THE VICISSITUDES OF URBAN LIFE 245
atrophied mockery of their former splendour. It was a sorry state of affairs, only
partially redeemed by the relative strength of urban life in Royal Prussia or in
the new textile towns of Wielkopolska.
Attempts at reform had to wait till the second half of the eighteenth century.
By that time, the vast majority of the Republic's 1,400 cities were tiny private
administrative centres whose average population of 750 persons lived largely
from agriculture. From the point of view of modern urban planning most of
them were beyond redemption. On the initiative of the Sejm of 1764, a series of
Komisje Boni Ordinis, or 'Commissions of Good Order', were instituted to
investigate the plight of particular cities, and to recommend improvements. At
the same time, the central organs of Jewish autonomy, including the Council of
Four Lands, were suspended, with a view to reducing Jewish separatism and to
creating a unified bourgeoisie. In the following decades, no less than twenty-two
commissions were formed, sometimes with important effects. In Warsaw, for
example, the separate jurisdictions of the Old City and the New City and of the
noble jurydyki was abolished in 1767, and replaced by united courts and
Council under a new City President. In Cracow, the old corporation was abol-
ished in 1775, and replaced by a new streamlined Council of 12. elected members
ruling over the four public departments of Justice, Finance, Welfare, and Police.
For a brief period it looked as though the cities of Poland-Lithuania might be
restored to economic prosperity and political independence. Intellectual and
artistic life revived. Public building started again. The sons of the burghers
flocked to the schools of the National Education Commission, and began to
take an intelligent interest in their rights and their future. In 1791, following an
active campaign by Jan Dekert, President of Warsaw, their admittance to the
Sejm, to public office and to landed property was legally affirmed. Yet it was
an illusory triumph. The work of the Four Years' Sejm was overturned before
it could take effect. With the Third Partition of 1795, the cities of
Poland-Lithuania were handed over to the mercy of partitioning powers whose
own traditions regarding the proper place of the cities within the political order
were very different from those of the Republic.