r ,lf> 



o o 



BOORS. 



Boors. 





which be has to perform, and the amount of the tax 

 which he must pay, depends entirely on the will of his 

 tyrant. To render hid servitude still more oppressive, 

 he nnu.t resign to his lord a tythe of all the property 

 which he may earn by the culture of his little spot of 

 land, or by any manual employment ; and if by any 

 accident he should be deprived of the tribute which 

 he is expected to pay, he must beg, borrow, or steal, to 

 make up the deficiency. The master is obliged to fur- 

 iiish his vassal with a house, and a small portion of land, 

 the allotment of which is settled by the storasta, (el- 

 der of the village, ) and a meeting of the peasants them- 

 selves. If they happen to exercise any trade more 

 profitable than agricultural employments, the abrock 

 imposed upon them is proportionally higher. Pea- 

 sants employed as drivers, pay a certain portion even 

 of their drink money, for being permitted to drive. 

 The aged and infirm are allowed a certain portion of 

 food and raiment ; but if any of them chuse rather to 

 depend on public charity, than to subsist 011 the 

 wretched pittance which they receive from their lords, 

 they must pay a certain abrock out of what they 

 earn by begging. A master is allowed to correct his 

 slave by blows and confinement; but for any wanton 

 cruelty, is amenable to the laws, which are said to be 

 executed in such cases with the strictest impartiality. 

 A certain countess was lately confined in one of the 

 prisons near Moscow with an unrelenting severity, 

 which she had justly merited by her barbarity to- 

 wards her slaves. Instances of the most dreadful cru- 

 elty, however, frequently occur. M. Heber, as quo- 

 ted by Dr Clarke, mentions one instance of a noble- 

 man having caused his slave to be nailed to a cross. 

 The master was sent to a monastery, and the busi- 

 ness was hushed over. The slaves, in their turn, are 

 extremely vindictive. Some years ago, the master of 

 a distillery suddenly disappeared, and it was univer- 

 sally understood that his boors had thrown him into a 

 boiling vat. No slave can quit his village, or his mas- 

 ter's family, without a passport, which he must pro- 

 duce to the storasta of every town or village through 

 which he happens to pass. The punishment of a 

 runaway is imprisonment and hard labour in the go- 

 vernment workhouse ; and if a person be found dead 

 without a passport, his body is given for dissection. 

 The boors on the coasts or frontier provinces often 

 Jind means to effect their escape. In the interior it is 

 extremely difficult, yet desertion is very frequent, 

 particularly in summer, or when there is to be a new 

 levy of soldiers. A slave can, on no pretence, be sold 

 out of Russia, and in Russia to none but a person of 

 noble birth, and, if not noble, having at least the 

 rank of lieutenant-colonel. This law, however, is 

 sometimes evaded : Many of the boors are sold to 

 plebeians ; and all nobles have the privilege of letting 

 out their slaves for hire. In short, the condition of 

 the boors is, in general, deplorably wretched. The 

 only property which tlieir lords allow them to possess, 

 its thefood which they themselves cannot, or will not 

 tat, the bark of trees, chaff, and other refuse J grass, 

 water, and fish oil. 1 f by any means they, acquire any 

 portion of wealth, it becomes a very dangerous pos- 

 session, and when discovered, is invariably seized by 

 tlieir tyrannical lords. A peasant in the village of 

 Celo-Molody, near Moscow, who had accumulated 

 t/jnaiderabre wealth, wishing to marry his daughter to 



a tradesman of the city, offered his lord fifteen thou. Boon. 

 sand rubles for her liberty. The tyrant took the ^ -u 

 ransom, and then told the father, that both the girl 

 and the money were his property, and that she must 

 still continue among the number of his slaves. It is 

 thus," says Dr Clarke, " we behold the subjectsof a 

 vast empire stripped of all they possess, and existing 

 in the most abject servitude; victims of tyranny and 

 torture, of sorrow and poverty, of sickness and fa- 

 mine." M Traversing the provinces south of Musco- 

 vy," he continues, " the laud appears as the garden of 

 Eden, a fine soil, covered with corn, and apparently 

 smiling in plenty. Enter the cottage of the poor la- 

 bourer, surrounded by all these riches, and you find 

 him dying of hunger, or pining from bad food, and 

 in want of the common necessaries of life. Extensive- 

 pastures, covered with cattle, afford no milk to him. 

 In autumn, the harvest-field yields no' bread for his 

 children. The lord claims all the produce. Can 

 there be a more affecting sight than a Russian family 

 having got in an abundant harvest, in want of the 

 common stores to supply and support them, through 

 the rigours of their long and inclement winter !" 



The empress Catharine often expressed her anxie- 

 ty to abolish the system of vassalage throughout the 

 empire, or at least to ameliorate the condition of the 

 boors, and to restrain the abuses to which they were 

 exposed. To accomplish this benevolent purpose^ 

 she instituted a regular tribunal for the boors, entire- 

 ly chosen out of their owii body; delivered the boors 

 at the mines from the oppressive servitude in which 

 they had formerly been held; appointed overseers 

 arid guardians to prevent every species of violence; and 

 on all occasions recommended gentleness and huma- 

 nity, of which she herself exhibited a most laudable 

 example. 



By far the greater number of vassals in Russia are 

 those who have been born of bondmen. By the com- 

 mon law of Livonia, every child, born of an unmarried 

 vassal, belongs to the estate on which it is born, whe- 

 ther the father has been bondman or free. Peter I'., 

 however, ordained, that a child born in such circum- 

 stances should be free, if a freeman own himself its 

 father, and cause it to be baptised in his name. Not- 

 withstanding the degraded state in which the boors are 

 generally held, some of them rise to considerable re- 

 spectability. Several have been known to obtain com- 

 missions in the army for their good behaviour ; and 

 others live comfortably at home, having abundance of 

 wholesome food, and neat and becoming apparel. In 

 some villages they display a degree of comfort, and 

 even of wealth, which the peasantry of very few 

 countries can rival. 



A Russian nobleman estimates the value of his es- 

 tate by the number of his vassals, as a West Indian 

 estimates his by the number of hogsheads. Some of 

 them possess seventy, or even an hundred thousand. 



In all mortgages, the national lombard takes the 

 vassal at forty rubles ; but m the sale of an estate, 

 they are seldom or never estimated at so low a price. 

 In the government of St Petersburgh, every slave is 

 valued at '200 or 300 rubles, according to the qua- 

 lity of the estate ; in other parts of the empire their 

 price is commonly much lower, though there is scarce- 

 ly any part of the empire where it is under 100 rubles. 

 According to an enumeration of male inhabitants 



