POLAND. 249 



in the land. The Jews, although relatively somewhat less numerous than in 

 Eastern Galicia, swarm in all the Polish towns, and here, as in Galicia and 

 Himgary, they increase more rapidly than the Christians. But, like the Polish 

 artisans themselves, they have mostly fallen to the condition of proletarians, and all 

 wholesale husiness is monopolized by a few wealthy traders. In the middle of the 

 sixteenth century they were estimated at about 200,0 JO, though a poll tax, from 

 which thousands probably contrived to escape, gave a total of no more than 16,589. 

 A century later, in 1659, the same census returned 100,000, and that of 1764 as 

 many as 315,298, though they are supposed at that time to have exceeded 

 1,000,000. They now number nearly as many, although the actual Polish terri- 

 tory has been reduced by five-sixths since the dismemberment of 1772. 



Most of the Polish Jews, descendants of immigrants from the Phine, still speak 

 the Phenish dialect of their forefathers, so that in many towns the inhabitants of 

 German speech, Jews and Germans combined, are already in a majority, Lodz, 

 the second city in Poland, is in this respect more German than Polish, and even in 

 Warsaw German is the current speech of about one-third of the people. In former 

 times the towns, many founded by Germans, were isolated from the bulk of the 

 nation by their local privileges, playing no part in a commonwealth of landed 

 gentr}^ alien to the real Poland, "like drops of oil in a stagnant pool." But 

 nowadays, so far from keeping aloof, the towns direct the course of events, and 

 here are developed not only the industrial resources, but the laws and institutions 

 of the country. But, as in mediccval times, these towns are the focus of German 

 immigration, whence it happens that the German element daily grows in impor- 

 tance. In Polund the Germans are far more numerous, relatively and absolutely, 

 than in the so-called "German" provinces on the Baltic seaboard. Yet the 

 •Russian Government has hitherto taken far less precautions against German 

 influence in Poland than in those provinces, Relying on the natural rivalry and 

 even hatred revealed in the proverb, "While the world lasts the German will 

 never be the Pole's brother," the Government has often encouraged German 

 colonisation in order thereby to weaken the national element. But it may possibly 

 sooner than is supposed have to reverse the system, and, on the contrary, rely on 

 the Poles to check a too rapid " Germanisation " of the frontier Slav districts. 



Fortunately the Polish race is expanding, and growing daily more capable of 

 resisting foreign influences. Although deprived of its political autonomy, it has 

 certainly more patriotic sentiment and more moral worth than in the last century, 

 when the nobles sold their country to the highest bidder, and the nation looked on 

 impassively. Notwithstanding the calamities flowing from the insurrection of 

 1863, and especially affecting the wealthier classes, the abolition of clerical and 

 aristocratic privileges, combined with the rural and communal changes long 

 demanded by the democratic party, has been productive of the happiest results. 

 Material progress is everywhere evident, and general prosperity has increased, or 

 rather misery has abated. In 1859 the number of landed proprietors, nearly all 

 nobles, scarcely exceeded 218,000, most of the rural element consisting of lease- 

 holders, day labourers, and menials. But since the law of 1864 the farmers and 

 162 



