The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

POLAND. 249in the land. The Jews, although relatively somewhat less numerous than inEastern Galicia, swarm in all the Polish towns, and hero, as in Galicia andHungary, they increase more rapidly than the Christians. But, like the Polishartisans themselves, they have mostly fallen to the condition of proletarians, and allwholesale business 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, fromwhich thousands probably contrived to escape, gave a total of no more than 16,589.A century later, in 1G59, the same census returned 100,000, and that of 176-1 asmany as 315,298, though they are supposed at that time to have exceeded1,000,000. They now number nearly as many, although the actual Polish territoryhas been reduced by five-sixths since the dismemberment of 1772.Most of the Polish Jews, descendants of immigrants from the Phine, still speakthe Rhenish dialect of their forefathers, so that in many towns the inhabitants ofGerman 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 inWarsaw German is the current speech of about one-third of the people. In formertimes the towns, many founded by Germans, were isolated from the bulk of thenation by their local privileges, playing no part in a commonwealth of landedgentry, alien to the real Poland, " like drops of oil in a stagnant pool." Butnowadays, so far from keeping aloof, the towns direct the course of events, andhere are developed not only the industrial resources, but the laws and institutionsof the country. But, as in mediaeval times, these towns are the focus of Germanimmigration, whence it happens that the German element daily grows in importance.In Poland the Germans are far more numerous, relatively and absolutely,than in the so-called "German" provinces on the Baltic seaboard. Yet thePussian Government has hitherto taken far less precautions against Germaninfluence in Poland than in those provinces.Relying on the natural rivalry andeven hatred revealed in the proverb, " While the world lasts the German willnever be the Pole's brother," the Government has often encouraged Germancolonisation in order thereby to weaken the national element.But it may possiblysooner than is supposed have to reverse the system, and, on the contrary, rely onthe Poles to check a too rapid " Germanisation " of the frontier Slav districts.Fortunately the Polish race is expanding, and growing daily more capable ofresisting foreign influences. Although deprived of its political autonomy, it hascertainly 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 onimpassively. Notwithstanding the calamities flowing from the insurrection of1863, and especially affecting the wealthier classes, the abolition of clerical andaristocratic privileges, combined with the rural and communal changes longdemanded by the democratic party, has been productive of the happiest results.Material progress is everywhere evident, and general prosperity has increased, orrather misery has abated.In 1859 the number of landed proprietors, nearly allnobles, scarcely exceeded 218,000, most of the rural element consisting of leaseholders,day labourers, and menials. But since the law of 1864 the farmers and