The morals of the people, were then, as they still continue to be, nearly at the lowest point of debasement. Female chastity is a virtue unknown in Poland. Among persons of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, with very few exceptions, the most dreadful licentiousness prevails. The men are equally profligate; and debauchery of every kind prevails among them to a degree unknown in other countries of Europe. Education is in general much neglected, the lower classes being unable to obtain the means of instruction: and among the higher, where no man is assured of the legitimacy of his offspring, a total indifference prevails as to the training of the doubtful brood. They are therefore neglected from their cradles, and left to the indulgence of every passion, undisciplined, untutored and uncontrolled. Endowed by nature with great personal beauty, the young Polish noble makes the tour of France and Germany, engrafts the vices of every capital that he visits on his own native stock; and after dilapidating his revenues returns to his paternal estate with a train of French cooks, valets, parasites and all the paraphernalia of modern luxury, to wallow in sensuality, and to die prematurely of acquired disease. Such is the picture of the Poles drawn by Dr. Neale, who adds two facts tending to show the superior degree of security enjoyed by the humbler classes under the Austrian government to that afforded them while under the Polish sceptre. During the reign of Stanislaus Poniatowsky, a petty noble having refused to resign his small estate to Count Thisenhaus, the latter invited him to dinner as if desirous of adjusting the affair in an amicable manner. While the knight, elated at such an unexpected honour, was assiduously plying the bottle, the count despatched some hundreds of peasants with axes, ploughs and wagons, ordering the village, which consisted only of a few small wooden buildings, to be pulled down, the materials carried away, and the plough passed over the ground which the village had occupied. This was accordingly done. The nobleman, on his return home in the evening, could not find either road, house or village. The master and his servant were alike bewildered, and knew not whether they were dreaming or had lost the power of discrimination: but their surprise and agony were deemed so truly humourous, that the whole court was delighted with the joke. As a contrast to this story, related on the authority of Baron Uklanski, himself a Pole, the reader is presented with the following fact, which happened in Galicia, after the _cruel partition_:--