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H18 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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KUSSIAN SERFDOM. [CONCLUDING AKTICLE.] J...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Aoyeming Classes. '¦¦ . ¦¦ , ¦ . ' ....
tive discreditable facts . We are a moral and a religious people ; but we assented complacently to the ennoblement and endowment of the illegitimate children of King William : arid should , indeed , feel flattered to be noticed by them in society . We admire Thurlow for attacking '' the accident of an accident , " and we wonder at the profligacy of English manners when Charles the Second could make his bastards Dukes ; but we were by no means astonished when a gentleman whose pedigree didn't go beyond the delightful Mrs . Jordan , was made an Earl ;
and the other day we witnessed without horror a high Indian command conferred upon that nobleman's younger brother ( an energetic officer ) , also a Lord by " courtesy" of a generation of what Mr . Thackeray calls '' snobs . " Our Queen recognises those cousins , and why should not we ? We should be shocked if we were asked to dinner to meet the Grafinn von Lansfeldt , but there are a couple of British Dukes who are descendants of celebrated prostitutes , who are not ashamed of their origin , and we as a people are rather proud of them , or else we shouldn't pay , as we do annually to this day , for the maintenance of their dignity .
We are , therefore , very tolerant of Royal foibles , and it is to be regretted that we are not more confided in by our contemporary Princes of the Blood . We are very glad to see them when they come among us " public . " Perhaps a less brilliant or less fascinating old gentleman than the late Duke of Cambridge never existed ; but we loved him , he came so often to our public dinners , and on those occasions used the privileges of his nearness to the throne to mangle her Majesty ' s English . In the same way the Duke of ( Sussex , who was also condescending , was a very popular man ; and we deeply regretted our laws which prevented him marrying his mistress , as his brother George did .
However unworthy a royal duke might be , we would like him ; and a royal duke would , consequently , lose nothing by letting us know the truth about him . We had a strong susjneion in George the Fourth ' s lifetime that he was an objectionable gentleman ; but we can remember how we cheered him , particularly in Ireland . The Duke of Cumberland got on , despite his reputation , and all good Protestants wept when he was found out in an Orange conspiracy .
The Duke of Cambridge of the present period costs the country about 30 , 00 OZ . a-year ; and we are really entitled to know a little of so expensive a Prince . He ought to come to our dinners and our meetings , not that we should find out anything about him then , but that wo like to see our princes , if only as figures in the pageants of our public proceedings . Archbishop Whately could succeed in proving that there never was a Napoleon Bonaparte , and would have Httle difficulty in demonstrating that the Duke of Cambridge in a myth . Ho has been seen in a private box at a theatre , and rode a great many people down on the day of hie first battle — the Wellington funeral : but doubts
about Ihh existence would have their justification . In a few yeans he will havo the Horfle Guards ; and then wo can go and satisfy onrhoIvch any day at four o'clock , that our befit dragoon officer— ' ( ho really rides peoplo down very well )—ia really a royal Duke . But , meanwhile , it would be well if ho threw himself into sonic movement of the day winch would bring him occasionally faoo to face with the peoplo . We are much obliged to him for commanding a cavalry regiment ami ranging a park or two ( before dinner ) ; but Prince Albeit command *)
regiments and ranges parks : ilno ; and finds timo to be the leader m the great movement of the century , A royal D > uko nhoul « l have a pronounced character , even if only a character for liking dinner *) ; and the pmient ' J ) uko of Cambridge in unfortunate in that bin name convey *) no idea of personality to the ( inquiring popular mind . Nobody will be bold enough to object when ho Hucceedf ) . Lord Jlardingo ; hut it will nevertheless be felt by a Hell-governed nation that it ought to know
a little about the man who fill *) the office which has boon held in turn by 11 ill , Wellington , and Harding . With 1-enpeet to the " rent of l , ho Ivoyal Family , " ¦ who could tell even their names' ( Ihjt I have drank their health very often : and am < mito sure that tlio tonot , an the Chairman always observes , needs no introduction : -that iH to nay , that an wo know nothing about thoin , we had better eontinuo respectful and Boloinnly silent . Ad the toiuit in alwjiyo drunk with
three times three , we may conclude that that is the number of the persons we reverence , —which is something to be sure of . Non-Elector .
H18 The Leader. [Saturday,
H 18 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Kussian Serfdom. [Concluding Akticle.] J...
