EXTENT AND NATURE OF THE COUNTRY—BENEFITS RESULTING TO THE PEOPLE FROM THE PARTITION OF POLAND—CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE OF THE ANCIENT SYSTEM—SUPERIOR DEGREE OF SECURITY ENJOYED UNDER THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT—MODE OF BUILDING—APPEARANCE OF A POLISH VILLAGE—INNS-JEWS—UNCLEANLINESS OF THE POLES

The kingdom of Galicia is that part of Poland which, on the partition of that monarchy among its more powerful neighbours, fell to the share of the house of Austria. It contains upwards of fifteen hundred German square miles, and not far short of four millions of inhabitants.

The country chiefly consists of a sandy plain situated at the northern foot of the lofty mountains which separate it from Hungary, Transylvania and the Bukowina by one of their secondary ramifications. The soil of the plains of Galicia is nevertheless more irregular than that of Hungary. It is infinitely diversified by hills of no great elevation, but in some parts of extreme fertility.

Much as it has been the fashion to deplore the “fatal partition” of Poland, and to execrate the powers concerned in it, we have now the satisfaction to know that to the Poles themselves this measure has proved one of the greatest blessings. Every individual has gained by it, excepting a few selfish, pampered magnates, who abused their overgrown power, and inflicted perpetual misery on the serfs whom Providence had subjected to their rule.

If ever there was a country where “might constituted right,” that country was Poland. The most dreadful oppression, the most execrable tyranny, and the most wanton cruelties, were daily exercised by the nobles on their unfortunate peasants. Dr. Neale in his Travels adduces a few facts which prove but too clearly their miserable condition.

The life of a peasant was held of no greater value than that of one of his horned cattle; and if his lord killed him he was merely fined a hundred Polish florins, or two pounds sixteen shillings of our money. If, on the contrary, a man of low birth presumed to raise his hand against a nobleman, death was the inevitable punishment. If any one dared to question the nobility of a magnat, he was required to prove his assertion, or doomed to die: nay, if a powerful man took a fancy to the field of his humbler neighbour and erected a land-mark upon it, and if that land-mark remained three days, the poor man lost his possession.

The atrocious cruelties habitually exercised almost exceed credibility. A Masalki caused his hounds to devour a peasant who chanced to fright his horse; a Radzivil had the belly of one of his serfs ripped open, that he might thrust his feet into it, in the hope of being cured of a malady with which he was afflicted. Still there were laws in Poland, but how were they executed? A peasant, going to the market at Warsaw, met a man who had just assassinated another: he seized the murderer, bound him, and having placed him in his wagon together with the body of his victim, he went to deliver him up to the nearest Starost. On his arrival, he was asked if he had ten ducats to pay for his interference, and on his answering in the negative, he was sent back with his dead and living lumber. After this fact, the reader will not be surprised to learn, that it cost a merchant of Warsaw fourteen hundred dollars to prosecute to conviction and execution two robbers who had plundered him.

To this injustice were joined the most barbarous ignorance and superstition. In 1781, the Starost Potocki, in passing through a village, learned that on the following day, a person accused of sorcery was to be burned alive. He examined the accused, inquired the hour at which the execution was to take place, and returned home to make preparation for preventing this legal murder, by carrying off the prisoner when on his way to the stake. The magistrates of the village received intimation of his design, and hastened the execution, so that when Potocki arrived, he had the mortification to find that the man had already been sacrificed.

Nor were this ignorance and this superstition confined to any particular class or order: in these respects people of the highest rank were perfectly on a level with the meanest serfs. A Polish baroness who had gained notoriety both at home and in France by her spirit of intrigue and the wit of her correspondence, was in the habit of burning frankincense and sprinkling her apartments with holy water whenever a thunder storm approached her castle.—One day, when in spite of these pious precautions the lightning struck and threw down her chimneys, she had recourse to an expedient which she regarded as infallible, namely, the burying round her house thirty copies of the Gospel of St. John; a custom still piously practised on Christmas-day in all the churches in Poland.

The morals of the people, were then, as they still continue to be, nearly at the lowest point of debasement. Female chastity is a virtue unknown in Poland. Among persons of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, with very few exceptions, the most dreadful licentiousness prevails. The men are equally profligate; and debauchery of every kind prevails among them to a degree unknown in other countries of Europe. Education is in general much neglected, the lower classes being unable to obtain the means of instruction: and among the higher, where no man is assured of the legitimacy of his offspring, a total indifference prevails as to the training of the doubtful brood. They are therefore neglected from their cradles, and left to the indulgence of every passion, undisciplined, untutored and uncontrolled. Endowed by nature with great personal beauty, the young Polish noble makes the tour of France and Germany, engrafts the vices of every capital that he visits on his own native stock; and after dilapidating his revenues returns to his paternal estate with a train of French cooks, valets, parasites and all the paraphernalia of modern luxury, to wallow in sensuality, and to die prematurely of acquired disease.

