84 FORESTRY IN POLAND. 



the necessary characteristics of a republic: The people 

 were kept in a state of slavery and vassalage, and enjoyed 

 not even the semblance of any civil privilege : the whole 

 power was engrossed by the nobles ; and thus the Polish 

 constitution possessed not that community of interests, 

 that general diffusion of political privileges which are the 

 very life and stamina of a republic, as well as of a mixed 

 monarchy, and with which, in spite of much internal mis- 

 rule, and of the agressions of foreign enemies, Poland 

 might have flourished to this day. 



' The administration of justice, and the execution of the 

 law in Poland, was characterised by the grossest abuses. 

 The judges, nominated by the king, were chosen without 

 the most remote regard to their talents or integrity ; the 

 decision of the courts of law were openly and unblushingly 

 sold to the highest bidder ; and no cause, whatever its 

 merits, could be successful, unless supported by the all- 

 prevailing power of money. Nor was this corruption, for 

 which no redress could be obtained, confined to cases in 

 which the litigants were wealthy, or in which, as resulting 

 from some base and unprincipled transaction, the most 

 ample arid liberal payment ought to have been demanded. 

 Actions for which a man deserved the thanks of the state, 

 were, when brought before a legal tribunal, the source of 

 much unjust expense to the person performing them. 

 " If a man apprehended a murderer," says a writer quoted 

 by Malte-Brun, " and brought him before the proper 

 officer, he was charged ten ducats for his trouble, which, 

 if he were unable or unwilling to pay, the murderer was 

 immediately set at liberty." Had he submitted to this 

 payment, the sums that would, on some pretence or other, 

 have been exacted of him, ere the offender was brought to 

 justice, no man unacquainted with the history of Poland 

 could conjecture. " It has cost," says the same writer, " a 

 merchant of Warsaw 14,000 ducats for apprehending two 

 thieves." Nor was the expense of a plea more to be 

 execrated than the duration of it. No litigation, even the 

 simplest one, for example, between a debtor and credi- 



