain district now called Siebenbürgen "the Seven Castles "--where they protected the frontier and where their descendants still live.

Turks and Hapsburgs. Hungary was very turbulent and divided, fighting with its neighbors all around the rim, and in the intervals indulging in the pastime of civil war. This weakness invited the Turkish invasions. For more than four hundred years the Hungarians fought the Turks; in the famous battle of Mohács in 1526 the Hungarian army was destroyed. For about two centuries a considerable part of their territory was under Turkish domination, though the people kept their religion and local institutions. This crisis was complicated by the Protestant Reformation, which extended to Hungary. For a long time a third to a half of the people were Protestants; and there are still four million people of that faith in Hungary and its dependencies.

The last Turkish wave broke against the walls of Vienna in 1683, and for more than two hundred years the Hungarians were in the front rank of the enemies who were pushing the Turks out of Europe. In 1687 the Hungarians formally accepted as their royal family the Hapsburgs of Austria. Ever since that date the Archduke of Austria and the Apostolic King of Hungary have been the same person. The Hungarian nobility was almost crushed; but when Maria Theresa was attacked by Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1742, she appealed to the chivalry of her Magyar nobles and they stood by her. Already in 1723 had been framed an Ausgleich," or fundamental agreement, often called the Pragmatic Sanction, which recognized Hungary as a separate kingdom, but forever united with Austria through a common sovereign.

Obstacles to Independence. The borders of the Magyar power had long been extended over neighboring lands, especially Transylvania, occupied in part by Rumanians and in part by Germans; and Croatia and Slavonia, which gave a front on the Adriatic, on which of late years has been constructed the port of Fiume. In the north also were many Slavic settlements, especially in the Carpathian Mountains. These outlying districts were commonly not considered parts of the Kingdom of Hungary, and sometimes had separate kings or governors, such as the "Ban of Croatia.' Transylvania, with its Saxons, among whom still persist many of the customs of the German peasantry of five centuries ago, was until quite recently a separate province.

Though in theory an independent kingdom, retaining its own Parliament, laws, and military system, in reality for more than two hundred years Hungary has been compelled to follow the lead of Austria-first of all, because of its small population. The awful Turkish wars had on Hungary the effect of the Thirty Years' War on Germany, an effect which the present war of 1914 may perhaps have on several countries. When the close adherence of Hungary to Austria began, the nation, once rich and prosperous, had been reduced by the misery of the Turkish wars to a population of two millions, of whom only one million were Hungarians. The country had lost not only population, but wealth, organization, and culture. When the Magyars began to grow again, they found themselves like the homesteaders on the upper Missouri River, who (according to geologists) took up their farms ten thousand years too late, after the river had cut down so deep that they could not get its water onto their land by irrigation. The Magyars started again in the great contest of European Powers for national greatness when their neighbors were already well grown; and from that day to this, notwithstanding the genius of the people, the nation has never had a sufficient population to vie with Austria or Germany or Russia.

Attempts to Germanize. Here comes in a bitter part of the relations between the twin Powers. The Hapsburgs are German by descent, history, tradition, and interest. They are German sovereigns in Austria, and equally German sovereigns in Hungary and the Hungarian lands. Their culture is German, their policy is German; as late as 1806

they still bore the additional title of German Emperor in the Realm. Till Prussia ousted them in 1866 the Austrians were more significant in southern and western Germany than the Prussians.

Naturally they wanted the support of all their subjects in this strife to maintain Germanization, and their policy was to Germanize the Hungarian. Was it not manifestly a convenience to all concerned to have one official language, one culture, one spirit? Fortunately for the picturesqueness of the world and for the liveliness of modern history, you can no more turn Hungarians into Germans than you can turn East Indians into Englishmen. There is a free swing, a lofty indifference, about a Hungarian magnate that cannot accord with the veneration for royalty which is felt by the Austrian or German of high rank. Having been without kings of the Hungarian race most of the time for four hundred years, the kingly quality is taken up and distributed among the great nobles, whose steadfast tradition is, not to be bound by tradition. To the most loyal Hungarians the Emperor is, after all, a Viennese, a visitor who sometimes occupies the enormous palace that crowns the ancient hillside at Budapest.

The efforts to Germanize the Magyars have therefore been complete failures. The Hungarian grandees and the Hungarian peasants still like their national customs. To our minds it is droll to see a man wearing a derby hat and a white skirt guiding the plow behind the oxen. The magnates still wear their immensely picturesque and manly costume on great occasions. The educated Hungarians learn German as they learn French and English, because it is a part of culture to know foreign literatures and to mingle with foreigners; but their mother tongue is always Hungarian. They are proud of a language which is excessively. difficult for other Europeans, and is in its structure more like Finnish than anything else, yet which is the medium of a great literature. They are proud of, they cultivate, they teach to their children, the traditions of the past greatness of Hungary. No nation in Europe has a stronger consciousness of being the select race among all races. Ever since the year 900 they have striven to make Hungary count in the affairs of the world.

