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 the condition of this immense and unfortunate class is bad enough.

The abject misery of a great part of her inhabitants was probably a chief cause of the downfall of Poland. It was called a Republic, because the monarchy was elective: but what sort of a republic was that, in which but 100,000 of the citizens were freemen, and the remaining eleven millions, serfs or slaves — whose only spur to industry was the master’s lash? We deplore the misfortunes of that oppressed country, and are apt to wonder that an overruling Providence should permit such wrong. But if we look more deeply into the state of the case, we shall find that in this as in most other instances, it is man’s own evils that bring upon him what are called misfortunes. The partition of Poland could never have taken place had it been united within itself, and had its people been bound together by the firm bands of truth. and justice. Ninety-nine hundredths of the people were bondmen, with no voice whatever in the government, and with