MOSCOW. 219 
I 
to give him three days of labour during each C i I x. r ‘ 
week, the annual tax is said to be proportionally 
drive ; as, otherwise, the master might employ them in other less pro- 
fitable labour, on his own account. The aged and infirm are provided 
with food, and raiment, and lodging, at their owner’s expense. Such 
as prefer casual charity to the miserable pittance they receive from 
their master, are frequently furnished with passports, and allowed to 
seek their fortune ; but they sometimes pay an abrock even for this 
permission to beg. The number of beggars in Petersburg is very small ; 
as when one is found, he is immediately seut back to his owner. In 
Moscow , and other towns, they are numerous ; though I think less so 
than in London. They beg with great modesty, in a low and humble 
tone of voice, frequently crossing themselves, and are much less cla- 
morous and importunate than a London beggar. 
“ The master has the po.ver of correcting his slaves, by blows or 
confinement ; but if he be guilty of any great cruelty, he is amenable 
to the laws ; which are, we are told, executed in this point with im- 
partiality. In one of the towers of Khitaigorod , at Moscow , there was 
a Countess Soltihof confined for many years with a most unrelenting 
severity, which she merited, for cruelty to her slaves. Instances of 
barbarity are, however, by no means rare. At Kostroma , the sister of 
Mr. Kotchelof , the governor, gave me an instance of a nobleman who 
had nailed (if I understood her right) his servant to a cross. The 
master was sent to a monastery, and the business hushed up. Domes- 
tic servants, and those employed in manufactories, as they are more 
exposed to cruelty, so they sometimes revenge themselves in a terrible 
manner. The brother of a lady of our acquaintance, who had a great, 
distillery, disappeared suddenly, and was pretty easily guessed to have 
been thrown into a boiling copper by his slaves. We heard another 
instauce, though not from equally good authority, of a lady, now in 
Moscow , who had been poisoned three several times by her servants. 
“ No slave can quit his village, or his master’s family, without a 
passport. Any person arriving in a town or village, must produce his 
to the Starosta; and no one can harbour a stranger without one. If 
a person be found dead without a passport, his body is sent to the hos- 
pital for dissection ; of which we saw an instance. I he punishment 
®f living runaways, is imprisonment, and hard labour in the Govern- 
ment works ; and a master may send to the public workhouse any 
peasant 
