always took care of laying current editions of the folk press on the tables so that the guests could read them. Thanks to his own entrepreneurship and diligence he managed to outmatch the competitive Jewish innkeeper. He was a co-founder and editor of the magazines Wieniec (Wreath) and Pszczółka (Little Bee) that focused on rural issues. His farm was considered exemplary in the district. He promoted the latest achievements in farming and breeding. Wincenty Witos, a prominent politician of the Polish People's Party and later a prime minister of Poland, recalled Ptak in his memoir. Witos described, among others, the first time he met Ptak in 1895 in Bieńczyce. According to Witos, other peasants expressed unflattering judgements about Ptak, "unable to endure the boasting parvenu". Witos, who served at the time in the Austro-Hungarian Army, moved with his troop to the fort in the village of Krzesławice, and one day he “learned from the peasants coming with the potatoes to the barracks that in the neighboring village of Bieńczyce there is a host and an innkeeper, Franciszek Ptak, who deals with politics and receives folk newspapers.” On the subsequent Sunday, which was a day off, Witos with a friend of his went to visit the tavern in Bieńczyce, as Witos recalled: "Already on the way we learned from the neighbor of Mr. Ptak, who went to the village, that Ptak is an extremely rich man, but also no less a speculator and flay-flint, that he earns money on masters and priests, and for that money he buys estates and lends usury, that peasants and laborers give him the last pennies, etc. stuff. He also said that Mr. Ptak, in addition to the tavern, has a large stone house, a steam mill, a few dozen acres of land, and yet he rents all tolls in the poviat, takes military and poviat supplies, not giving anyone a chance to earn a penny." This "seemingly talkative and jealous" neighbor peasant, as Witos remarked, also said "that the current rich man, Mr. Ptak, although he comes from the beggar family, is himself worse than many a count. He considers peasants nothing, he only goes in with the masters, he travels to Vienna and Lviv for exhibitions, takes over his daughters around the world and introduces them to the great masters." Finally, the peasant "expressed the hope that this Sodom would end, and God's punishment