Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-17
CHILDREN OF NATURE.
Goat-Skin-Clad Heroes Who Tend
Their Flocks in Old Poland.
ALMOST A RACE OF GIANTS.
Ono Of the Few Peoples in Europe Who Do
Not Use Wine or Liquors
THE GRAND HIGHWAYS OF GALICIA
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DISPATCH,

CORRESPONDENTS OF THE DIsPArcH.1
CRACow, AUSTRIA, March 31.-There are
two European Galicias Each Of these in
their peasant life possesses great interest to
the traveller. Spanish Galicia, comprising
the Northwestern Provinces Of Pontenedra,
Lugo, Coruna and Orense, will ever hold
for me the most tender recollections Its
Gallegan folk are the bravest, most patient
and loyal in all the world. They love their
rugged mountain land with SO passionate a
devotion that they will suffer untold priva-
tion and gen death before they will give
it up. -.
They become the "Gallegan dog" ser
wants of all Spain, Portugal and Italy for
half their lives, bearing inconceivable con-
tumely, sacrifice and suffering that they
may finally come back to their dreary crags
and wild and almost sterile glens to the
ownership of little cabin, tiny patch of
land, and the to them blessed right to lay
their bones IN the same graves as those who
have labored, sacrificed and died, in pre-
cisely the same way, for ages before them.
They are dumb folk, but not even Spanish
monarch has ever dared attempt their en-
slavement
The other Galicia is less tender and win
some in any of its aspects. 1t is indeed i'm
measurably more somber and tragic. It is
Austrian Poland.
Tho Rape Of Poland.
Everyone remembers the history Of an
cient Poland; its line Of warrior kings; its
splendid and unrewarded victories for
Christianity over the Turks; its great uni
versities; even its wonderful medieval liter
ature; its kingly commoners and its peas
ant kings; and the final treachery of Rus
sia's Catherine, which led to repeated dis
memberment and partition of old Poland by
Russia, Germany and Austria; with the hor-
rors of hundred years of insurrec-
ton, murder, slavery and despotism that
followed.
1t is all too horrible to dwell upon. Aus
tria's portion out of the Polish murder and
rapine, Galicia, comprises an area of over
80, 900 square miles, bounded north and east
by Russia, on the south by Hungary and
Bukovina, and on the west by Prussia and
Austrian Silesia. Fully 6,000, 900 souls oc-
cupy this area.
OF these about two and quarter mill
ions are Rusniaks-interchangeably called
Russinen, Ruthenens and Ruthenians,
whom I shall call Ruthenians In these
papers, and who are of Russian stock and
tongue. A million and half are Hebrews.
between Austrian and Russian Germans.
Almost the entire nobility are of Polish
extraction and are country loving and living
people. The peasantrv are all Poles and
Ruthenians. It will therefore be readily
seen that nearly the entire inhabitants of
Galician towns and cities are Polish He
brews and Germans, the former greatly pre-
dominating.
Four Classes Of People.
To illustrate, this ancient city whose
population does not exceed 80, 900 souls, con-
tains $4,000 Hebrews. LemDerg, CONNER
cially the leading city of Galicia, has 60, 900
Hebrews among its 100000 people. And I
have the word of friend, Canadian resi-
dent of Kolomea, that among the $4,000 in
habitants of the latter city more than
21, 900 are Hebrews.
Practically, then, Austrian Galicia pre-
sents for study four classes-the Polish and
Ruthenian peasantry who, while theoretl-
cally free men, are more slavish than
slaves, the ancient Polish nobility who are
either rich and great enough to live almost
regally in Berlin, London or Paris, or
estates something after the simple and
patriarchal manner of Count Tolsroi, not
very far to the north of them; the Hebrews
who financially own both peasant and
master body and soul, as we'll as all busi-
ness affairs of every name and nature; and
the military who relentlessly control them
all
Austrian rule over its share of fallen Po-
land, which tor the first three-quarters of
century after its seizure was quite as cruel
as that of the Russian plunderers to the
north, has had the virtue of not having re-
tanned its more barbarous iniquities. 1t Is
still impossible to escape the clang of the
saber, the jingle of the spur, the challenge
science of the omnipresent soldiery.
The Very Air Listens in Galicia.
These uniformed tyrants are in every rail-
way carriage or station. They accompany
every coach. They dog the stranger from
hotel to countryside and back again with
imperturbable effrontery. They enter the
home at will; and by their goddess presence
sully every sanctuary and pollute every
shrine; while spies are SO thick-swarming
among all classes in the guise Of officials,
merchants, artisans, laborers, peasants and
comprising in one form or other more than
that the very air is said to ''isten" in |
Galicia. mi
Despite all this Austrian Poles of Galicia |
live in 'Im Paradise" in contrast with their |
brethren, ten miles north of the city, in |
Russian Poland. The electoral reform law
of 1873 gave the Galician Poles direct cleo
tions to the Vienna Assembly by districts,
thus breaking down the old clannish na-
tional Polish interests. The Government
has wisely encouraged agricultural reforms
and awakened an cumulative spirit between
native Poles and Ruthenians and many
small but thriving German agricultural
colonies. And among other sensible things
It has done the one thing which should be
irst and best done in every farming COM
nunity in the worId-built roads that will
7ie in their enduring qualities with the
inest to be found in England and New Eng
and.
Good Road 700 Miles Long.
Indeed in wandering through Galicia, I
m not certain but that Iwould count these
rand Galician roads as the greatest OF all
blessings of all time to the peasant Poles.
their general direction has been governed
y the course of the great chain of Car
,athian Mountains which forms the Hun
arian boundary on the south.
Away down in the southeast corner of
sukovina, over against wild and untrav-
rsed Bessarabia ard wilder Moldavia this
reat artery of Galician life and commerce
egins. Thence to the northeast it passes
trough Kolomea, which has recently come
nto prominence from being the base of
in the new Galician petroleum
elds. Thence, through the valley of the
ruth into the valley of the Dniester, it
ouches ancient Stanislavov, whence it bears
orth to Lemberg, the central and greatest
ity of Galicia. From Lemberg it winds
Ike the Carpathians around to the west and
asses through this ancient Polish capital,
nd thence on to Moravia and Vienna.
On this mighty thoroughtare, fully 700
,nglish miles in length, are all the great !,