Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/474

 BUDAPEST 428 consisting largely of palatial buildings, which has grown The municipal administration, although on the whole fairly quarter, in the vicinity of the new central railway station has won tor satisfactory, appears to be somewhat expensive. The communal up the popular appellation of “Chicago.” In the period 1885-95 debt is increasing. The total revenue, ordinary and extraordinary, it were erected 221 new public buildings, including the Palace rose from £686,699 in 1887 to £1,220,787 in 1896, and £1,447,460 there Justice and the Royal Opera House, 11 other places of public in 1900. The estimated value of the estate and effects of the of 12 barracks, 10 bathing establishments, 9 _ larger cornoration, which includes a large and increasing amount of house amusement, institutions, 9 hospitals, 7 charitable institutions, 6 and real property, rose from £6,183,000 in 1887 to £11,582,000 in educational 3 museums, 3 permanent exhibition buildings, 2 orphan 1898. The municipality owns a great deal of the vacant land in churches, asylums and a central railway station. Within the same period and about the town. . . there was a considerable addition to the number of public monuThe trade of Budapest is mainly in corn, wool, wine, spirits, ments artists. Rents bear nearly the same burden of cattle, pigs, horses, hides, wood, coal, &c. The principal in- taxationbyinnative as in Vienna, and in both towns the remission dustries are steam flour-milling, distilling, and the manufacture of taxes for Budapest a period of years is the chief means of promoting bmldof machinery, waggons, bricks, jute, &c. Comprehensive statis- ino' and reconstruction by private persons. There has been a great tics of the trade and industry of Budapest alone are not available ; extension of the tramway service (formerly horse traction, now but as the leading industrial centre and chief market of Hun- electrical), and the new electric undergroundbest-constructed railway is one lines of the gary, there is a constant ratio between its progress and that ot of the whole country. the kind in existence. As an indication of that The extraordiprogress in both respects narily rapid growth may be mentioned the inof Budapest during crease in the period 188798 of the amount paid in the 19th century, and direct and indirect taxmore particularly ation from, in round since 1867, together numbers, £1,200,000 to with its remarkable £2,187,666, with a corresponding increase in the progress in every communal surtax. The department of muniincrease in the number cipal and public life, of joint-stock companies renders it one of the and of the capital thus most interesting of invested (an increase which greatly exceeds modern cities. In that of Vienna) is also a the matter of the invaluable indication. In crease of its popula1873 there were 28 such tion alone it has only companies, with a total capital of £2,224,900 ; been slightly surin 1890, 75 (capital, passed by one Euro£9,352,000) ; and in pean town, namely, 1899 no less than 242, Berlin. Both capitals with a total capital of £31,378,655. In the multiplied their latter year the average population by nine in net profits of these comthe first nine decades panies wras 8-5 per cent. of the century. AcOne of the earliest material causes of the cording to an inprogress of Budapest— teresting and instrucat first chiefly comtive comparison of mercial—was the introthe growth of twentyduction of steam navigation on the Danube, eight European cities which gave an immense made by Dr Joseph impetus to its corn de Korosy, director trade. This still conof the Budapest Comtinues to operate, having been promoted by munal Bureau of the growth of the flourStatistics, Berlin in milling industry, which 1890 showed an inwas revolutionized by crease, as compared certain Budapest inventions. According to with the beginning Mr A. Shaw, Minneaof the century, of 818 per cent., and Budapest of 809 per polis and Budapest are now the two great milling centres of the world. The latter possesses a number of magnificent establish- cent. Within the same period the increase of Paris was ments, fitted with automatic machinery invented and manufac- 343 per cent., and of London 340 per cent. This phenotured in the city; fifteen large steam-mills employ 3200 hands. menon, which has excited the admiration of an exceptionA significant example of the progress of Budapest in another direc- ally competent American observer, Mr Albert Shaw (see tion the manufacture of electrical plant, is the fact that a Buda- “ Budapest: the Bise of a New Metropolis,” in his Munipest firm was entrusted by the Russian Government (November 1899) with the erection of a great central station for the transmis- cipal Government in Continental Europe}, is worthy, of sion of electric power at Port Arthur, and also contracted to furnish special attention. In Mr Shaw’s opinion no other imlaro-e and important plant for the Paris electrical underground portant European city falls so far short of the appreciation raifway, and an electric-lighting company in the French capital on it merits. There can be no doubt that its progress is the eve of the great exhibition of 1900. Of the later improvements in Budapest perhaps the most im- mainly due to the revival of Hungarian national spirit in portant is the regulation of the older part of the town in connexion the first half of the century, and to the energetic and with the construction of the two new bridges across the Danube systematic efforts of the Government and people of Hungaiy (there are now six in all), and the rapid development of Buda, where entirely new quarters have sprung up. The following since the restoration of the constitution. So far as Hungary figures will give an idea of the building activity: m 1881 the was concerned, Pesth in 1867 at once became the favoured Sber of house, was 10,748; in 1891, 13,066; in 1896, 14,628; rival of Vienna, with the important additional advantage in 1901 16 254. This growth, which was accompanied by a progres- that it had no such competitors within its own sphere sive increase in the proportion of the larger houses, is insufficient as Vienna had in the Austrian provincial capitals. The for the requirements of the population, of whom 13 per cent, still occupy overcrowded dwellings. The rapid development of a political, intellectual, and social life of Hungary was centred