Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/122

and oppressed with heavy servitude; for when any man who is attended by a host of servants, enters the house of any husbandman, he is at liberty to do with impunity whatever he thinks fit, to seize and consume any of the necessaries of life, and even cruelly to beat the husbandman himself. The husbandmen are not allowed access to their masters on any account without bringing presents, and when they are admitted, they are referred to the stewards and officials, who, unless they receive presents, will make no arrangement, nor give any decision to the advantage of the applicant. Nor was this the case only with the poor, but also with the nobles, whenever they wished to obtain any favour from their official superiors. I once heard a certain youthful minister, of high rank about the king, say that the only word in Lithuania was "gold". The king has an annual tax paid to him for defending the boundaries of the kingdom. Beyond the ordinary assessment, the people have to work for their masters six days out of the week. When a serf marries, or when his wife dies, or when his children are born, and also when they die, he is compelled to pay a certain sum at the time of the event being acknowledged. So heavy is the servitude in which they have been kept up to the present day, that if any man happen to be condemned to death, he is compelled, if his master order it, to take the infliction of the punishment upon himself, and to hang himself with his own hands; and if he should refuse to do so, he is first cruelly beaten, and then hanged, nevertheless, and brutally cut to pieces. With such severity is this process carried out, that if the judge or governor appointed to decide upon the case, should see any attempt at delay on the part of the culprit, and use a threat, or only say "make haste", the man's master becomes angry, upon which the wretch, in his dread of the extremity of punishment, puts an end to his own life with the noose.