KUSSIAN SERFDOM . [ CONCLUDING AKTICLE . ] Just before I left Russia , in 1 S 46 , a trial peculiar to those latitudes was creating great excitement in Moscow . A Prince , possessing large domains in the province of Ozel , had one of his serfs flogged . The serf died under the punishment . According to custom , a priest and his deacon , attended by the Sacristan , were present at the burial , and drew up the registry certificate of the man ' s death . The good priest signed ; the
good deacon signed the said certificate ; but lo , on perusing their joint declaration , the Sacristan made the remark that this was not a case of natural death , but a murder . The priest stared in amazement at the observation , and endeavoured to convince him of of his error , and to persuade him to sign . The Sacristan obstinately persisted in his refusal . As soon as the Prince was informed of this difficulty , presuming that the Sacristan would scarcely let such a good opportunity slip without improving it , he sent the poor wretch a few hundred roubles . Still the Sacri ^ t . in held
out , and calling on the priest and deacon to attest the bribe , he disappeared from thence , to re-appear at Ozel , where he penetrated into the presence of his archbishop , and to him related the affair . The archbishop , unprepared for such an emergency , wrote to consult the governor , and the superior priest of the district . Now , the governor of Ozel happened to be a near relative of the murderer . It may be imagined he spared no effort to hush up the affair altogether ; but the inflexible Sacristan stuck fast to his allegations . The affair got abroad , and placed the police in a situation of considerable embarrassment , for the crime was but too evident . The secret police gave information of the whole story to the Emperor . The governor was removed ; the inquest resumed on a different footing : proof after proof established the fact that the Prince of
Trubeskoii and his wife had been in the habit of practising the most abominable cruelties towards their serfs . Subterranean dungeons were discovered in the seigneurial mansion , in which prisoners languished in chains . Dungeons andirons , it should be understood , are equally foreign to Russian customs . The Prince was tried , condemned , degraded , deprived of all his title ? , and , accompanied by his worthy helpmate , packed oft to Siberia . Nor did the Emperor stop there , but ordered all the marshals of the district , since the installation of the Prince in his domains , to be tried for the crime . As might be expected , however , this measure was not carried out . Ch— , the then Minister of Justice , was among these marshals , and the matter was not pushed any further , out of deference for one of the most mediocre of administrators .
The relations between the nobles and the pe . isnnta are anything but sound . Indeed they are as strained and insecure as reciprocal distrust can make them . The patriarchal relations of which Haxthausen speaks , where then did he find them ? The great lord . ! , in the timo of Catherine II ., treated their peasantry with a eox-t of aristocratic ; consideration and tutelary regard ; the small proprietors also , because they had not yet cast off the manners of the peasants , among whom they lived in extreme simplicity . Bufc the succeeding
frOneration separated themselves more and more from the peasants , and from their simple manners . Civilization suggested to the nobility new wants , and with these wants new ways and means . The developments of industry and mamifacturns , the- diffusion of the principles of political economy adapted to load Jiahits , furnished fresh means of nlilhintj the peasants . The seigneur , that " patriarch , " that " chief of the clan , " that " father of the commune , " from an aristocrat became by degrees manufacturer , planter , slaveowner .
Mr . Hax thausen has neon all this , and is as well . aware of it an I can bo , but in his capacity of an absolutist demagogue he is , doubtless , obliged to pass it over in silence . This author , who has unfortunately mnrrod his interesting work by an indescribably frantic passion for royjilism , * knows too well the organization of the Russian commune , not to have known that thopower of the seigneur is an excrescence upon the commune into whieh it lias entered as an element altogether foreign , parasitical , and destitute of normal basis . He ouceeeds as little in explaining , by a 7 > re tended
patnardialisin tho ikugneurial prerogatives , as in justifying the oppressive despotism of Votersburgh by the mtUvm-H . it of obedience , a passion which this enlightened German ori . lls the distinguishing virtue of the Russian peoplo . The mil patriarchal chief of the commune in the Htarosto , elected by tho commune- from among its own members . It is ' lie who takes the place of " the father <> r the family ; lie is the representative , the guardian , tho natural protector of the commune . What , then , M the oflioe , the duty of the seigneur , that alien intruder who makes , from time to time , at more or less * Which him ]( ., ! him even lo celebrate tho ]> niine . H of I lie Innh ior tho Holdup ,, biMik . ' lie tmealai of tho whip with alleetnitf onUmHiRHin , uiul u ! , ! , riI > iu , cH < o it nil the glory of Koine in lung for hiu authority tho oviriciico of hom . o " honourable and royal ( Xomgli ' sch Prouanlseh ) Jacobin or oilier . —A . IL
