But Yurkevich's statement had no effect. He was convicted on the strength of his original affidavit, though it had been squeezed out of him by trickery and torture, and he was burned at the stake. As for the Jews of Cracow, they had to bear the penalty in the shape of a riot, the mob attacking the Jewish ghetto and seizing forty Jews, who were carried off to be thrown into the river. Seven men were drowned, while the others saved themselves by promising to embrace Christianity (May, 1637). FOOTNOTES: [42] According to approximate computations, the number of Jews in Poland during that period (between 1501 and 1648) grew from 50,000 to 500,000. [43] "Wine" is used here, as it is in the original, to designate alcoholic drinks in general. [44] "Propination," in Polish, _propinacja_ (pronounced _propinatzya_), from Latin and Greek _propino_, "to drink one's health," signifies in Polish law the right of distilling and selling spirituous liquors. This right was granted to the noble landowners by King John Albrecht in 1496, and became one of their most important sources of revenue. After the partition of Poland this right was confirmed for the former Polish territories by the Russian Government. The right of propination, exercised mostly by Jews on behalf of the nobles, proved a decisive factor in the economic and partly in the social life of Russo-Polish Jewry. [45] See p. 65. [46] [Popular Polish form of the Jewish name Joseph.] [47] See p. 64, n. 1. [48] [_I. e._ Brest of Kuyavia, a former Polish province on the left bank of the Vistula. It is to be distinguished from the well-known Brest-Litovsk, Brest of Lithuania.] [49] The parliamentary order of Poland was somewhat complicated. Each region or _voyevodstvo_ (see above, p. 46, n. 1), of which there were about sixty in Poland, had its own local assembly, or _sejmik_ (pronounced _saymik_), _i. e._ little Diet, or Dietine. Deputies o£ these Dietines met at the respective _sejms_ (pronounced _saym_), or Diets, of one of the three large provinces of Poland: Great Poland, Little Poland, and Red Russia. The national _sejm_, representing the whole of Poland, came into being towards the end of the fifteenth century. Beginning with 1573 it met regularly every two years for six weeks in Warsaw or in Grodno. Before the convocation of this national all-Polish Parliament, all local Dietines assembled on one and the same day to give instructions to the deputies elected to it. [50] [Gnesen as seat of the Primate; Cracow as capital.] [51] [Warsaw was originally the capital of the independent Principality of Mazovia. After the incorporation of Mazovia into the Polish Empire, in 1526, Warsaw emerged from its obscurity and in the latter part of the sixteenth century became the capital of united Poland and Lithuania, taking the place of Cracow and Vilna.] [52] According to another version, they forged the contents of the royal warrant.