The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-11-22
Social Life Mt Bucharest.


respondent Of '& Household Woa'as,"
who has for many months been wan
dering through the Eastern world, and
whose sketches have recently been
published in handsome volume.
dates his last communication from
Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia.
We extract the following daguerreo-
type of social life there:
Fancy an agreeable community Of
gipsies playing at civilization, and my
reader will not have an erroneous idea
of Bucharest. Life is nowhere so free
from vain restraints and troublesome
formaities. There arc no grave wor-
shipful persons about, to shame merry
folks into being staid and serious. A
true Wallachian looks upon Irritation
as the business of life. This may be
varied now and then by dancing,
gambling, and official peculation; but
these are merely casual diversions,
and the true bred Wallachian returns
to the first occupation with quick
ened sense of enjoyment He is in
deed political intriguer by nature;
but, after all, politics are merely an
amusement to him, and he would give
up the schemes of half lifetime for
the smile of some bedizened old CO.
quette of forty-nine He is not am
bilious, out he likes place for it's
profits, for the temporary advantage
which it gives him over his rivals in
love affairs, and over the neighbors
who desire to rob him in some way
as most of them do. Every Wallachian
nobleman believes devoutly that he
has right to hold some public office,
at least once during his life, to divorce
his wife when he pleases, and to out
wit his neighbor. He would bear the
utmost extreme of want and poverty,
however, rather than follow any trade.
Recently the prejudice entertained
among the nobility against the learned
professions is happily melting away.
take it, they consented to be in
structed by the Greeks in this respect;
so it is pleasant to add that the present
minister-or it wonld be more correct
to say director-of the interior, was
doctor of medicine, and that by far
the greatest man in the country lived
long in exile on the honorable earnings
of small professorship in Moldavia.
know no race of men more win
ming and interesting than the Rou-
mans. or of conduct more thoroughly
Objectionable. The men are mostly
slight, dark, gypsy looking fellows,
with keen, restless eyes. They are as
active as wild men. They are almost
as strong and fearless as their old Da-
clan forefathers but they consider
it the height of fashion and good taste
to affect an exaggerated effeminacy of
demeanor and habits. 1t is delight
ful to see some well-knit gentleman,
with sweeping mustache six or seven
inches long, nervous frame, and the
glance of a hawk, whose right place
would undoubtedly be at the head of
body OF irregular cavalry, placing
his trust in eau de Cologne and cam
brio handkerchiefs, or waltzing with a
six-dandy power fifty times round {.
room which he could clear from one
end to the other at a single bound.
But conversation, however carefully
subdued, breaks out now and then in
strange fiery sallies. There is a racy,
fne-havored smack about it, which
speaks of keen wits and hearty animal
enjoyment, in the midst of the most
artificial scenes. Extraordinary in
timacies exist among them. Friends
are fond Of calling each other by some
prlngent nickname that would torture
the ears of a used-up gentleman of the
West-a nickname usually derived
from some odd act of roguery, which
has of course been found out. They
walk into each others houses unan-
nounced. They stay as long rs they
please, joining in the meals and oc-
equations of the family, and talking,