However, the National Parliament which met at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1848, under Liberal auspices, among other steps which it took in order to secure popular freedom, removed all religious disabilities. The Prussian Constitution of 1850 imitated the example; and the establishment of the new _régime_, in 1871, threw the doors open to the Jews throughout the German Empire. The Reichstag now contains many distinguished members of the Jewish faith. In Austria the edifice of toleration reared by Joseph II. was overthrown by his successors, Leopold II. and Francis I., who revived most of the antiquated restrictions and regulations against the Jews, and again confined them within special quarters. This barbarous policy lasted far into the nineteenth century. In many parts of the country the Jews were forbidden to own, or even to rent land, except that on which their houses stood, or to migrate from one province to another without special permission. In Austrian Poland, or Galicia, the Jews were especially hated. There, as elsewhere in Poland, they formed a vast multitude, settled in the chief towns and villages. The greater part of their emoluments was derived from the sale of intoxicating liquors, to which the Poles, like all northern nations, were immoderately addicted. From the time of Joseph II. the Jews had been by repeated laws prohibited from trading in alcohol. But these laws were disregarded. The landowners possessed the exclusive rights of distilling, and they had from the first coming of the Jews to Poland farmed out these rights to the latter. Deplorably enough, a number of the Jews, in despair of finding other means of livelihood, allowed themselves to become the go-betweens in this demoralising traffic, and thus the most temperate race of Europe laid itself open to the hostility and scorn of those who would feign have seen a check put to the intemperate propensities of the people and its consequent impoverishment. The condition of the Jews was incomparably better in the parts of the Empire upon which the rule of the Hapsburgs weighed less heavily. In Hungary and Transylvania they had long enjoyed freedom of tenure under the protection of the Magyar nobles. These were in the habit of employing Jewish bailiffs, and did not consider it beneath their dignity even to obey the orders of Jewish officers in the war for independence, in which the Jews took an important part. ♦1848♦ After the suppression of the rebellion the latter were made by the Imperial Government to pay for their patriotic ardour; but when the day came for the distribution of prizes they secured their reward. By the Austrian Constitution of 1860, which received its finishing touches eight years later, the Jews obtained full liberty. At present several Jews sit in the Legislature, and the race flourishes not only in Vienna, Budapesth, and other great towns, but even in the Austrian section of Poland.