ere emancipated in 1861, a hothouse plant which
could flourish only in an officially heated atmosphere.

There was one branch of it, however, to which this remark does not
apply. The art of cotton-spinning and cotton-weaving struck deep root
in Russian soil. After remaining for generations in the condition of
a cottage industry--the yarn being distributed among the peasants
and worked up by them in their own homes--it began, about 1825, to be
modernised. Though it still required to be protected against foreign
competition, it rapidly outgrew the necessity for direct official
support. Big factories driven by steam-power were constructed, the
number of hands employed rose to 110,000, and the foundations of great
fortunes were laid. Strange to say, many of the future millionaires were
uneducated serfs. Sava Morozof, for example, who was to become one of
the industrial magnates of Moscow, was a serf belonging to a proprietor
called Ryumin; most of the others were serfs of Count Sheremetyef--the
owner of a large estate on which the industrial town of Ivanovo had
sprung up--who was proud of having millionaires among his serfs, and who
never abused his authority over them. The great movement, however, was
not effected without the assistance of foreigners. Foreign foremen were
largely employed, and in the work of organisation a leading part was
played by a German called Ludwig Knoop. Beginning life as a commercial
traveller for an English firm, he soon became a large cotton importer,
and when in 1840 a feverish activity was produced in the Russian
manufacturing world by the Government's permission to import English
machines, his firm supplied these machines to the factories on condition
of obtaining a share in the business. It has been calculated that it
obtained in this way a share in no less than 122 factories, and hence
arose among the peasantry a popular saying:

"Where there is a church, there you find a pope,
And where there is a factory, there you find a Knoop."*

The biggest creation of the firm was a factory built at Narva in 1856,
with nearly half a million spindles driven by water-power.

* Gdye tserkov--tam pop;
A gdye fabrika--tam Knop.

In the second half of last century a revolution was brought about in the
manufacturing industry generally by the emancipation of the serfs,
the rapid extension of railways, the facilities for creating limited
liability companies, and by certain innovations