| Governments. | Area, sq. m. |
Domiciled Population, 1897. |
Urban Population. |
Density per sq. m. |
| Kalisz | 4,390 | 844,358 | 113,609 | 193 |
| Kielce | 3,896 | 765,212 | 57,814 | 196 |
| Lomza | 4,666 | 585,033 | 69,834 | 125 |
| Lublin | 6,500 | 1,165,122 | 148,196 | 179 |
| Piotrków | 4,728 | 1,406,427 | 509,699 | 297 |
| Plock | 4,199 | 557,229 | 89,821 | 133 |
| Radom | 4,768 | 818,044 | 94,318 | 171 |
| Siedlce | 5,533 | 775,326 | 110,995 | 140 |
| Suwalki | 4,845 | 610,154 | 73,308 | 126 |
| Warsaw | 5,605 | 1,929,200 | 791,746 | 344 |
| Total | 49,130 | 9,456,105 | 2,059,340 | 193 |
The non-domiciled population numbered about 1,000,000 and by 1904 the total was estimated to have increased to 12,000,000, the rate of increase between 1889 and 1904 having been 46.6. Poland, with 193 (domiciled) inhabitants or 213 inhabitants in all to the square mile in 1897, and 240 to the square mile in 1904, has a denser population than any other region in the Russian empire, the next to it being the governments of Moscow, with 189 inhabitants to the square mile, Podolia with 186, and Kiev with 181. The drift townwards of the rural population began in 1890, when the urban population amounted to only 18% of the whole, whereas in 1904 it reached 24%, as compared with 13% for the urban population of Russia as a whole. Of the towns of Poland 32 have a population each exceeding 10,000, the largest being Warsaw the capital, with 638,208 inhabitants in 1897 and 756,426 in 1901; Lodz, with 315,209 in 1897 and 351,570 in 1900; Czenstochowa, with 45,130 in 1897 and 53,650 in 1900, and Lublin, with 50,152 in 1897. According to nationalities, the population was made up as follows in 1897: 6,755,503 Poles, equal to 64.6% of the total; 1,267,194 Jews, equal to 12.1%; 631,844 Russians (6%); 391,440 Germans (4%); 310,386 Lithuanians and Letts (3%); with a few thousands each of Tatars, Bohemians, Rumanians, and Esthonians, and a few Gypsies and Hungarians.
During prehistoric times the basin of the Vistula seems to have been inhabited by a dolichocephalic race, different from the brachycephalic Poles of the present day; but from the dawn of history Slavs (Poles), intermingled to some extent with Lithuanians, have to be found on the plains of the Vistula and the Warta. The purest Polish type exists in the basin of the middle Vistula and in Posen. The Poles extend but little beyond the limits of Russian Poland. In East Prussia they occupy the southern slope of the Baltic swelling (the Mazurs), and extend down the left bank of the lower Vistula to its mouth (the Kaszubes or Kassubians). Westward they stretch down the Warta as far as Birnbaum (100 m. east of Berlin); and in the south they extend along the right bank of the Vistula to the river San in western Galicia. In Russia they constitute, with Jews, Lithuanians, Ruthenians and White Russians, the town population, as also the landed nobility and the country gentry, in several governments west of the Dvina and the Dnieper.
According to the localities which they inhabit, the Poles take different names. They are called Wielkopolanie on the plains of middle Poland, while the name of Malopolanie is reserved for those on the Warta. The name of Lęczycanie is given to the inhabitants of the marshes of the Ner, that of Kurpie to those of the Podlasie; Kujawiący, Szlący in the Silesia, and Górale in the Carpathians.
The Kaszubes, and especially the Mazurs, may be considered as separate stocks of the Polish family. The Mazurs are distinguished from the Poles by their lower stature, broad shoulders and massive frame, and still more by their national dress, which has nothing of the smartness of that of the southern Poles, and by their ancient customs; they have also a dialect of their own, contain in many words now obsolete in Poland, and several grammatical forms bearing witness to Lithuanian influence. They submit without difficulty to German culture, and in Prussia are Lutherans. The language of the Kaszubes can also be considered as a separate dialect. The Poles proper are on the whole of medium stature (5 ft. 4.6 in.), finely built, dark in the south and fair in the north, richly endowed by nature, inclined to deeds of heroism, but perhaps deficient in that energy which characterizes the northern races of Europe, and in that sense of unity which has been the strength of their present rulers.
The German element is annually increasing both in number and in influence. The Lodz manufacturing district, the Polish Birmingham, is becoming more German than Polish; and throughout the governments west of the Vistula German immigration is going on at a steadily increasing rate, especially in the governments of Plock, Kalisz, Piotrków and Warsaw.
