The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-17 00:00:00

STATE OF HUNGARY.

A letter from Pesth, dated July 12, says :
These are moments of agitating suspense for the
Hungarians. All eyes are turned to Vienna, and
every hour will be counted until the new rescript
arrives. Few expect it to be satisfactory, and yet
some seem to court hope at the risk of cruel disap-
pointment. Besides telegraphic facilities, the ex-
press train now brings news from Vienna in little
more than six hours, so that whatever transpires
there is very quickly known here. As yet, all that
has transpired amounts to very little. Long deli-
berations have taken place in the Council of Minis-
ters and in the .Hof-kanzlei. Tomorrow or Mon-
day, it is thought, the rescript may be here. On
the latter day the Chamber of Deputies again meets,
and interesting debates may be expected. I will
take advantage of the momentary lull, and of the
suspension of its sittings, briefly to sketch its ap-
pearance when assembled.
• Until a special building shall have been erected,
a project for which is now before the Chamber, the
Hungarian deputies meet in a large room or hall
of the Museum, a handsome building situate at one
extremity of Pesth. The form of the apartment is
an oblong parallelogram, and each end of it is occu-
pied by a specious gallery, now devoted to the ac-
commodation of the public. Along one of the longer
sides, in which is the chief entrance, extends a third
gallery, of little depth and admitting only of a single
row of chairs, which are occupied by the reporters.
Exactly opposite to the entrance is the President's
chair, with places for the four secretaries on either
side of him. Right and left of these are the desks
of various minor officials of the Chamber, and in
the body of the hall, facing the line thus formed,
are rows of benches, divided by passages into four
sections, on which sit the deputies. There is not
too much space; there is very little room, with a
tolerably full attendance, for gentlemen to 101 l
about ; one sees at once that the installation is
temporary—in fact a makeshift. Nearly an hour
before the arrival of that fixed for business to
commence (10 a.m.), the galleries begin to fill, and
they are crowded by the time Vice-President Baron
Podmanitzky takes the chair. A large proportion
of their occupants (I am sketching from my recol-
lections of the sitting of 'Wednesday last) are
ladies, and this, I am informed, is usually the case,
for the Hungarian women are stanch patriots, and
take the warmest interest in the politics and des-
tinies of their country. Their piquant style of
beauty and graceful national costume render the
galleries by no means the least interesting part of
the house to a spectator, and one has difficulty in
divesting himself of the idea that so bright and
gay an assemblage must have come together rather
to listen to a morning concert than to a grave de-
bate. While the junior secretary, CountKeglevich,
reads the protocol of the previous sitting, one has
time to study the aspect of the Chamber, and make
out some of its principal members. Modern Legis-
lative Chambers generally present a most uninte-
resting external uniformity. North or South, in
England and Germany, in Spain and in Italy, one
sees the same crowd of black coats and round hats.
In this respect the Hungarian Chamber differs from
all other European assemblages of the kind. The
national costume is here still almost universally ad-
hered to, and with good reason, for it is not only
picturesque but in many respects very convenient.
The well-known Hungarian hat, so far superior,
both in comfort and appearance, to the chimneypots
of Western Europe; the short embroidered tunic,
the close-fitting Hussar pantaloon and light boot,
of the style we used to call Hessians in England,
are still worn here by five persons out of six, and I
observed no other costume among the deputies.
And as the Hungarians are, for the most part, a
well-grown and well-made race, long in the leg and
narrow in the flank, the garb becomes them well.
Upon the whole, I have seldom seen a more strik-
ing-looking set of men brought together in one room
than those I saw on Wednesday in the Hungarian
Lower House. They looked what most of them
are—bold, hardy, intelligent country gentlemen,
whose resolution it would not be easy to daunt or
turn aside. One perfectly understands, when
studying the physiognomy of the Chamber, the self-
reliance and moral courage the Hungarians have
shown in the course of their long struggle for their
rights. One recognises a good sample of the nation
which swept the Austrian white-jackets out of the
country, and would assuredly have kept them out
but for Muscovite interference. I have said that
the great majority of the assembly consists of
landed proprietors. There are also a few lawyers,
and, I believe, two or three persons engaged in
commerce ; also some military men, ex-officers
of the Austrian army. There is no local divi-
sion of parties in the House—no Right, Left, and
Centre, or Liberal and Conservative benches, al-
though most of the prominent members of the Deak
party sit immediately on the right hand of the broad
passage which intersects the hall from the en-
trance to the. President's chair, while the chiefs of
the Beschluss party, as it is called (from its having
advocated a resolution, instead of an address), are
to be found in the corresponding section opposite to
the President's left. On Wednesday, as already
mentioned, the chair was occupied by the junior
Vice-President, Baron Podmanitzky, a young man
of a pleasing and intelligent countenance, and of the
thorough Hungarian type. The President, Kalman
Ghiczy, who had returned from Vienna the night
before, sat on one of the deputies' benches, from
which he rose to read his account of his mission
to the Emperor. He is an elderly man, of grave
aspect, of no particular political note, but dis-
tinguished as a jurist, and possessed :)f qualities
that were considered peculiarly to qualify him for
the post to which he was elected, and which he
appears to fill in a manner to give general satis-
faction. On the end seat of the fourth bench
from the Presidential chair, and as nearly as maybe opposite to it, sits the author of the Address,
the Imperial answer to whicl.is nowso anxiously
expected— the Address in which Hungary's cause is
rg countenance,
so lucidly stated and so ably argued. Deak is a
man apparently
with
out sso:i
vstoute etic en e in Person, almost
to
corpulence,
dark hair, and a thick heavy moustae of a much
lighter colour. He is the man of the day, and his
popularity is great in Run
guy. Many are the

