y than the overseer or owner. We know that there
are hard and unfeeling overseers on many plantations, where the owner
is comparatively mild and humane. So far as he knows any thing of the
details of his own affairs, his natural disposition accords with his
interest, and he is favorable to the kind treatment of his slaves. But
he can not permit them to become intelligent beings. They may study
all the mechanical arts which may be useful to him--become
blacksmiths, carpenters, or machinists, but they must not learn that
they are held in servitude, and that the Almighty has given him no
natural right to live upon their earnings, or enjoy his pleasure or
power at the expense of their labor and their freedom. The same
condition of things, with some variation, of course, arising from
differences of climate and races, exists in Russia, and the results
are not altogether dissimilar. We find idleness, lack of principle,
overbearing manners, ignorance, and sensualism a very common
characteristic of the superior classes, mingled though it may be with
a show of fine manners, and such trivial and superficial
accomplishments as may be obtained without much labor. It is a great
negro plantation on a large scale, in which the gradation of powers
has a depressing tendency, causing them to increase in rigor as they
descend, like a stone dropped from a height, which at first might be
caught in the open hand, but soon acquires force enough to brain an
ox.

One of the effects of the strong coercive powers of the government is
perceptible in this, that the greatest latitude prevails in every
thing that does not interfere with the maintenance of political
authority; and although it is difficult, in such a country, to find
much that comes within that category, occasional exceptions may be
found. Thus drunkenness, debauchery, indecency, and reckless,
prodigal, and filthy habits, are but little regarded, while the
slightest approach to the acquisition of a liberal education, or the
expression of liberal opinions on any subject connected with public
polity, is rigidly prohibited. Most of the English newspapers are
excluded from the empire, although if admitted they would have but few
general readers among the Russians--certainly not many among the
middle or lower classes. No publication on political economy, no work
of any kind relating to the science of government or the natural
rights of man; nothing, in short, calculated to impair the faith