THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



505 



JEWISH CHILDREN IN POLAND 



The reason for the great number of Jews now found in Poland may be traced back to 

 the days of Casimir the Great, a Polish king, whose favorite, Esther, a devoted Jewess, per- 

 suaded her royal lover to offer her people a home in his dominions. When Casimir died, in 

 1370, Polish toleration ended, and during the succeeding centuries the lot of the Jew has been 

 an unhappy one. Marriage vows are taken early by the Jews in Poland ; a girl scarcely 

 ceases to play with dolls before she has babies of her own, and a woman twenty-five years 

 old is frequently the mother of six or seven children (see page 499). 



the reigning houses of Austria-Hungary, Bel- 

 gium, Bulgaria, Denmark, the German Em- 

 pire, and each of its 25 States except the Slavic 

 dynasty of the two Mecklenburgs ; Great Brit- 

 ain, Greece, Holland, Liechtenstein, Luxem- 

 burg, Norway, Rumania, Russia, and Sweden. 

 In Great Britain the royal house, long thor- 

 oughly anglicised, by royal proclamation in 

 1917, changed its title from "House of Saxe- 

 Coburg and Gotha" to "House of Windsor." 

 In Belgium and Rumania the rulers identified 

 themselves with their people. The monarchs 

 of the no longer existing Austro-Hungarian, 

 German and Russian empires are either fugi- 

 tive or dead. 



Until 187 1 the term German was an ethnic 

 or geographical expression without national 

 meaning. There had never been a real German 

 nation. Instead had existed an indefinite num- 

 ber of political units — kingdoms, duchies, free 

 cities, loosely connected or not connected at 

 all — in European wars usually taking opposite 

 sides. The number of such units had been 



gradually reduced to twenty-five. This was an 

 inheritance from the tribal system, often de- 

 plored by German patriots and statesmen. Act- 

 ing together for the first time in the war of 

 1870-71, they conquered imperial France. 



The proclamation of the Empire on January 

 18, 1871, at Versailles, in the throne room of 

 Louis XIV, the arch foe of the German race, 

 was most spectacular. German union seemed 

 achieved. On April 16 the sovereigns of the 

 five larger German States granted the Empire a 

 Constitution, in the making of which the people 

 had no share. This Constitution rendered 

 Prussia and her Hohenzollern King supreme 

 in Germany. The Constitution could in no way 

 be changed without the consent of the King of 

 Prussia, who was German Emperor, except by 

 revolution (see map, page 510). 



The revolution has now been accomplished. 

 But peoples and races remain, though thrones 

 and empires fall. After present troubles are 

 pacified and wrongs righted, in the very center 

 of the continent will exist a compact, homo- 



