12 



TUB POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



and the alarming progress of usury, which threat- 

 ens the ruin of improvident landlords. 



Long ago, in France as also iu England, the 

 emancipation of the serfs was brought about by 

 the same economic causes, but under circum- 

 stances far more favorable than at present attend 

 the transformation of the feudal system in Hun- 

 gary and in Russia. Iustead of occurring pre- 

 maturely, as the result of social revolution or 

 theoretic speculations, this change of social rela- 

 tions was the gradual product of time, and its 

 realization was due far less to the progress of the 

 idea of freedom, the political efforts of legists, or 

 the civilizing influence of the clergy, than to the 

 free play of interests. Kings, no doubt, wishing 

 to reduce the powers of the nobles and to enlarge 

 those of the crown, issued many a decree of en- 

 franchisement, but these had again and again to 

 be renewed ; and the serfs, far from looking on 

 freedom as a deliverance, oftentimes shunned it 

 as a burden and an expense. To cite one in- 

 stance among many, consider how the serfs 

 of Pierrefond, emancipated by Philip the Bold, 

 straightway went and married serf-women, so 

 that they might have ground for demanding of 

 the Parliament a return to the glebe. Feudalism 

 has always rested on the necessities of the weak, 

 who offered their services in exchange for pro- 

 tection. So long as the rich and the powerful 

 possessed forests and other wild lands, it was to 

 their interest to attach to themselves the peas- 

 antry and their descendants. Thanks to these 

 new relations between tenants and landlords, the 

 latter saw the produce of their domains steadily 

 augmenting, while the former, insured against 

 untoward accidents, found ample resources in 

 the cultivation of their patrimonial properties or 

 in the enjoyment of the rights of usage. This 

 condition of well-being everywhere underwent a 

 change when disposable land began to be scarce. 

 The proprietors, instead of insisting on their 

 right of keeping their tenantry on their native 

 soil, saw the advantage of being freed from the 

 obligation of supporting them, which custom re- 

 quired them to do, but which had now become 

 more difficult, owing tq the complete occupation 

 of the land. Finally, the evolution of society, 

 which by degrees substituted in lieu of hus- 

 bandry-service payment first in kind and then in 

 money, ultimately resulted in quit-rent leases. 

 Long before the turmoil of the Revolution, the 

 tenants had been gradually becoming actual pro- 

 prietors, and the facts developed by the new 

 school of history, from study of documents, have 

 a flood of light thrown upon them by the anal- 



ysis of the conditions still existent in Russia and 

 Hungary. 



As for Turkey, sundry monographies of work- 

 ing-people's families exhibit in their details a 

 constitution of society as yet patriarchal. The 

 Mussulmans have always rejected feudal institu- 

 tions as a means of relieving the wants of the 

 improvident families that multiply by the crowd- 

 ing together of sedentary populations. Their 

 religion teaches the equality of all Mussulmans, 

 and they hold that, as compared with the poor 

 man who practises the divine law, the rich man 

 is but the steward of goods that belong to God. 

 Hence the institution of the wakfi — lands form- 

 ing a great part of Turkey, the revenues of 

 which are saved for the benefit of the poor. A 

 few examples will exhibit in a favorable light 

 the relations between masters and servants. 

 There is, for instance, the quasi-perpetual debt, 

 without interest, contracted by the Christian 

 Bulgarians of the iron-works in the Balkans tow- 

 ard their Mussulman employers. So far from 

 regarding this as a burdensome obligation, the 

 workmen are rather inclined to be vain of the 

 large amount of their debt, as showing the con- 

 fidence reposed in them by their masters. Then 

 we must note the sort of family relationship sub- 

 sisting between slave and master. Stimulated 

 by their religious sentiments to emancipate at 

 least one slave in each generation, some be- 

 lievers, even though they be not at all wealthy, 

 willingly devote their first savings to the pur- 

 chase of a slave, who soon becomes the com- 

 panion and the equal in all respects of their own 

 children. Without in the least cloaking the 

 vices which have transformed the ancient man- 

 ners of Turkey, the monographies do thus bring 

 out cleai'ly many a useful lesson in social har- 

 mony, that other nations might study with 

 profit. 



Facts like these might be multiplied, but the 

 foregoing will suffice to show how the author has 

 reached the conclusions which he now submits for 

 criticism and correction. In his opinion, the well- 

 being enjoyed undisturbed by the lower classes 

 in the East — a state of things which offers so 

 sharp a coutrast to the sufferings and the com- 

 plaints of the laboring-populations of the West — 

 has hitherto been dependent on three causes, viz. : 

 1. The fact that both among the Mussulmans and 

 the Christians, whether Orthodox or Catholic, the 

 observance of the moral law is firmly based on 

 religious belief ; 2. The institution of the patriar- 

 chal family, which brings all the descendants un- 

 der the strong authority of the father, and checks 