irregular intervals , irruptions upon his estates , like the Baskah Tartar upon the towns , and levies contributions ? The Staroste , on the other hand , is not , and cannot be , a despot ; were lie so disposed , the force of custom and traditional rights would crush the attempt . The united commune ( Mill ) would , by its univers al will , reduce him . at once to the limits of his authority and of his duty . Elected by the free suffrage of all the working members of the commune for a limited term he knows v / ell enough that he will have to become a simple moujih again if not re- elected . He knows that after having governed the village he will be obliged { as M . Haxthausen so poetically describes ) "to come and kneel before the common assembly , lay down before it the staff and insignia of his office , and ask pardon-of the commune for any wrongs he may have committed against it . "
Surely there is no want of another adoptive father of a step-father who lives away from the commune , and who appears from time to time only to snatch away the lion's share of its produce . If the seigneur were nothing more than the proprietor of the soil he cotild exact nothing but the rent of his land , but he afflicts the peasant with a capitation tax , he taxes his labour independently of the land , he ransoms his right of locomotion . Thu 3 > to employ an admirable expression escaped from Sir . Haxthausen , ' ' on the basis of a St . Simonism reversed , he makes the impost more severe in r > roportion as the subject of the impost has more talent : ' '
Beyond the commune there should be nothing but the national unity , the res puhlicn ( Semskoie delo ) or the directing power . The free communes are assembled by districts ( volost ) , and , according to Russian law , every commune having its Staroste , this aggregation of communes elects its popular chief , called Golova . There is many a Golova who has thirty thousand men under his orders . Together with this chief there are two judges , a sort of justices of the peace , elected by the peasants for the legal administration of communal affairs and of the police . The police is exercised in the villages by centurions , and decurions elected ; the distribution of taxes and of offices is administered by the Golova and the ancients . It is a complete socialistic self-government , and it worked very harmoniously till we became indoctrinated with the policy of German or Byzantine order .
One Minister , M . KiaselefF , was capable of appreciating a part , at least , of the magnificent institutions on which the commune is based . H 13 reform of the administration -would Jiave been almost the beginning of a recognition by tho Government of St . Petersburg of Russian common law , if the personnel of the administration were not so profoundly vicious . One of the great misfortunes of our Government is , that it governs to excess . It mingles in and with everything
and everybody ; regulates everything , fidgets about everything : the length of the Jewish Caftan on tho Polish frontier ; the length of hair worn by the students of our universities ; at one moment it is recommending a husband to reprimand his wife , at another it is advising a young man nob to lose all his fortune at cards . Our Emperor is not only the head of tho Church and of the State—he is also the principal clerk , and the busybody in chief . He marries , he unmarries ; he manages all , and mars all . Tails rex .
M . Kisseleff , while he preserved the grand communal institution , contrived to neutralize tho purely national and healthy characteristics of liis scheme by that excess of administrative intermeddling , that intemperance of regulation , in a country , too , to which all formalism iH repugnant , and which , in truth , does not want any artificial supplement to tho forco of long habits and traditional customs . P > y way of administrative interference with all tho aftah-R of tho peasantry , he introduced a thief into every commune ; he opened in every village an Australian mine of spoliation for bin bureaucratic diggers . The probity of tho Minister is no ); hero in question ; but was lie not old enough to know tliat the subaltern employe ' s throughout Russia arts nothing but patented brigands and veteran robbora ?
The solution of continuity between the world of employe * *) and tlio people , as between tho people and the Government , Jh evident enough . The Government of J ' etersburg h ft temporary , provisional government ' it in a terrorist dictatorship ; u C ; nsariHin carried <» ' < dhtiurdnm . Its people is the noblesse , and that only " <> far as it is the enomy of the people . M . Huxthaunou tries to prove the contrary that the imperial power such : is it exiotn now is iicetm-ity , national , logical , am popular . Thin very Catholic censor appeals to t »> : .. 11 .. . 4 " T .. « i . viiii * tLi / iviit ir v > r 1 L . inJ i ? i r 4 i mi ion / o * m **' quasitheistical hilosophof Hegel 111 1 ii |) j ) f'il / oi i . »«
--a p y , schismatic Umpcror . We " know that . 1 logol Jian turue < i a good many heads by presenting the nimplout th " ) in the world an most extraordinary- - " all thai , ma l . is reasonable . " Nothing can ho dearer ; him witl »«»' j entering into scholastic distinctions between the be . ' <¦ the seem , wo concede that ovory phenomenonto * " ' raiami d'iltre , and that an ab . ioluj . o absurdity jh al * luU . ly impossible . One neod not bo 11 groat »» . lHt "' . md , ;>" nhysicH to he aware that whore there » " ' . /' . there must bo a cause . ( JooflVoy $ t . i '^™ ™ covered and described the very exact law »< ol u ¦ - tolo . 'y ; lie sueom-dod admirably in juHtiivinff ' abnormal development of the fetuH , but tho m ««" '
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 19, 1853, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19111853/page/14/
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