The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-12
a Primitive COnstituency.

AN ARCADIAN COMMUNITY IN TRANsYLvANIA.
correspondent of the London Times
writes from Klausenburg, in Pennsylvania
IF you look at the map, Seek is not twenty
miles from the capital, but if you want TO 90
there you must reckon half day in summer,
when the direct road is passable, and in win
ter or spring, when you have to make great
round you may deem yourself lucky if you
get there without accident towards evening.
Where roads in general are so good as they
are in Pennsylvania, this seems surprising,
but it finds its explanation in the natural fea-
lures of the district. Tho interior of Tran
sylvania forms one great basin, evidently
once the bed of the sea. In the very centre
Of the country, between the course of the
rivers Maros and Szamos, there rises an un-
dulating plateau of late tertiary sandstone
and shale soft and friable. To Judge from
single old trees and small patches of forest
still remaining scattered, the greatest part of
this district was wooded, but now it is a sue
cession of naked DOWNS harboring small lakes
in every depression
'"The whole district known under the name
of the Pasture, is considered the most pro-
ductive of Pennsylvania. It was the great
grazing district of the country before 1S4S,
when most of the large herds of fine cattle
and horses were dispersed. Every proprietor
in the surrounding districts considered it al
most as necessary portion of his farming to
have some land in the district, for it was
above all through this part that he made his
farming pay. Since the great herds of cattle
have been dispersed, much of the land has
been broken up. It strikes you that it has
been done systematically, for while the slopes
facing south have been left intact, the slopes
facing north have been ploughed up and bear
luxuriant crops of wheat, rice, and Indian
corn. This Is owing to q popularity which
you have no trouble in discovering, for while
on the northern slopes you see fat black soil,
on the southern slopes, through the scanty
grass, you see yellow sand mixed with mari.
AS in the large alluvial plains of Hungary,
the material for roads is wanting on the pas
ture, the stone which is used decomposing so
soon that it is dust almost before it is laid on
the road. With the exception therefore, of
the parts of the road lying close to the river,
where gravel may be got they can, even with
the great labor bestowed upon them, scarcely
be kept up, and have to be relaid almost
every spring.
''Although it boasts of a charter by King
Matthias Corvinus of the fifteenth century,
which insures to it all those rights and privi-
leges which had been granted to Buda, the
capital of Hungary, the noble town of Seek,
as it is called in diplomatic language, is little
different in appearance from village. You
see the same low, one-storied houses, with
gable-ends turned towards the street, and
separated from each other by the courtyard
merging into the garden behind. A wooden
verandah runs along the side of the building
turned towards the courtyard, and under the
thatched roofs you see the heads of yellow
Indian corn and tobacco leaves strung up in
row, forming sort of festoon.
''To judge by the similarity of the houses
you seem to have realized in your journey
the land of equality, nor are you, indeed, far
off here seeing the dream of the enthusiasts
realized, for if there is not much wealth there
is no great poverty either in SEEK proletari-
ans or beggars are unknown.
''Where no one is in absolute want, and all
are more or less on the same level, the great
est Indictment to crime is gone; and SO it is
in this Transylvanian Arcadia. Except now
and then row on a Sunday evening, there is
but little for justice and police to do, and
even these rows can only be of rare occur
renee when in population of five thousand
souls only half dozen are known as drunk
ards. Theft is unheard of not house has
a lock: agricultural implements are kept in
the fields; household property in the open
court yards, where not even watch-dog5 are
kept There is, indeed, prison remaining,
but it has been used for years as lumber
room.
'In the midst of all the political and reli-
gious agitatons through which Transylvania
has gone ia olden as well as in more recent
times the place has not been disturbed
There Hungarian and Rouman have been anG
are living in the best harmony tho best proof
of which is that the Mayor Is Rouman
although by far the greater number of the in
habitants are Hungarian AS with politics SC
it is with religion. The place might pass as
model of tolerance, for there Protestants
Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, and ortho
dox Greek are living in the best possible un
derstanding with each other, and what is
perhaps, even more, their clergy are on th
best terms with each other.
''Yet from all this, or from the isolated
secluded position of the place, you must no
imagine that the people are sunk in apathy
and do not endeavor to better themselves
They are not content with tilling their nativ
soil, but have their commerce in cattle AM
wood. They go away with their carts an
oxen or horses to fetch the wood, which the
bring down and sell in the more prosperou
towns.
'EWhen one sees this simplicity And prin
tiveness one almost begins to doubt whethe
the railway which is projected in the valley c
the Szamos. few miles off, will be boon c
not, for it will necessarily modify all this, an
gradually efface the originality which is S
Interesting. But this will be the fate of man
of these small communities in Transylyani
of which the town of Seek is one, and, pc
haps, the most curious type.