Revolution of 1848. In 1848, when Paris, Berlin, and Vienna were in the hands of the revolutionists, and when the Austrian Government seemed falling to pieces, the Hun

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garians made the last of several attempts to throw off the kingship of the Hapsburgs, and at the same time to set up a rival power. Since they had no native royal family, and none of the magnates was sufficiently great and powerful to found a new dynasty, they organized a republic. Democracy was popular in Europe in 1848, though Hungary hardly seemed the field for a popular movement, for it was a land of inequalities, as it is to-day; enormously rich owners of estates live side by side with peasants of the Magyar race. The great political leader of the time, Kossuth, was a Slav in origin. In fact, the Hungarian race has for ages been enriched by people of other races who have, so to speak, "joined the order," Magyarized their names, taken on the language, and identified themselves with the ruling race. You meet no stronger or abler Magyars than some of the descendants of Croatians, Saxons, and Poles.

Notwithstanding these varieties of social conditions, Hungary is a country in which the upper and the lower classes pull together in times of stress; and the revolution was a genuine national movement. A provisional republican government was set up; armies were raised; President Polk sent Dudley Mann as Commissioner from the United States, with instructions to recognize the new republic if in his judgment it was likely to be permanent.

Still

Unfortunately for the Magyars, they were not all of the Kingdom of Hungary. Croatia and Transylvania did not relish the idea of passing under their complete control, and stood by the young Emperor, Francis Joseph. He soon took the upper hand in Austria, and called in the Russians to aid him. the Hungarians fought for months, till overpowered by numbers; then the revolution collapsed and the leaders fled. Kossuth came to the United States, and there are people still living who remember to have heard him speak, holding out his fist, and saying, "I have held the Emperor Francis Joseph within that hand!" It was no time for new rowboats then, any more than now; and it is doubtful whether an independent Hungarian republic could have maintained itself in the midst of the crush and impact between Eastern and Western Powers.

The Dual Monarchy. For a time Hungary was treated as simply a province of the Empire, without a constitution, without a Parliament, almost without rights. But neither defeat nor arbitrary government could

break her spirit. When the Austrian Empire began to crumble, when, in 1859, Napoleon III defeated the Austrians in north Italy and turned over Lombardy to the King of Sardinia, the immediate result was the creation, in 1860, of the Kingdom of Italy, which has ever since been the rival of Austria. Nevertheless, in 1866 the Hungarians could have no separate policy toward Prussia, and they shared the war and the defeat. As a result, Austria was pushed out of the German Empire, but it was understood that the future of the Empire was to be sought toward the southeast, and Hungary was at last admitted, not as a vassal or dependent state, but as a member of the "Dual Monarchy." In 1867, by a new "Ausgleich," the Empire was rearranged into two groups, which for a short distance were separated by the little river Leitha, which flows into the Danube not far below Vienna. Hence the western group is often, though unofficially, called "Cis-Leithia;" the eastern or Hungarian group is "Trans-Leithia.". TransLeithia included, besides the Kingdom of Hungary, Transylvania and Croatia and Slavonia, but not Galicia, which forms a narrow belt of Austrian territory between Russia and Hungary. The greater Hungary or Trans-Leithia possesses a separate Parliament, ministry, educational system, post-office, treasury, and national militia ("Honved"). The two halves of the Empire have a common Foreign Office and foreign policy, and the cost of the army and navy is a common charge. To regulate these general affairs committees of the Parliaments of the two halves of the Empire meet together as "delegations.' That is the system under which Austria-Hungary is governed at this moment.

The Race Question. Long before the revolution of 1848 the Hungarians had begun to extend the blessings of their culture to the non-Hungarian elements in their own country by making the Hungarian language the official and school language in the main Kingdom of Hungary, and by limiting, so far as possible, the representation of non-Hungarian races in Parliament. In a word, they subjected the other races to exactly the treatment which the Magyars had so resented when attempted by the Austrians upon themselves. The Magyar point of view is perfectly clear; they are the strongest, most vigorous, and most gifted element in Trans-Leithia; they strongly desire to take a bolder position within the Empire; they

have for several years been talking of compel ling Austria to make a new" Ausgleich," under which they would have the right to lay protective duties against Austrian manufactures; they keenly.resent the management of foreign affairs practically by the Cis-Leithian Germans. They want to enlarge their power by concentrating all the races within their dominions into one people, speaking the same language and having the same aims.

