VIII. 1815. engaged in the labours of agriculture, are substantially in CHAP. the same situation; they pay their obrok or capitationtax, and enjoy the whole remaining fruits of the soil they have cultivated, or of the manual labour. Their number is very great; it amounts to no less than 7,938,000 individuals of the male sex. The trading classes are all arranged in separate guilds or corporations, in which they enjoy considerable privileges—in particular, those of being exempt from personal chastisement, and the obligation to serve in the army, and to pay the capitation-tax, and having courts of their own, where their matters in dispute are determined, as in the Saxon courts of the Heptarchy, by a jury of their peers. This arrangement of the trading classes in separate guilds or fraternities, enjoying certain privileges, and bound together by community of interest, is the very best that human wisdom ever devised to improve the condition and habits of the industrious classes, because it tends to establish an aristocracy among them, which at once elevates their caste and protects their labour, and tends to prevent that greatest of all social evils, equality among the poor; which, as it destroys their influence, inevitably ends in the equality despotism.1 1 Malte of 412, 415. Brun, vi. 27. their num The last class in Russia is that of the SERFS or peasants, the property of their masters, who are by law at- The Serfs: tached to the soil, and, for the most part, engaged in ber and the labours of agriculture. Their number is immense condition. they amounted in Russia in Europe alone to 10,865,993 males in 1834, and in 1848 they had increased to 11,938,000, being as nearly as possible one-half of the entire population engaged in the cultivation of the soil.* VIII. 1815. CHAP. It is a total mistake, however, to suppose that this immense body of men are slaves in our sense of the word that is, in the state in which the negroes till recently were in the West India Islands, or as they still are in the Southern States of America. They are the property, indeed, of their masters; they are sold with the estate, and cannot leave it without his consent; and the property in them, as in the West Indies till of late, constitutes the chief part of its value. But they enjoy several ii. 272; Cus important immunities, which go far to assuage the bitterness of servitude, and render it doubtful whether, in the i. 311, 312. existing state of Russian society, they could be so well off under any other circumstances.1 1Schnitzler, tine, iii. 371, 380; Tegoborski, 28. Privileges and advan tages they enjoy. They are sold with the estate, but they cannot, without their own consent, be sold without it-a privilege of incalculable value, for it prevents the separation of husband and wife, parent and child, and the tearing up of the slave from the home of his fathers, which constitutes the last drop in the cup of his bitterness. By a ukase of the Emperor Paul in 1797, who, in this instance at least, proved himself a real father to his people, every slave or peasant subject to forced labour on his master's account, is permitted during three days in the week to work on his own. By a ukase of the present Emperor, slaves are even permitted to hold small pieces of land on their own account, though in their master's name; and if he attempts to interfere with their enjoyment of the fruits, he is liable to be restrained by an order from the governor of the province. In addition to this, the master is obliged to maintain the slave in sickness or old age-an obligation which is always and willingly discharged, for a very sufficient reason, Schnitzler, that the great extent of waste land in his possession, or Tegoborski, surplus produce in his hands, in general enables the masHaxt- ter to discharge the duty without feeling it as a burden.2 Studier It results from these circumstances, that the condition of land, i. 174. the serf is, generally speaking, so far as rude comfort goes, i. 216, 220; i. 326, 329; hausen, über Russ equal or superior to that of any peasantry in Europe, and VIII. that even the best-conditioned cultivators in its western CHAP. states would find something to envy in the constant food and secure position of a Russian serf.* 1815. 29. its advan It evils. There is a very curious institution, almost universal among the serfs of Russia, which betrays their Eastern The Tieglo: origin, and has done more than any other circumstance tages and to mitigate the severity of slavery amongst them. savours of the village system so firmly rooted in all the northern parts of Hindostan, and recalls the days when the whole lands of Palestine were allotted afresh every half-century to the Jews in ancient times. It is called the Tieglo, and consists in this: All the peasants of Russia or of Spain live in villages; isolated cottages, the glory and mark of English and Swiss freedom, are unknown. Each village has a certain portion of land allotted to it by the emperor, if the lands hold of the Crown, or by their lord, if of a subject, and which they labour on their own account for the subsistence of themselves and their families. Another portion of the estate is cultivated by the serfs, under the corvée, on their master's account. As the waste land in general bears so great a proportion to that under cultivation, both portions are 1 Haxthauvery extensive, and there is room and to spare for future sen, Stud. increase. The land allotted to the peasants is not divided land, i. 160, into separate portions as it would be