Polish peasants are cringing and servile in their expressions of respect; they bowed down to the ground; took off their hats or caps and held them in their hands till we were out of sight; stopped their carts on the first glimpse of our carriage; in short, their whole behaviour gave evident symptoms of the abject servitude under which they groaned. [Footnote:  William Coxe, Travels in Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark (1784—­90).]

The Jews, to whom I have already more than once alluded, are too important an element in the population of Poland not to be particularly noticed.  They are a people within a people, differing in dress as well as in language, which is a jargon of German-Hebrew.  Their number before the first partition has been variously estimated at from less than two millions to fully two millions and a half in a population of from fifteen to twenty millions, and in 1860 there were in Russian Poland 612,098 Jews in a population of 4,867,124.

[Footnote:  According to Charles Forster (in Pologne, a volume of the historical series entitled L’univers pittoresque, published by Firmin Didot freres of Paris), who follows Stanislas Plater, the population of Poland within the boundaries of 1772 amounted to 20,220,000 inhabitants, and was composed of 6,770,000 Poles, 7,520,000 Russians (i.e., White and Red Russians), 2,110,000 Jews, 1,900,000 Lithuanians, 1,640,000 Germans, 180,000 Muscovites (i.e., Great Russians), and 100,000 Wallachians.]

They monopolise [says Mr. Coxe] the commerce and trade of the country, keep inns and taverns, are stewards to the nobility, and seem to have so much influence that nothing can be bought or sold without the intervention of a Jew.

Our never-failing informant was particularly struck with the number and usefulness of the Jews in Lithuania when he visited that part of the Polish Republic in 1781—­

If you ask for an interpreter, they bring you a Jew; if you want post-horses, a Jew procures them and a Jew drives them; if you wish to purchase, a Jew is your agent; and this perhaps is the only country in Europe where Jews cultivate the ground; in passing through Lithuania, we frequently saw them engaged in sowing, reaping, mowing, and other works of husbandry.

Having considered the condition of the lower classes, we will now turn our attention to that of the nobility.  The very unequal distribution of wealth among them has already been mentioned.  Some idea of their mode of life may be formed from the account of the Starost Krasinski’s court in the diary (year 1759) of his daughter, Frances Krasinska. [Footnote:  A starost (starosta) is the possessor of a starosty (starostwo)—­i.e., a castle and domains conferred on a nobleman for life by the crown.] Her description of the household seems to justify her belief that there were not many houses in Poland that surpassed theirs in magnificence.  In introducing to the