assistance from his master. He was
protected, too, against all oppression and exactions on the part of the
officials; for the police, when there was any call for its interference,
applied to the proprietor, who was to a certain extent responsible for
his serfs. Thus the serf might live a tranquil, contented life, and die
at a ripe old age, without ever having been conscious that serfage was a
grievous burden.

If all the serfs had lived in this way we might, perhaps, regret that
the Emancipation was ever undertaken. In reality there was, as the
French say, le revers de la medaille, and serfage generally appeared
under a form very different from that which I have just depicted. The
proprietors were, unfortunately, not all of the enlightened, humane
type. Amongst them were many who demanded from their serfs an inordinate
amount of labour, and treated them in a very inhuman fashion.

These oppressors of their serfs may be divided into four categories.
First, there were the proprietors who managed their own estates, and
oppressed simply for the purpose of increasing their revenues. Secondly,
there were a number of retired officers who wished to establish a
certain order and discipline on their estates, and who employed for this
purpose the barbarous measures which were at that time used in the
army, believing that merciless corporal punishment was the only means of
curing laziness, disorderliness and other vices. Thirdly, there were the
absentees who lived beyond their means, and demanded from their steward,
under pain of giving him or his son as a recruit, a much greater yearly
sum than the estate could be reasonably expected to yield. Lastly,
in the latter years of serfage, there were a number of men who bought
estates as a mercantile speculation, and made as much money out of them
as they could in the shortest possible space of time.

Of all hard masters, the last-named were the most terrible. Utterly
indifferent to the welfare of the serfs and the ultimate fate of the
property, they cut down the timber, sold the cattle, exacted heavy money
dues under threats of giving the serfs or their children as recruits,
presented to the military authorities a number of conscripts greater
than was required by law--selling the conscription receipts (zatchetniya
kvitantsii) to the merchants and burghers who were liable to the
conscription but did not wish to serve--compelled some of the richer
serfs to buy their liberty at an enorm