e of the most attractive and oldest city parks in Europe,
where the trees are very large and of great variety, while the
flowers which adorn the grounds on all sides, mingled with
artificial ponds and fountains, delight the eye and regale the
senses. We have all heard of the Saxony Gardens of Warsaw, but we
have never heard them overpraised. A military band performs here
night and morning during the summer season, while mineral waters--a
specialty here--are freely drunk by the promenaders, recalling
familiar scenes at Saratoga.

The city to the practical eye of an American seemed to be
commercially in a state of more rapid growth and prosperity than any
capital which has been treated of in these pages. In matters of
current business and industrial affairs it appeared far in advance of
St. Petersburg. The large number of distilleries and breweries was
unpleasantly suggestive of the intemperate habits of the people. The
political division of Poland which we have incidentally spoken of was
undoubtedly a great outrage on the part of the three powers who
confiscated her territory, but the author is satisfied, while writing
here upon the spot, and after careful consideration, that this
radical change was a good thing for the people at large. With what
has seemed to be the bitter fortune of Poland we have all of us in
America been taught from childhood to sympathize to such an extent
that romance and sentiment have in a degree prevailed over fact,
blinding cooler judgment. There are those who see in the fate of
Poland that retributive justice which Heaven accords to nations as
well as to individuals. In past ages she has been a country always
savagely aggressive upon her neighbors, and it was not until she was
sadly torn and weakened by internal dissensions that Catherine II.
first invaded her territory. Nine tenths of the population were no
better than slaves. They were in much the same condition as the serfs
of Russia before the late emancipation took place. They were
acknowledged retainers, owing their service to and holding their
farms at the option of the upper class; namely, the so-called
nobility of the country. This overmastering class prided itself upon
neither promoting nor being engaged in any kind of business; indeed,
this uselessness was one of the conditions attached to its patent of
nobility. These autocratic rulers knew no other interest or
occupation than that of the sword. War and devastation constituted
th