estate to be managed by an agent, in most cases a Pole, from the difficulty of finding a competent Russian.

With regard to the question, which all persons who take an interest in Poland must wish to have answered, -to what extent has the country suffered by the late insurrection, I should reply that although at the present moment the land is suffering from very general prostration-the inevitable result of an unsuccessful struggle —it is quite certain, that at the expiration of fifteen or twenty years, the strength of the Poles will be sufficiently recruited to render another rising probable. The fact is, that the landowners, although they furnished the sinews of war, and in some cases sent their own sons to represent them, did not, except in a few instances, themselves openly take up arms, from the consciousness that they could do more for their country by staying at home. In this respect the insurrection of 1831 differed materially from that of 1863. In the former insurrection a large proportion of landowners took part, and paid dearly for it by the confiscation of their estates. The insurrection of 1863, on the other hand, was the work of the middle and lower classes, a circumstance which irritated the Russians most particularly, for although they could hang or shoot the students, apprentices, artizans, etc. who fell into their hands, their power ended here, there being no property to confiscate. From this it results, that although a considerable number of young men were killed, and a much larger number deported to Siberia, Orenburg, and the Caucasus, but a small proportion of landed estates, at least, in the kingdom of Poland and Ruthenian provinces, has fallen into the hands of the Russians. In Lithuania, on the other hand, where

over and above the work of putting down the armed insurrection, Murawiew devoted himself to the task of eradicating the Polish element, with little regard to the guilt or innocence of his victims, I understand that as many as 2,000 estates have been confiscated by the Russian Government. I have been informed that this number may represent about one tenth of the whole number of estates in Lithuania, of which the great majority still remain in the hands of Poles.

For the reasons above stated, the Polish estates in Lithuania, which have been confiscated by Murawiew, will not easily find purchasers, nor, even supposing the Government to be willing to sacrifice the gain which would accrue to the exchequer by their sale, and give them away to the peasants for nothing, would it be easy to find Russians willing or available for colonization in Poland: and Polish peasants will not answer the purpose, who, as they rise in the social scale, develop a spirit of patriotism, and become a source of danger to the Russian Government. Peasants, who are already proprietors in Russia, prefer getting a living out of their paternal acres, to acquiring a more considerable property abroad, as they consider any part of Poland. As to those peasants who are not proprietors at home, but mere day-labourers, and who might not be unwilling to leave home with the enticing prospect of becoming their own masters, the fact is, that they cannot be spared. In the face of the existing scarcity and dearness of agricultural labour in Russia, the Government would not dare to face the storm, which anything like a wholesale measure of deportation of agricultural labourers would infallibly raise among the Russian landowners. The probability

is that the majority of these estates will be knocked down for a mere song to the Jews, who have only been permitted by the law to hold land since the proclamation of the edict of the emancipation of the serfs, which, in a roundabout way, released them from their disabilities in this respect.

The size of landed estates in Russia being out of all proportion to the labour available for their cultivation, the extent of land is less looked at in valuing an estate, than the number of "souls" residing on it. So it became usual in common parlance to talk of a proprietor being worth so many thousand souls, where we should say, so many thousand acres. Now, until the edict of emancipation went forth, these souls were literally regarded as the property of the lord. This being the case, it is at once evident why Jews were disqualified from becoming landowners, or more properly soul-owners, the idea of a Jew owning a Christian soul being too preposterous. It will be observed, however, that the position of the Jew, in other respects, remains pretty much as degraded as before, and that he only accidentally benefits by the emancipation edict, the purchase of land at present having ceased to be at the same time a traffic in human souls.

There is another point with regard to Poland, on which it is important that Englishmen should be correctly informed, namely, as to the nature of that Poland which the Poles and their friends aim at reconstituting. In the Quarterly Review for April, 1863, a writer of an article entitled" Poland," endeavours to scare Englishmen out of their sympathy for the Poles, by drawing a very highly-coloured picture of the vicious state of

Poland a century ago. Towards the conclusion of the article, the writer suggests that the past of Poland "is not a felicitous topic for those to dilate upon, who are asking for the aid of free and order-loving Englishmen." Admitting this for the sake of argument, I may add that no human being, in or out of Poland, contemplates the restoration of anything like the Poland of ancient days. At the same time, I maintain it to be in the highest degree unfair to compare the Poles of a century ago with the order-loving Englishmen of to-day. It would not be very difficult for an ill-natured foreigner, who devoted himself to the task, to draw anything but a flattering picture of English society a century ago. In judging the Poles, it is only fair to bear in mind, that while we have been steadily progressing in the last hundred years, they have been too cruelly oppressed to admit of any considerable national development. What they have learned in their century of bonds is a deep moral lesson, which they will not easily forget, and they would now only be too thankful to live under an hereditary sovereign of their own choosing in that peace and quiet which their enemies declare to be so distasteful to them.

In common fairness to the Poles of the last century, against whom the writer in the Quarterly wages war to the knife, it must not be left out of sight that that which immediately brought about the second partition, was the liberal constitution of May 3, 1791, the passing of which was about the last voluntary act of the Polish Diet. The spirit of that constitution was so enlightened, that Russia foresaw, that were it once allowed to work upon the nation, she would encounter the utmost diffi

culty in carrying out to completion the partitioning of the country. So her troops received orders at once to march into Poland.

Not to weary the reader by inflicting the whole constitution upon him, I will confine myself to quoting the fourth article, which amply refutes all the calumnies in circulation on the subject of Polish intolerance and determination to keep the peasants in bondage.

The article runs thus:-"Every individual, be he stranger, or born in the land, shall be free, from the moment of setting foot on Polish soil, to turn his industry to the best account, without let or hindrance, in whatever manner and in whatever place may appear good to him; he shall be at liberty to enter into whatever compacts he may think fit, and for whatever length of time, and to pay rent in money or manual labour, according to the arrangement which he may be desirous of making; he shall be at liberty to establish himself in town or country, as he may prefer; and lastly, it shall be open to him to remain in Poland or to leave the country, as he may deem it best conducive to his interests; provided only he shall have first fulfilled all the agreements into which he shall have voluntarily entered."

Since I have made the Polish question my study, I have found it throw light on so many points of the highest importance to the student of the political history of Europe, that I am quite at a loss to understand how so few persons think it worth their while to pay attention to it. In the Poland of to-day you find much brewing which has, if I may be allowed the expression, been long turned into beer in Western Europe. Much that in its finished state in England, France, or Germany