rs, the only real restrictions being that if
they die within twenty-four hours the owners are subjected to trial
for murder; but even that is nearly always evaded. The present emperor
has done much to meliorate these abuses; but his orders have to go a
great way and through a great many unreliable hands, and it is very
difficult to carry them into effect unless they accord with the views
of a venal and corrupt bureaucracy and an unprincipled corps of
subordinates.

[Illustration: SERFS.]

In some of the districts where the serfs were purposely kept in
ignorance of the true meaning and intention of the emperor's ukase, a
vague idea took possession of their minds that they were free, and
that the proprietors had no right to compel them to labor, or in any
way curtail their liberty. Many of them left the estates to which they
were attached, and sought occupation elsewhere on their own account;
others refused to obey the orders given them by their seigneurs, and a
great deal of trouble and bloodshed ensued. In some instances it
became necessary to call in the military forces of the district to
subdue the mutinous serfs and preserve order. Protests and
remonstrances innumerable were addressed to the emperor, pointing out
the absolute impracticability of carrying his beneficent scheme into
effect, based chiefly on the ground that the serfs themselves were
opposed to emancipation. This, of course, occasioned a great deal of
anxiety and trouble at head-quarters. It was rather a hard state of
things that the very peasants whom he was striving with all his power
to serve should, by their insubordination--arising sometimes, it was
true, from ignorance, but too often from willful misconduct--do even
more than their masters to frustrate his beneficent designs. These
troubles went on from time to time, till eventually a deputation of
three hundred serfs made their way to St. Petersburg and solicited an
audience of the emperor. His majesty, probably in no very amiable
mood, called the deputation before him, and demanded what they
desired. They answered that they wished an explanation in regard to
his order of emancipation, which many of their people did not
understand. Some thought they were to be free in two years, but many
thought they were free from the date of the order, with the simple
condition that they were to pay sixty rubles to their masters the
first year, and thirty the second; others, again, that they were free
witho