Against this ambition is the stubborn fact that in Trans-Leithia live two million Ger mans, three million Rumanians, and five and a half million Slavs of various kinds; every one of those elements is determined, whatever happens, not to be Magyarized. So far as they could, the Hungarians have determinedly and skillfully pushed their language in schools and courts. If you address a letter to the town of Semlin, which has borne that name for ages, it probably will not be delivered because the Hungariar postal officials call it Zimony. Multitudes of children whose families have for thirty generations spoken a Slav tongue have been obliged to learn Hungarian, which they obstinately refuse to use. The Germans and other elements which have kept their schools and language are nevertheless under a tremendous pressure to support the Hungarian policy.

The crisis in this strain of races has come in the year 1914. The United States contains numerous members of most of the peoples in Hungary; but we get on with them without difficulty. First, they accept the one official language of the country, and nearly all their children learn it. Secondly, they are diffused throughout the country; groups of them are in this or that city, but nowhere is there a state or a district in which they are the ruling element. Thirdly, they have no claim to be considered a nationality inside the United States. They are either naturalized Americans, who have sworn to give up their allegiance to the foreign country from which they came; or they are aliens living under the protection of the United States on the same terms as other foreign residents. They claim no special privileges as Croats, or Slovaks, or Transylvanians, or Poles, or Ruthenians. They have no kindred groups of their own race just across the border in a neighboring country.

The Magyars and the War. In TransLeithia these conditions are reversed. Many of these race elements were on the ground as

be interviewed, and that it would be wise to bring something with us for the interviewers to take notice of. So he told me to buy the biggest pipe I could find, and he practiced holding it in his mouth in his cabin on the way across. He is very pleased with the way the gentlemen of the press have taken notice of it."

"So that is not the pipe he really smokes ?" I said, perceiving I was on the verge of a grand discovery. "I suppose he actually smokes an ordinary small pipe."

Again Brown hesitated, but again truth prevailed.

"He does not smoke any pipe," he said, nor cigars, nor cigarettes; he never smokes at all; he just puts that one in his mouth to help the interviewers."

"It has the appearance of having been smoked?" I pointed out.

"I blackened it for him," the faithful fellow replied.

"But he has written a book in praise of My Lady Nicotine."

"So I have heard," Brown said, guardedly. "I think that was when he was hard up and had to write what people wanted; but he never could abide smoking himself. Years after he wrote the book he read it; he had quite forgotten it, and he was so attracted by what it said about the delights of tobacco that he tried a cigarette. But it was

no good; the mere smell disgusted him." "Odd that he should forget his own book," I said.

"He forgets them all," said Brown. "There is this Peter Pan foolishness, for instance. I have heard people talking to him about that play and mentioning parts in it they liked, and he tried to edge them off the subject. They think it is his shyness, but I know it is because he has forgotten the bits they are speaking about.

Before strangers call on him I have seen him reading one of his own books hurriedly, so as to be able to talk about it if that is their wish. But he gets mixed up and thinks that the Little Minister was married to Wendy."

Suddenly, whether to get away from a troublesome subject I cannot say, he vouchsafed me a startling piece of information. "The German Kaiser was on our boat coming across," he said.

"Sure?" I asked, wetting my pencil.

He told me he had Sir James's word for it. There was on board, it seems, a very small, shrunken gentleman with a pronounced waist and tiny, turned-up mustache, who strutted along the deck trying to look fierce and got in the other passengers' way to their annoyance until Sir James discovered that he was the Kaiser Reduced to Life Size. After that Sir James liked to sit with him and talk to him.

Sir James is a great admirer of the Kaiser, though he has not, like Mr. Carnegie, had the pleasure of meeting him in society. When he read in the papers on arriving here that the Kaiser had wept over the destruction of Louvain, he told Brown a story. It was of a friend who had gone to an oculist to be cured of some disease in one eye. Years afterward he heard that the oculist's son had been killed in some Indian war, and he called on the oculist to commiserate with him.

"You cured my eye," he said to him, "and when I read of your loss I wept for you, sir; I wept for you with that eye."

"Sir James," Brown explained, " is of a very sympathetic nature, and he wondered which eye it was that the Kaiser wept with." I asked Brown what his own views were about the war, and before replying he pulled a paper from his pocket and scanned it. "We are strictly neutral," he then replied. 'Is that what is written on the paper?" I asked. He admitted that Sir James had written out for him the correct replies to possible questions. Why was he neutral ?" I asked, and he again found the reply on the piece of paper: "Because it is the Presi

dent's wish."

So anxious, I discovered, is Sir James to follow the President's bidding that he has enjoined Brown to be neutral on all other subjects besides the war; to express no preference on matters of food, for instance, and always to eat oysters and clams alternately, so that there can be no ill-feeling. Also to walk in the middle of the streets lest he should seem to be favoring either sidewalk, and to be very cautious about admitting that one building in New York is higher than another. I assured him that the Woolworth Building was the highest, but he replied po