Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/399

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teen sugar works and refineries employed 8925 operatives, and produced 6,450,000 cwts. of raw and 3,220,000 of refined sugar. Plated silver, carpets, woollen cloth, machinery, boots and shoes, spirits and beer are among the other items produced. The government is divided into thirteen districts, the chief towns of which are WAKSAW (g.v.), Btonie (1370 inhabitants), Gora Kahvaria (2630), Gostynin (8870), Grojcc (3500), Kutno (13,210), towicz (8720), Novo-Minsk (1830), Radziejewo (7680), Radzymin (4200), Skierncwice (3720), Sochaczew (5130), and "Vtoclawek (20,660). Novy Dwor (4420), Ncszawa (2330), Gombiu (3000), and several others have municipal institutions. WARSAW ( Warszawa), capital of Poland, and chief town of the above government, is beautifully situated on the left bank of the Vistula, 395 miles to the east of Berlin, and 700 miles to south-west of St Petersburg. It stands on a terrace nearly 100 feet in height, which stretches far to the westward, and descends by steep slopes Plan of Warsaw. towards the river, leaving a broad beach at its base. The suburb of Praga on the right bank of the Vistula, here from 450 to 880 yards broad, is connected with Warsaw by two bridges, the railway bridge, which passes right under the guns of the Alexandrovsk citadel to the north, and the Alexandrovsk bridge in the centre of the town. With its population of nearly 450,000, its beautiful river, its ample communications and its commerce, its university and scientific societies, its palaces and numerous places of amusement, Warsaw is one of the most pleasant as well as one of the most animated cities of eastern Europe. In Russia it is excelled in importance by the two Russian capitals only; and doubtless it would have attained even a larger population, and a yet higher place in the world of commerce and intellect, were it not for its sad and chequered history, and the foreign domination of which the traveller is reminded at every step. Situated in a fertile plain, on a great navigable river, below its junction with the Pilica and Weprz, which water southern Poland, and above its junction with the Narew and Bug, which water a wide region in the east, it became in mediaeval times the chief entrepot for the trade of those fertile and populous valleys with western Europe. Its position in the territory of Mazovia, which was neither Polish nor Lithuanian, and, so to say, remained neutral between the two rival powers which constituted the united kingdom, it became the capital of both, to the de- 375 trimcnt of the purely Polish Cracow and the Lithuanian Vilna. And now, connected as it is by six trunk lines with Vienna, south-western Kussia, Moscow, St Peters burg, Dantzic, and Berlin (via Bromberg), it has become one of the most important commercial cities of eastern Europe. The south-western railway connects it with

Lodz, the Manchester of Poland, as also with the rich coal

fields of Kielce, which supply its steadily growing manu factures with coal and iron, so that Warsaw and its neigh bourhood have become a centre for all kinds of manufac tures, greatly aided in their development by the high technical training and general superiority of the engineers of the Polish capital, as well as by the skill, taste, and in telligence of its artisans. The periodical wholesale depor tations of Warsaw artisans, who never failed to take an active part in the Polish insurrections, especially in 1794, 1831, and 1863, considerably checked, but could not wholly stop the industrial progress of the town ; but the lines of customhouses which surround Poland, and thus limit the Warsaw market, as also the Russian rule, which militates against the progress of Polish science, technology, and art, are so many obstacles to the development of its natural resources. The population of Warsaw has nevertheless grown rapidly of late, having risen from 161,008 in 1860, and 276,000 in 1872, to 436,570 in 1887; of these more than 25,000 are Germans, and one-third are Jews (43,000 in 1860, and 117,300 in 1879). The Russian garrison amounts to nearly 20,000 men. The streets of Warsaw are very animated, and are adorned with many fine buildings partly due to the old Polish nobility s love of display (there are more than 160 palaces, 60 of which have been confiscated by the Russian Government), partly churches and cathedrals (179 Catholic, 6 Greek, and 2 Lutheran, several synagogues, 14 monasteries, and 4 nunneries), and partly public build ings, schools, hospitals, scientific societies, erected at great expense by the municipality or by private bodies. Fine public gardens and several monuments further em bellish the city. The present university, founded as the " Glawnaja Szkota," in 1816, but closed in 1832, was again opened in 1864 ; it has a remarkable library of more than 350,000 volumes, rich natural history collections, a fine botanic garden, and an observatory well known for its astronomical work. There are 75 professors and nearly 1000 students. The teaching is in Russian, and mostly by Russians, and the close intercourse which used to exist between the university and the educated classes of Poland is becoming a thing of the past. The rich university library, one of the largest in the world, was confiscated in 1794, and transferred to St Petersburg, where it became the nucleus of the present imperial public library ; and, after the insurrection of 1831, it was again ransacked for the same purpose. The medical school, which enjoys high repute in the scientific world, still retains the right of teaching in Polish, and has about 220 students. The same privilege is enjoyed by the school of arts, the academy of agriculture and forestry, and the conservatory of music, all of which are high-class institutions. There are, besides, six classical gymnasia, two " real " schools, and numerous elementary schools. The museum of the society of fine arts is rich in examples of ancient and modern art. The association of the friends of science and the historical and agricultural societies of Warsaw were once well known, but all were closed after the insurrections, and now they live but a precarious life, the scientific works which continue to be produced in Poland being partly published at Cracow. The great theatre for Polish drama and the ballet is a fine building which really includes two theatres under the same roof ; but the pride of Warsaw is its theatre in the

tazienki gardens, which were laid out in an old bed of