Solomon Maimon
An Autobiography
Solomon Maimon
9781465559265
202 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The superior nobility consist of the great landowners and administrators of the high offices of government. The inferior nobility also are allowed to own land and to fill any political office; but they are prevented from doing so by their poverty. The half-noble can neither own land, nor fill any high office in the State; and by this he is distinguished from the genuine noble. Here and there, it is true, he owns land; but for that he is in some measure dependent on the lord of the soil, within whose estate his property lies, inasmuch as he is required to pay him a yearly tribute. The burghers are the most wretched of all the orders. They are not, 'tis true, in servitude to any man; they also enjoy certain privileges, and have a jurisdiction of their own. But as they seldom own any property of value, or follow rightly any profession, they always remain in a condition of pitiable poverty. The last two orders, namely the peasantry and the Jews, are the most useful in the country. The former occupy themselves with agriculture, raising cattle, keeping bees,—in short, with all the products of the soil. The latter engage in trade, take up the professions and handicrafts, become bakers, brewers, dealers in beer, brandy, mead and other articles. They are also the only persons who farm estates in towns and villages, except in the case of ecclesiastical properties, where the reverend gentlemen hold it a sin to put a Jew in a position to make a living, and accordingly prefer to hand over their farms to the peasants. For this they must suffer by their farms going to ruin, as the peasantry have no aptitude for this sort of employment: but of course they choose rather to bear this with Christian resignation. In consequence of the ignorance of most of the Polish landlords, the oppression of the tenantry, and the utter want of economy, most of the farms in Poland, at the end of last century,[6] had fallen into such a state of decay, that a farm, which now yields about a thousand Polish gulden, was offered to a Jew for ten; but in consequence of still greater ignorance and laziness, with all that advantage even he could not make a living off the farm. An incident, however, occurred at this time, which gave a new turn to affairs. Two brothers from Galicia, where the Jews are much shrewder than in Lithuania, took, under the name of Dersawzes or farmers-general, a lease of all the estates of Prince Radzivil, and, by means of a better industry as well as a better economy, they not only raised the estates into a better condition, but also enriched themselves in a short time.
