Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/125

Rh Later each paper got permission to insert four articles from Lemberg, none to exceed a hundred lines, and all to be on the products of industry, not a word about art; between each article an interval of a fortnight was to elapse. This winter an editor was sent for by the director of police, who, in a voice trembling with anger, asked him what he meant by writing in a manuscript the Polish letters which answer to "H.I.M." "What does 'H.I.M.' mean?"—"Of course, His Imperial Majesty; it is a generally used abbreviation."—"Aha! you have the audacity to abbreviate the title of His Majesty the Emperor? You have not room enough in your paper for his whole title? In that case you may be sure that he will find room for you, where you do not want to go. Now you may pay 600 rubles provisionally for your evil intention."

In Warsaw I saw odious examples of the brutality of the police. On every possible occasion they strike and push the poor cabmen with their sheathed swords. These drivers, with their numbers hanging on their backs, resemble real slaves.

Here in the country the common people are quite broken by oppression. In the village school only Russian is taught, which language the peasants do not understand. But as instruction is not obligatory, very few of the children go to school. In law-suits the language is likewise Russian, and all must pass through an interpreter, so that the accused is unable to control his own statement. The official policy is to irritate the peasants against the higher classes, and in all civil cases the former always gain their point. A landed proprietor here with his huntsman surprised four poachers who had committed a literal carnage among his game, and who were about to load their booty on a cart when he appeared. They escaped, but he got hold of a coat, which he retained to produce as evidence. The thieves were acquitted, as it was impossible, against their denial, to prove that the game they had on their cart belonged to the proprietor. The latter, on the other hand, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for the theft of a coat. H