Such is the picture of the Poles drawn by Dr. Neale, who adds two facts tending to show the superior degree of security enjoyed by the humbler classes under the Austrian government to that afforded them while under the Polish sceptre.

During the reign of Stanislaus Poniatowsky, a petty noble having refused to resign his small estate to Count Thisenhaus, the latter invited him to dinner as if desirous of adjusting the affair in an amicable manner. While the knight, elated at such an unexpected honour, was assiduously plying the bottle, the count despatched some hundreds of peasants with axes, ploughs and wagons, ordering the village, which consisted only of a few small wooden buildings, to be pulled down, the materials carried away, and the plough passed over the ground which the village had occupied. This was accordingly done. The nobleman, on his return home in the evening, could not find either road, house or village. The master and his servant were alike bewildered, and knew not whether they were dreaming or had lost the power of discrimination: but their surprise and agony were deemed so truly humourous, that the whole court was delighted with the joke.

As a contrast to this story, related on the authority of Baron Uklanski, himself a Pole, the reader is presented with the following fact, which happened in Galicia, after the cruel partition:—

A peasant with his wife and children, belonging to the estate of the Starost Bleski, having fled into Austrian Poland, the Starost assembled a party of horsemen and carried off his serf, inflicted on him a hundred stripes and threw him into a dungeon. The emperor Joseph II., having been informed of this circumstance, caused his ministers to demand reparation from the king of Poland, who replied, that it did not depend on him, but on his permanent council. The emperor, not satisfied with this evasive answer, sent a party of two hundred dragoons to bring back both the Starost and the serf to Zamoic, where they were taken before an Austrian court of justice. The Starost was sentenced to pay a thousand crowns as an indemnity to the peasant, and a fine of five thousand to the Austrian exchequer. The hundred blows which he had inflicted on the peasant were repaid to him on his own person, and he was sent back to his own estate with all due respect.

Galicia, like Poland in general, abounds in wood, but stone, particularly freestone, is very scarce. Hence log huts are the general habitations of the peasantry. Architecture of course is still in its infancy. Every peasant in fact is his own mason and carpenter. Provided with a hatchet, he enters the nearest wood, fells as many trees as he wants, carries them to the site of his future dwelling, and splits each trunk into two beams. Four large stones mark the corner of an oblong square, and constitute the base upon which the hut is raised, by placing the beams in horizontal layers, with the flat sides inward; a sort of mortice being cut in each about half a foot from the end to receive the connecting beams. A kind of cage is thus constructed, usually about twelve feet by six, and moss is thrust between the logs to exclude the wind and rain. Two openings are left, one for the door, and the other, with the aid of a few panes of glass or a couple of sheets of oiled paper, forms a window. At one of the corners within are placed four upright posts, round which are entwined some twigs covered with mud or clay to form a square area, in which is built an oven of the same materials; and this, when hard and dry, serves the peasant for kitchen, chimney, stove and bed. The roof is closed in with rafters and twigs bedaubed with a thick coating of clay, and covered over with a close warm thatch extending over both gable ends. To finish this rude hut, the walls are sometimes extended a few feet in a still rougher style, to form a sort of vestibule, which serves also for carthouse or stable, and occasionally a second is added to serve as a barn. In the whole building there is perhaps scarcely a bolt, lock, hinge or any article of metal. Yet this is the dwelling of a Polish serf, and contains himself and his family and all his goods and chattels.

If the proprietor happens to be a little more affluent, his hut may contain an oven of glazed earthenware, and two bed-rooms with boarded floors, the walls whitewashed, and the doors secured with locks. If he be a Jew, the house is still larger; the roof better, and covered with shingles instead of thatch; the windows are a degree wider; and if he be an innkeeper, there is a long stable, with a coach-entrance at each end, which serves for barn, stable and cow-house.

The gentry give to their wooden house greater capacity, and a form a little more symmetrical. The walls within are perhaps stuccoed and washed with distemper colours, and externally plastered and whitewashed. The door of entrance occupies the centre and is covered with a rude porch, raised on four posts, and the front may contain three or four windows.

Such are the elementary parts of a Polish village, and nothing under heaven can be more miserable, dirty and wretched, than the whole assemblage externally as well as internally. All the inns in Galicia are kept by Jews, and both these and the post-houses are always situated in the public squares, which occupy the centre of every town. These squares are also the market-places for horned cattle, and have never been cleansed since their first formation: hence they are absolute quagmires of filth, the putrid effluvia from which are almost insufferable.

Happy, says Dr. Neale, is the traveller, the dimensions of whose carriage admit of his occupying it during the night! what abominations will he not escape! He relates, that though his companion and himself carried with them into these Jewish inns fur skins of their own to sleep on, yet the noisome smells from the damp earthen floors were frequently so powerful and disgusting as to keep them awake; and there were a thousand other nameless annoyances more easily imagined than described.

