Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

UNFORTUNATE STATE OF SERFS.181

in 1815. At a little distance the colossal statue of the Emperor appeared a simple likeness, but, on inspecting it more nearly, each feature was found to be composed of mutilated corpses.

In all countries the poor work for the rich, who pay them for their labour; but these poor are not folded for life in some enclosure like mere herds of cattle; and, though obliged to toil at the labour which daily provides their children with bread, they at least enjoy a semblance of liberty; now semblance, or appearance, is almost every thing to a being whose views are limited, but whose imagination is boundless. With us the hireling has the right of changing his employers, his residence, and even his profession, but the Kiissian serf is a chattel of his lord's; enlisted from birth to death in the service, his life represents to this proprietor a part and parcel of the sum necessary to supply the caprices and fantasies of fashion. Assuredly, in a state thus constituted, luxury is no longer innocent. All communities in which a middle class of society does not exist, ought to proscribe luxury as a scandal, for in well-organised lands, it is the profits which this class draws from the vanity of the superior classes which produce general opulence. If, as is anticipated, Russia should become a land of industrial arts, the relations between the serf and the owner of the soil will be modified, and a population of independent dealers and artisans will rise up between the nobles and the peasants, but at present the commerce of the land is scarcely born; the manufacturers, merchants, and tradesmen, are almost all Germans.

It is here only too easy to be deceived by the ap-