rather tired of the mutual recriminations of political parties;
respecting each other's good qualities, they are simply colour-blind.

After the Saxons had been allowed to drop out of the conversation, I led
my Magyar friend to talk of the state of things before 1848, and to
enlighten me as to the existing condition of laws of property. My
Hungarian--who, by the way, is a man well qualified to speak about legal
matters--showered down upon me a perfect avalanche of facts. Leaving out
a few patriotic flashes, the substance of what he told me was much as
follows. I had especially asked about the recent legislation on the land
question.

"In the old time, before '48, the State, the Church, and the Nobles were
the _sole_ landowners. The holding of land was strictly prohibited to
all who were not noble; but to the peasants were allotted certain
tracts, called for distinction 'session-lands.' For this privilege the
peasant had to give up a tenth part of the produce to the lord, and
besides he had to work for him two, and in some cases even _three_, days
in the week. The _robot_, or forced labour, varied in different
localities. The lord was judge over his tenants, and even his bailiff
had the right of administering twenty-five lashes to insubordinate
peasants. The _time_ of the forced labour was at the option of the lord,
who might oblige his tenant to give his term of labour consecutively
during seed-sowing or harvest, at the very time that the peasant's own
land required his attendance. It may easily be imagined that this was a
fruitful cause of dispute between the lord and his serfs.

"But the most glaring act of injustice under the old system was that
_all the taxes_ were paid by the session-holding peasantry, while the
nobles were privileged and tax-free. They absolutely contributed nothing
to the revenue of the country in the way of direct taxes!

"This peculiarity of the Constitution made it the interest of the Crown
to _preserve_ the area of the tax-paying peasant-land against the
encroachments of the tax-free landlord. It often happened that on the
death or removal of a peasant-holder the lord would choose to absorb the
session-land into the _allodium_, which, being tax-free, resulted in a
loss to the imperial revenue. To prevent this absorption of
session-lands by the landlord, and also to accommodate the burdens of
the peasantry, which had become almost intolerable in the last century,
owing to the tyranny of th