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Lithuania retained until the last, however, its separate

officials, treasury, and army (compare pp. 171 and 310, and note

29). A constant stream of colonisation flowed east from Poland

(called the Crown or the Kingdom) into Lithuania (p. 168), until

the gentry of that country became Polish, while the peasantry

remained either Lithuanian or Russian.

In the Polish Commonwealth the towns were of small importance;

their inhabitants, though personally free, had almost no

political rights. The country population was divided into the

szlachta, or freemen, who fought the battles of the country and

in whom was vested the entire political power, and the chlopi, or

peasants, who were serfs, and cultivated the estates of the

szlachta. The szlachta, who formed about a tenth of the

population of the country, were legally all of equal rank (p.

100); as a matter of fact, differences of property created great

social and even (in practice) political distinctions between

them. Some of them, possessed of mere patches of land, lived a

life little different from that of the peasants (p. 167). Still

others entirely lost their land and became attached, even as

menial servants, to the households of their richer neighbours.