manifestations of admiration and approval his
policy and talents have lately elicited from his
countrymen. To-day's Pester Lloyd mentions
several that have just occurred. One city sends
him an address of thanks and confidence, couched
in the most flattering terms, another elects him one
of its citizens and honorary member of its council.
He has been repeatedly requested to sit for his por-
trait, for, although the windows are full of litho-
graphs and engravings of him, none of them are
considered to do him justice. He has always re-
fused until a few days ago, the Burgomaster of
Pesth, in the name of a number of his fellow-
citizens, addressed to him the same petition, to
which he has just acceded, on condition that all the
profits that may accrue from the sale of the por-
trait and of its reproductions shall be applied to the
benefit of the Orphan Asylum of Pesth. Not far
from Deak, on the front bench, sits another well-
known and distinguished member of the Diet, a
short dark man, of expressive countenance and re-
markably prepossessing address. This is Baron
Eiitvos, who was Minister of Public Worship in
1848, and whose name Ty3u have so often read
daring the present session. Near to him is
LOny, ay, who was Under-Secretary of the Finance
Department in '4B, and who is Finance Minister
elect in the Hungarian Cabinet, which, if all goes
well, is soon to be. Behind him sits Klauzal, who
was Minister of Commerce in '4B, and next to him,
Szalay, an excellent speaker, and the author of what
is here considered the best "History of Hungary,"
as well as of some recent pamphlets on the rights
of the Servians and Croatians, in their relations to
Hungary. In the seat behind Deak is Emile Des-
sewffy, a member of the old Conservative party
(conservative, of course, of Hungarian rights, and
not in an Austrian-Government sense), and Presi-
dent of the Pesth Academy. Hard by sits a deputy
over whose Hungarian costume is buckled a heavy
sabre, which he wears in quality of Questor of the
Chamber, charged with its police, having to main-
tain order, to receive strangers, to clear the gallery,
if necessary, and similar duties. He has under his
orders officials, who are not deputies, and also a
sort of guard of young men (volunteers, who re-
ceive no pay), whose distinction is a scarf of the
Hungarian tricolour (green, white, and red) worn
over the national dress. I forgot to mention that
a trophy of silken fla,fs of these colours, one of them
bearing the arms of Hungary, is arranged upon the
wall above the President's chair. The Questor is
Paul Hajnik, who was Prefect of Police under the
Hungarian Government of '4B, and who afterwards,
for many years, was Kossuth's companion in exile.
Away, more to the right, is Gabriel Kazinszy, con-
sidered the best orator in the Chamber, in a rheto-
rical sense, a man of glowing and figurative elo-
quence. All that I have named sit on the right,
and, if I err not, all, with perhaps one or two ex-
ceptions, are firm supporters of the Deak policy.
Passing over to the Left Centre, the first thing that
strikes the eye is an empty seat, at the extremity
of the third bench, the desk in front of which
is draped with black cloth. There sat poor
Ladislaus Teleki up to the very day when, ex-
cited, there can be scarcely a doubt, to the point
of insanity by the pressure of the false position
in which he found himself he committed the
fearful act that his friends will never cease to
deplore. I have been shown the house where he
died, and have heard much of the grief and con-
sternation the sad event excited. The reports
spread at the time that his death was other-
wise than by his own hand never obtained much
credence, and have since so completely died away
that it seems unnecessary here again full to contra-
dict them. Teleki's mantle, as leader of the besek-
luss party, has descended upon the joint shoulders
of his brother-in-law Tisza, who is first Vice-Presi-
dent of the Chamber, and of Paul Ny, ary, or at
least these two deputies divide the leadership of
that party. Nyary is spoken of as a man of great
intelligence, perhaps the most so of any who enter-
tain the same political views. Beniczky, a landed
proprietor, is another distinguished member of the
same party. Far back in this Left-Central section
sits Horvath, who, it is thought probable, may on
a future day be put forward by the Deak party
as a candidate for the Presidency of the Chamber.
Two journalists were pointed out to me sitting side
by side—Tsengery, who has some reputation in the
trunganan literary world, and Jokai, tt rather ap-
propriate name, seeing that its owner deals consi-
derably in jokes, in his capacity of editor of the
Ustokos, or Comet newspaper, one of the two best
satirical and jocose journals, of which no less than
four are published here. M. Jokai is also a most
prolific romance writer, and may he looked upon as
the Dumas of Hungary.

It is probable that things worthy of note have
been overlooked in the above sketch, but I send it
to you as a general view of the Hungarian Lower
Chamber, as it presented itself to me on a single
visit, paid during a brief sitting during which there
were no proceedings of much interest, nor anything
to show the bearing of the house under exciting cir-
cumstances. Everything seemed conducted with
much order and decorum, and there was prompt
obedience to the President's bell. Next week is
likely to witness sittings of much greater length
and more interesting character.