le 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