A peasant with his wife and children, belonging to the estate of the Starost Bleski, having fled into Austrian Poland, the Starost assembled a party of horsemen and carried off his serf, inflicted on him a hundred stripes and threw him into a dungeon. The emperor Joseph II., having been informed of this circumstance, caused his ministers to demand reparation from the king of Poland, who replied, that it did not depend on him, but on his permanent council. The emperor, not satisfied with this evasive answer, sent a party of two hundred dragoons to bring back both the Starost and the serf to Zamoic, where they were taken before an Austrian court of justice. The Starost was sentenced to pay a thousand crowns as an indemnity to the peasant, and a fine of five thousand to the Austrian exchequer. The hundred blows which he had inflicted on the peasant were repaid to him on his own person, and he was sent back to his own estate with all due respect. Galicia, like Poland in general, abounds in wood, but stone, particularly freestone, is very scarce. Hence log huts are the general habitations of the peasantry. Architecture of course is still in its infancy. Every peasant in fact is his own mason and carpenter. Provided with a hatchet, he enters the nearest wood, fells as many trees as he wants, carries them to the site of his future dwelling, and splits each trunk into two beams. Four large stones mark the corner of an oblong square, and constitute the base upon which the hut is raised, by placing the beams in horizontal layers, with the flat sides inward; a sort of mortice being cut in each about half a foot from the end to receive the connecting beams. A kind of cage is thus constructed, usually about twelve feet by six, and moss is thrust between the logs to exclude the wind and rain. Two openings are left, one for the door, and the other, with the aid of a few panes of glass or a couple of sheets of oiled paper, forms a window. At one of the corners within are placed four upright posts, round which are entwined some twigs covered with mud or clay to form a square area, in which is built an oven of the same materials; and this, when hard and dry, serves the peasant for kitchen, chimney, stove and bed. The roof is closed in with rafters and twigs bedaubed with a thick coating of clay, and covered over with a close warm thatch extending over both gable ends. To finish this rude hut, the walls are sometimes extended a few feet in a still rougher style, to form a sort of vestibule, which serves also for carthouse or stable, and occasionally a second is added to serve as a barn. In the whole building there is perhaps scarcely a bolt, lock, hinge or any article of metal. Yet this is the dwelling of a Polish serf, and contains himself and his family and all his goods and chattels.