Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/509

 REVENUE, ARMY, AND POPULATION. 473

The public debt of Roumania was reported to amount to 70,624,694 lei, or 2,824,988/., at the commencement of September 1870. It is divided into an internal debt, amounting to 18,243,819 lei, or 729,753/J, and a foreign debt, of 3,595,235/. The latter consists of three loans concluded with French and English banks in 1864, 1866, and 1869-70: the first, ' Emprunt Stern,' of a nominal capital of 22,900,000 francs, at 7 per cent, interest, with a 2 per cent, sinking fund, repayable in 1888; the second, 'Emprunt Oppenheim,' of a nominal capital of 31,610,500 francs, at 8 per cent, interest, also with a 2 per cent, sinking fund, repayable in 1889; and the third, a railway loan of 1,500,000/., at 1\ per cent, interest, contracted through the Anglo- Austrian Bank.

The military force of Roumania is organised on the plan of the Russian army, and the staff officers are principally Russians. The militia is formed by the peasantry, in the proportion of two men for every 100 families; but along the banks of the Danube all the inhabitants cap- able of bearing arms are organised into a military force, employed partly on the quarantine service, and partly and principally as a national or civic guard. By a new military law passed in June, 1866, all natives of Roumania, from 18 to 52, are liable to military service, either in the standing army or the militia, and the ballot has to decide in which of these two branches of the national forces each individual has to be incorporated. The period of service in the standing army is 4 years active, and 2 in the reserve ; and in the militia 2 years active and 4 in the reserve. The standing army is divided into eight regiments of infantry, numbering 16,000 men; one regiment of chasseurs, of 2,400 men ; three regiments of cavalry, of 1,500 men; and two regiments of artillery, of 1,600 men. The numbers represent the nominal strength of the army.

The area and population of the united principalities are shown in the subjoined statement : —

Wallachia ....

Moldavia and New Bessarabian

Provinces ....

Total.

AreainEng. sq. m.

Population

27,500 18,142

2,400,921 1,463,927

45,642

3,864,848

The numbers for Wallachia, in the preceding table, are the result of a census taken in 1860, while the population of Moldavia and the Bessarabian provinces is after an enumeration made in January 1864. The capital of the principalities and seat of the Government, Bucharest, had, in 1860, a population of 124,734. The census of 1860 showed a large preponderance of the male over the female population in Wallachia. Among the inhabitants are nearly 500,000 gipsies.