A kind of jacquerie has broken out in Galicia, and
has required very severe measures for its suppression. The peasantry there, who are very poor, and, as Englishmen would think, much oppressed, detest two classes,—the land- lords who employ them, and the Jews who sell them every- thing they buy. Recently the latter antipathy rose under clerical provocation to fever-heat, and they attacked the Jews everywhere, plundering their shops and clubbing them when- ever they appeared on the roads. The authorities did not care much, but the rioting extended to all the rich, and then they did care, and put in force a local law of extreme severity. Half Galicia was placed in a state of siege so rigid that the military authorities are not only authorised to inflict death for rioting, but are bound to do it. The peasantry immediately shrank back into their hovels, the Jews came forth on the roads, and there was " quiet every- where ; " but Galicia will require an extra garrison for some time. Englishmen always think of " Austria " as the quietest of Empires, but there are elements in some of the States which compose that word which make it quite possible that the " social problem "—in other words, the distribution of wealth—may produce bloodshed there first of all. The people, half civilised, are just awakening to consciousness ; a large proportion of them have not enough to live on—are in fact mere serfs—and they have not a notion how to obtain improvement except by violence. They have an idea, too, like the Russians, that the Emperor is on their side, and that if they could be rid of the wealthy and the Jews they would live happily ever after. As they are brave men and have all been drilled, their ignorance makes them very formidable indeed.
Previous page
