Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/207

 GERMANY WALDECK. I 7 I

were 823,326 thaler, or 123,498/., and the annual expenditure 800,343 thaler, or 120,051/., leaving a surplus of 22,983 thaler, or 3,447/. a year. Very nearly one-half of the revenue is contributed by the State domains, and about one-third by indirect taxes. The public debt at the commencement of 18G9 amounted to 1,047,352 thaler, or 157,103/., a moiety of which consisted in notes, not bearing interest.

Saxe-Altenburg has an area of 509 English square miles, with a population, according to the census of Dec. 3, 1867, of 141,426 inhabitants. With the exception of about two hundred Roman Catholics, they are all Protestant. There are no settled Jews. The inhabitants of the duchy are of Slavonic origin, and the customs and dress of the nationality are still prevailing in the rural districts, although the Slavonic dialect has disappeared since the middle of the sixteenth century. The peasants are reputed to be more wealthy than in any other part of Germany, and the rule prevails among them of the youngest son becoming the heir to the landed property of the father. Estates are kept for generations in the same family, and seldom parcelled out. The rural population, however, has been declining in numbers for the last twenty years.

XVI. WALDECK.

(FtJRSTENTHUM WALDECK.)

Reigning Sovereign.

Georg Victor, Prince of Waldeck, born Jan. 14, 1831, the son of Prince Georg Friedrich and Princess Emma of Anhalt-Bern- burg ; succeeded to the throne at the death of his father, under the guardianship of his mother, May 14, 1845; married, Sept. 26, 1853, to Princess Helena, born Aug. 12, 1831, daughter of the late Duke Wilhelm of Nassau. Offspring of the union are four daughters and one son, namely : — 1. Princess Pauline, born Oct. 19, 1855. 2. Princess Marie, born May 23, 1857. 3. Princess Emma, born Aug. 2, 1858. 4. Princess Helen a, born Feb. 17, 1861. 5. Prince Friedrich, heir-apparent, born Jan. 20, 1865.

The family of Waldeck was enrolled by the Congress of Vienna among the sovereign houses of Europe on account of the distin- guished services rendered by field-marshal Prince Georg of Wal- deck in the wars against France. The present sovereign has a civil list of 245,000 thaler, or 36,735/., being considerably more than one half of the revenue of the principality.

After the war betwen Austria and Prussia, at the end of 1866,