in England, where, i. 328, 331. in some places," each rood has its man," but is all put * The Marquis Custine, anything but a eulogist of Russian institutions and manners, gives the following account of the appearance of the old serfs, released from labour for life, sitting at the doors of their cottages : "Je ne puis m'empêcher de trouver un grand charme à l'ignorance, lorsque j'en vois le fruit dans la physionomie céleste des vieux paysans russes. Ces patriarches modernes se reposent noblement au déclin de leur vie: travailleurs exempts de la corvée, ils se débarrassent de leur fardeau vers la fin du jour et s'appuyent avec dignité sur le seuil de la chaumière qu'ils ont rebâtie plusieurs fois, car sous ce rude climat la maison de l'homme ne dure pas autant que sa vie. Quand je ne rapporterais de mon voyage en Russie, que le souvenir de ces vieillards sans remords, appuyés contre les portes sans serrures, je ne regretterais pas la peine que j'ai prise pour venir voir des créatures si différentes de tous les autres paysans du monde. La noblesse de la chaumière m'inspire toujours un profond respect."-DE CUSTINE, Voyage en Russie, iv. 10.-Would the inmates of our workhouses present an equally agreeable spectacle ? über Russ 178; Tegob. VIII. CHAP. at the disposal of the entire village community, which, in its turn, becomes responsible for the whole charges and obligations incumbent on its members. 1815. 30. Way in which it is carried into effect. A certain number of the elders of the village make the partition of the lands among all the householders, and it is generally done with great care and circumspection, according to the necessities and capabilities of each inhabitant. The lot awarded to each is in proportion to the numbers which he has to feed, and the arms he can bring to aid in the cultivation of its furrows. When a son marries during the lifetime of his father, he applies for and obtains a separate portion for himself, which he labours on his own account, and which is augmented in proportion as his family increases. On the other hand, On the other hand, if it declines, his lot is proportionally contracted; and if he dies without children, it is given to some other by the little senate of the village. Inequality in the richness of the soil, or difficulties in its cultivation, are carefully weighed and compensated by the grant of a larger or smaller portion of ground. If the land at the disposal of the community exceeds the wants of its inhabitants, the surplus is divided among such of her peasants as have the largest stock of cattle and implements of husbandry, who are proportionally burdened with a share of the charges of the community. On the other hand, if the land falls short, a portion of the community hives off like a swarm of bees, and settles in some government or province where there is enough, and where they are always sure of a cordial welcome, for they bring with them industry, wealth, and cultivation. So firmly is this system established in Russia-as, indeed, it is generally in the Eastand so suitable is it to the circumstances of the people, that, although it has many inconveniences, and checks the improvement of agriculture by the sort of community of land which it establishes, and its frequent re-partition, the peasants resolutely resist any attempt at its removal and limitation, and cling to it as the great charter which VIII. 1815. secures to them all the means of living and bringing up CHAP. their children. In some instances it has been given up, and the land permanently allotted to each inhabitant; but they have almost always recurred to the old system, as the only one fitted to their circumstances. It is so it almost realises the aspirations of the Socialists of Paris, as it did those of the Spartans; and it is a curious circumstance, indicating how extremes meet, that the nearest approximation that ever has been made in modern Europe sen, i. 164, to the visions of the Communists, is amidst the serfs, and i. 330, 331. under the Czar of Russia.1 1 Haxthau 178; Tegob. English and tivators. A very simple reason chains the peasants in the greater 31. part of Russia to the conditions of feudal servitude: it Contrast of is necessity. Slavery is the condition of existence. Writ- Russian culers in England are, for the most part, strangely misled on this subject by what they see around them. They behold their own farmers living in comfort, often rising to affluence, each on his own possession, and they ask why should not a similar state of things arise in Russia? They forget that the English farmer has a county bank near him, to furnish him with the means of improvement; a canal or a railway at his door, to transport his produce. to market—an unfailing vent in numerous great towns for its disposal; ample means of purchasing the most approved implements, and learning the best methods of cultivation in the publications to which he has access. In all these respects the situation of the Russian peasant is not analogous, but a contrast. Situated in the midst of a vast and thinly-peopled wilderness, he is fortunate if he is only three or four hundred miles from any seaport, thirty or forty miles from any considerable town. Canals or railways there are none; banks are unknown, and if established, he has no security to offer for advances; his capital is confined to the axe which he carries on his shoulder, and the plough which he steers with his hands. Instead of the mild climate which enables country labour to go on, country animals to pasture in the |