tuted the most depressed 'interest' in that portion
of the Russian Empire. Not that they were suffering from free-trade of
any kind, or clamouring for open or disguised protection: the cause of
their depression was the prevalence of a deadly epidemic, which
reduced the number of their serfs with remorseless vigour--combined
with the tax which a paternal government levied on them, as a
consideration for its maintaining them in their humane and Christian
property. One of the principles of Russian taxation is this: that as
every individual in the empire, European or Asiatic, is the child of
the czar, owes him fealty and obedience, and receives protection,
light, and glory from him, as from a central sun, so every individual
owes in return a direct contribution to the fund by which the
czar-father supports that light and glory. This is the theory of
Russian taxation; but against its actual carrying out in fact, is
opposed the old difficulty, that from him who has nothing, nothing can
possibly be extracted; and as the poor serfs have no more means of
paying taxes than the hogs and cattle their fellow-slaves, a
considerate paternal government drops its theory, and makes the
landowner pay the poll-tax for the slaves he possesses, much as an
English gentleman pays taxes for his horses and dogs, horses and dogs
being as little able to pay tax themselves as the Russian serf. Now,
in a kind of deep irony, a serf is called a _soul_. M. K---- or M.
T---- owns so many _souls_, Miss L----'s marriage-portion was so many
_souls_, Madame B----'s dowry was a hundred _souls_; and this word
soul only applies to the male serfs--women and children being given
in, or there being only one soul per family among serfs. Well, a
landowner paying so much per soul to the government, and it being a
work of much time and trouble to take a census of souls every year, an
estimate is made at long intervals--say ten or twenty years--and the
landowner is compelled to pay accordingly till the period expires,
whether the number of his serfs increase or diminish. It is therefore
self-evident, that if the former occur--that if his serfs propagate
their species with due rapidity--the serf-owner is a clear gainer
during the interval between the soul-censuses, as he will be paying
tax for a given number, while he is actually reaping the profit of the
labour of treble or quadruple that number; while, if cholera, fever,
or any other of the ills that flesh, and especi