The Jews, who are found everywhere throughout Poland, are nowhere agricultural; in the larger towns many of them are artisans, but in the villages they are almost exclusively engaged as shopkeepers, second-hand traders, dealers on commission, innkeepers and usurers. In the country, both commerce and agriculture are in the hands of their intimately connected trading associations. Their relations with Poles and Ruthenians are anything but cordial, and “Jew-baiting” is of frequent occurrence. They are increasing much more rapidly than the Slavs.
Agriculture.—From remote antiquity Poland has been celebrated for the production and export of grain. Both, however, greatly declined in the 18th century; and towards the beginning of the 19th, the peasants, ruined by their proprietors, or abandoned to the Jews, were in a more wretched condition than even their Russian neighbours. Serfdom was abolished in 1807; but the liberated peasants received no allotments of land, and the old patrimonial jurisdictions were retained. Compelled to accept the conditions imposed by the landlords, the peasants had to pay rack-rents and to give compulsory labour in various forms for the use of their land. Only a limited number were considered as permanent farmers, while nearly one-half of them became mere proletaires. Pursuing a policy intended to reconcile the peasantry to Russian rule and to break the power of the Polish nobility, the Russian government promulgated, during the outbreak in 1864, a law by which those peasants who were holders of land on estates belonging to private persons, institutions (such as monasteries and the like), or the Crown were recognized as proprietors of the soil—the state paying compensation to the landlords in bonds, and the peasants having to pay a yearly annuity to the state until the debt thus contracted had been cleared off. The valuation of these allotments was made at a rate much more advantageous than in Russia, and the average size of holding amounted to 15 acres per family. Of those who held no land a number received grants out of the confiscated estates of the nobility and monasteries. At the same time the self-government of the peasants was organized on democratic principles. The so-called “servitudes,” however—that is, the right to pasture on and take wood from the landlord's estates—were maintained for political reasons. These reforms resulted in a temporary increase of prosperity, or at any rate an alleviation of the previous misery of the peasants. But whereas between 1864 and 1873 the peasantry as a whole purchased, in add1t10n to the land granted to them by the government, 297,000 acres, in the period 1873–1893, they bought 540,000 acres and between 1893 and 1905 as much as 1,620,000 acres. Thus the process of breaking up the larger estates is proceeding rapidly and at an accelerated rate. In ten years (1864–1873) the area of cultivated soil increased by 1,350,000 acres, while dur1ng the fourteen years 1845–1859 its increase had been only 540,000 acres. But the maintenance of the “servitude's,” the want of pasture-land, the lack of money for improvements, and the very rapid increase in the price of land, all helped to counteract the benefits of the agrarian measures of 1864.
In 1904 the village communities (peasantry) owned 43.8% of the total area; private owners, mostly nobles, 40.6%; the Crown and imperial family, 6%; and public bodies, such as towns and monasteries, 2.6%; while 3% was in the hands of the Jews. The holdings of the peasant families vary generally from 8 to 13 acres, the minimum in Russia being 16 to 22 acres. By a law of 1891 further subdivision below 8.3 acres is prohibited. But out of a total of some 7,000,000 peasants no fewer than 3,000,000 possess no land. In consequence of this every summer no fewer than 800,000 emigrate temporarily to Germany in quest of work.
Forests cover over 21.3% of the surface, of which nearly one-third belong to the Crown, and only 515,000 acres (7.7%) to the peasantry.
Agriculture in Poland is on the whole carried on according to more advanced methods than in Russia. The extensive cultivation of beetroot, of potatoes for distilleries, and of fodder crops has led to the introduction of a rotation of several years instead of the former “three-fields” system; and agricultural machinery is in more general use, especially on the larger estates of the west. Winter wheat is extensively cultivated, especially in the south, the Sandomir (Sedomierz) wheat having a wide repute. Of the land in the possession of the peasants no less than 70% is under crops, and of the land in the larger estates 52%; of the former category 11%, and of the latter 8%, is meadow. Altogether nearly 16 million acres of Russian Poland, or almost one-half of the total area, are under crops, principally rye, oats, wheat, barley, potatoes and hay, with some flax, hemp, peas, buckwheat and hops. After local wants are supplied, there remains every year a surplus of about 3½ million quarters of cereals for export. Beetroot is largely grown for the manufacture of sugar. Potatoes are extensively grown for use in the distilleries. The cultivation of tobacco is successfully carried on, especially in the governments of Warsaw, Plock and Lublin. The breeding of livestock (cattle, sheep and horses), is an important source of income. Fine breeds of horses and cattle are kept on the larger estates of the nobility, and cattle are exported to Austria. Bee-keeping is widely followed, especially in the south-east. Fishing is carried on remuneratively, more particularly on the Vistula and its tributaries.
Manufactures and Mines.—Since 1864, and more especially since 1875, there has been a remarkable development of manufacturing enterprise in Poland, the branch of industry which has shown the
