On inquiry I find the laboring classes are better paid here, as is the case in most sea-ports, than they are in the interior. In Denmark the condition of that class seems easier, and there are less dispositions to emigrate. The female portion of some parts of Germany are the most entitled to sympathy. They are made slaves and beasts of burden, and ill paid for their services. Even in hotels where the wirt, or master, taxes in his bill eight silben groschen (or twenty cents per day) for service, not including the porter or boots, the poor domestics get in many cases only twenty-four thalers (or eighteen dollars) per year, and where the good will of the traveller makes a donation in many cases it is extorted from them under penalty of dismissal. More would emigrate if they had the means to get away, and would be industrious and valuable citizens in any country. The tender feelings of Europe, through incendiary works and pamphlets, have been so excited that, as Americans, we are called upon to rebut the charges of inconsistency of slave-holding under our republican system, as if we at the north were responsible for the south, and can only reply that millions on the continent might well envy the well-fed negroes upon southern plantations.
It is to be regretted that our laws are so lax in the punishment of crime, and that so many high-handed examples of public outrage occur, all of which are portrayed in glowing colors in the European journals.
CXLVII.
Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Prussia, Oct. 15, 1858.
Having formerly seen Austrian and Russian Poland, whose capitals are Cracow and Warsaw, I was induced to make the detour on my route from Dantzic to look in upon Posen, the chief city of Prussian Poland, which by rail was soon accomplished.
Among the forty-five thousand inhabitants ten thousand are Jews. I came in on Saturday, their Sabbath day, and on a festival occasion, and thus had a good opportunity of seeing the multitude, as also the wealthier classes, upon the promenade, and the many pretty faces of the Hebrew women. They have recently erected a splendid synagogue, as is the case in Frankfort-on-the Maine, Pesth, in Hungary, and other places. The Jews, as a people, are acquiring wealth and importance, and making advances in science. Had they the same privileges enjoyed in our country, the distinction between the races would not be so marked.
Among the twenty-three churches of the city, a number of which I visited on the Sunday, the newly rebuilt Dome of the thirteenth century contains the Golden Chapel, in which are placed the bronze gilt statues of two Polish kings there interred. High mass was being celebrated in the Latin and Polish tongues when I visited it. The original Bauer, or peasant costume of the country was well represented. It is picturesque but somewhat ridiculous, fashion’s innovations not having yet reached it.
In the Stanislaus Church, which is of strict Italian architecture, with its marble statues of saints, illuminated glass windows, altars, pulpit decorations and paintings, I could fancy myself in the Pope’s dominions.
The Poles are decided Romanists, and cannot be converted readily by the Russians to the Greek faith, or by the Prussians to the Evangelical. The Prussian or German population is about one-third professing the Protestant and reformed religion. The balance are Israelites and Catholic Poles.
The city is fortified in the strongest manner, with walls, batteries, gates, and trenches, throughout the entire circumference, and contains immense barracks for the soldiery, stables and magazines of supplies for quite an army, if required. Several thousand troops are here stationed.