124 KORTHEBN RUSSIA. 



1,600,000 spindles. Taking all things into account, tht 

 protection of the trade raises the price of the article fifty 

 per cent, above England. Smuggling, therefore, exists to 

 a great extent. The workmen employed are serfs,* who 

 generally live in the country, but leave their villages 

 and their wives behind them to work for a time at the 

 factories. Their wages amount to about 2 10s. monthly. 

 Barracks are provided for the workmen. The work ifa 

 continued by relays day and night. Out of 280 work- 

 days, about 30 are fast or feast days, in which no work is 

 done. 



The Russians have hitherto been unable to make 

 good factory machinery ; any who have succeeded, 

 apparently, in doing so, have really been indebted to 

 England for its chief portions. 



The habits and morals of the working classes are of 

 the lowest possible description. It would be impossible 

 to publish in these pages the unquestionable facts illus- 

 trative of their depraved condition. Virtue and truth 

 seem scarcely known. As regards stealing, not one 

 working man or woman is ever permitted to pass out of 

 the premises without being carefully searched by persons 

 employed for this purpose. In spite of this, they 

 manage to pilfer cotton and other articles. Baths are 

 regularly taken weekly, but during the other days their 

 persons are filthy. They lie on bare boards, and never 



* This was written before 1863, 3n which year the serfs weiw 

 emancipated ; but the improvement of their intellectual and moral 

 condition will be a work of time. 