From the centre of the roof of these houses is always suspended a large brass chandelier, with seven branches: this is the sabbath lamp, which is regularly lighted every Friday evening at sun-set, when all the fires are carefully extinguished, and not re-kindled till the same hour the next evening. Underneath it stands a long table soiled with grease, occupying the middle of the apartment; around it are ranged several wooden benches, with one or two rotten chairs, and a cushion stuffed with hay. In the huts of the peasants a sort of shovel, slung from the roof is loaded with tallow: a lock of flax is placed upon it, and being lighted serves for a lamp.

The best food to be obtained at these inns is nearly as disgusting to strangers as the lodging they afford; and the only thing to be commended in Galicia is the state of the high-roads; these are excellent, of a good breadth, well levelled, and kept in admirable repair. But these, and every thing else that is not absolutely abominable, are the creation of the Austrian government; for previously to the first partition of Poland, in 1772, they were as miserable as the inns.

In no country in Europe have the Jews obtained such firm footing as in Poland, where Casimir the Great, at the instigation of his Jewish mistress, Esther, took them, four centuries ago, into his especial favour and protection. Enjoying privileges and immunities which they possess in no other region, with opportunities of engaging deeply in traffic and accumulating immense fortunes; masters of all the specie and most of the commerce of Poland; mortgagees of the land, and sometimes masters of the glebe—the Jewish interlopers appear to be more the lords of the country then even the Poles themselves.

All the distilleries throughout Poland are farmed out to Jews, who pay large sums to the nobles for the privilege of poisoning and intoxicating their serfs. Mr. Burnett states, that when he was in Poland, a company of Jews paid to Count Zaymoski the sum of three thousand pounds sterling annually for the mere privilege of distilling spirituous liquors on the largest of his estates, which, to be sure, comprehends at least four thousand square miles. Hence some estimate may be formed of the enormous quantity that is consumed.

When Joseph II. obtained possession of Galicia, that judicious prince perceived the necessity of limiting the privileges of the Jews. He took from them the power of cultivating the lands belonging to the serfs subject to contributions, and prohibited them from keeping inns and distilling spirits: but at his death these regulations ceased to be enforced, and the Jews have since been silently regaining their former influence.

The inns, as has been already observed, are now altogether in their hands, as well as the fabrication of ardent spirits and liqueurs. They have all the traffic in peltry, the precious metals, diamonds and other jewels, and they are also the principal agents in the corn-trade. Of late years many of these Jewish families who had amassed great wealth by commerce, having affected to abjure their religion and to embrace the Catholic faith, have been ennobled and permitted to purchase extensive estates: still true, however, to their own nation, they have built large towns and villages on these estates, and peopled them exclusively with Jewish families; for from a singular instinct the Poles seem to detest their fellowship, and generally herd together in their own miastas.

The enjoyment of liberty and civil rights seems to have produced a strong effect on the physical constitution and physiognomy of the Hebrew race, and to have bestowed on them a dignity and energy of character, which we may look for in vain in the Jews of other countries. The men, clothed in long black robes reaching to their ankles, and sometimes adorned in front with silver agraffes, their heads covered with fur caps, their chesnut or auburn locks parted in front, and falling gracefully on their shoulders in spiral curls, display much manly beauty. In feminine beauty, the women are likewise distinguished; but beauty is not uncommon among the Jewesses of other countries. When looking at them, says Dr. Neale, seated, according to their usual custom, on a wooden sofa, by the doors of their houses, on the evenings of their sabbath, dressed in their richest stuffs and pearl head-dresses, I have imagined that I could trace a strong resemblance between their present head-ornaments and those sculptured on the heads of the Egyptian sphynxes. Nor do I think it at all improbable, that the dresses of the Hebrews of both sexes in Poland, are at this day nearly the same as those of their ancestors when they quitted the “house of bondage.”

Without having visited Poland, and had ocular demonstration of the filth and abominable uncleanliness of the inhabitants, it seems difficult to believe the accounts which have been given of them. The floors of the houses of the lower classes consists of clay or earth always damp, and from which the heat of the stove draws up a perpetual vapour of the most offensive odour, which, as their windows are never opened, circulates continually. Both sexes sleep together like pigs on the straw or furs, upon the sides and tops of their ovens, without undressing themselves. They eat few vegetables, and their diet consists of every putrescent animal food, with bad bread, diluted copiously with spirituous liquors. Such a diet necessarily predisposes them to imbibe readily every contagious poison, which, when once received, is propagated among them with the rapidity of combustion itself. Thus it is related, that when the plague was brought into the country in 1770, in consequence of the hostilities between the Turks and Russians, all the peasants of a village belonging to Prince Adam Czartoriski were swept off by it in one day.

Generally without medical assistance, the wretched creatures are abandoned to their fate; and such is the callous selfishness of the great majority of the Polish nobles, that instead of attempting to meliorate the condition of their serfs, all their ingenuity is exhausted in ministering to their debaucheries and increasing their own overgrown incomes, by throwing the temptations of drunkenness in their way. Bishops and nobles are joint proprietors of all the inns, and the greater the drunkenness of the peasantry, the larger are the returns to the lord of the soil.

THE END.