All the titles, of the nobility are not confined to the oldest
son. The "Pocketbook of Counts," published by the same firm which
publishes the "Almanac de Gotha," contains the counts of Austria,
Germany and Hungary together, showing in this way the intimate
personal relation between the noble families of these three
countries. All the sons of a count are counts, and so on, ad
infinitum. Thus in Hungary there are probably seventy Counts
Szecheny and about the same number of Zichy, etc. Some of the
German noble families are not far behind. In fact it may be said
that almost any person, in what is known as "society" in the
Central Empires, has a title of some sort. The prefix "von" shows
that the person is a noble and is often coupled with names of
people who have no title. By custom in Germany, a "von" when
he goes abroad is allowed to call himself Baron. But in Germany
he could not do so. These noble families in the Central Empires,
by the system of _Majorat_ which I have described, hold
large landed estates, and naturally exert a great influence upon
their labourers.
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