Officially the number of Jews residing in Poland and Lithuania about the year 1788 was computed at 617,032. Chatzki, fortified by an array of additional data, rightly points out that, owing to the fact that fiscal considerations caused the people to evade the official census, the actual number of Jews mounted up to at least 900,000 souls of both sexes. This computation agrees substantially with the authoritative statement of Butrymovich, a member of the "Jewish Commission" appointed by the Quadrennial Diet. For, according to this statement, the Jews of Poland formed an eighth of the whole population, the latter numbering 8,790,000 souls. The Jewish population, thus amounting to practically one million, multiplied rapidly, owing to the custom of early marriages then in vogue. The same custom, on the other hand, was responsible for increased mortality among Jewish children and for an ever-growing physical deterioration of the adolescent generation. The school training received by Jewish children was limited to the study of the religious literature of Judaism, particularly the Talmud. As regards commerce, the Jews figured in it in the following proportions: 75% of the whole export trade of Poland and 10% of the imports lay in their hands. The living expenses of the Jewish business man were half as large as those of his Christian fellow-merchant, which fact enabled the Jew to sell his goods at a much lower figure. Bankruptcy was more frequent among Jewish business men than among Christians. In the provinces outside of Great Poland half of all the artisans were Jews. Shoemakers, tailors, furriers, goldsmiths, carpenters, stone-cutters, and barbers, were particularly numerous among them. In the whole country only fourteen Jewish families were found to engage in agriculture. Wealth among Jews was but very seldom retained for several successive generations within the same family, owing to frequent bankruptcy and to a propensity towards risky speculations. A twelfth part of the Jewish population was made up of "idlers," that is, people without a definite occupation. A sixtieth part consisted of beggars.