The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-09 00:00:00

FLANDERS MAIL.

BRUSSELS, MAY 6.—M. Bothori, who has just com-
pleted a carriage which moves alone without steam,
with galvanism, and without horses, set out a week
ago to fetch the two millions in silver, which Rothschild
has promised him if he will bring them from Paris to
Brussels with his carriage in fifteen hours. He is ex-
pected at seven o'clock on Sunday evening at the An-
derlecht gate.
The Commissioners sent from Brussels for the pur-
pose of examining into the practicability of founding a
colony in Brazil, have arrived at Rio de Janeiro. Let-
ters received at Antwerp state that they were fiefourably
received by the Congress of Brazil, which seems disposed
to grant the society all the concessions that it can desire.

tit/Ail-AN 10 U biIDS..-BAUFSELII, MAT 6.
Actual Debt, 2% per Cent.
Rothschild's Lean 5 per Om t........
Loan of Thirty Millions, 4 per Cent. 93%
• 3 per Cent. —
----
(1340) •I(5
Loan of City, 1:32, 4 per Cent. • It 4
Society af Commorce, 4 liper Cent F6
Bank of Belgium, 5 per Cent .............
National Society ............. ................... ...
Exchange on London (shott)

Thirty.seven.

—Brussels Papers, May 6.
AUSTRIAN FUNDS..-VigsNA, Aran VI.
r iveper Cents. tetalliquel
Four per Cents.
Three per Cents. • 76%
.
Rank Shares
HAMBURGH BORSENHALLE, MAT 3.
Bills. Money.
Austrian 5 per Cents.
Bank Shares 1707 1709
Anglo-Russian Loan llOl4 1 lu4
Russian 5 per Cent., Ist series, Certificate...- +ol
Inscription, Ist series.
Russian b per Cent. Hope and Co., 3d and 4th
Series 99
Ditto in Certificates !9 --
hew 4 per Cent. (1840) 894, 894 a
Dutch Actual Debt, % per Cent. .........
Ditto 5 per CenL ......... -
Polish Bonds 155
New Tickets. 174

Anglo-Danish Loan, 3 per Cent. 79% 79
Spanish, New 5 per Cents. . 18 --
EXCHANGES ON LONDON.

HAMBURG'', MAY 3.-13 1.,t6, Two months 1; 8%.
PETERSBURG, APRIL 22.—Three months, 37 31-32 pence.
STOCKHOLM, APRIL 26. Seventy-nve days, 12 12.
PRUSSIAN FUNDS.—BERLIN, APRIL 30.
Bills. Money.
St. Schuld Sch., 4 per cent. 104% 144%
Prussian English Bond, 1830, per cent It 3 102%
Enchange on London 6 22% 6 22%
Prussian State Gazette, May 1.

THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, THE
RUSSIAN NOBILITY, AND THE SERF POPU-
LATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.
We publish subjoined a document of much importance—
namely, an ukase of the Emperor of Russia for ameliorating
the condition of the serf population of h.s empire. We give
at the same time an order of the Minister of the Interior, and
a circular letter of the Grand Master of Police, accompanying
the ukase, modifying and limiting the sense of the Imperial edict.
An apparent contradiction is evident in the text of those
documents. It seems as if the benevolent intentions of the
Emperor were arrested almost on the point of execution, by an
after thought Gf policy, forced upon him by unseen obstacles
which had arisen. We are enabled, however, by a communi-
cation from Vienna, of a confidential and important nature, to
explain this seeming inconsistency.
We are told that the Emperor of Russia, having resolved to
liberate, in one sweeping act, the immense
.portion of the po-
pulation of his empire born in a state of servitude, lately called
together the Council of State, for the purpose of making his
intentions known. Tha proposition was received by the sub-
servient pillion of the Council with satisfaction ; but the old
and powerful nobility present declared that such an act was
tantamount to a revolution—that it endengered their lives and
properties, and that, in honour and conscience, they could not
adopt it.
'I he Council separated without any decision being taken,
and the utmost secrecy was for some time preserved on the
subject. But a matter so important to all the great interests
of the nobility and inferior classes could not long be suppressed,
and at length the public became alarmed with reports relative
to ths Emperor's intentions. The old nobility (whose fathers
have heretofore proved what desperate expediencies they were
capable of resorting to, when their interests were affected by
the Imperial will,) assumed atone, almost amounting to menace,
against the Emperor, while, on the other band, the liberal
portion of that class, supported by popular opinion, openly
avowed their approbation of the Autocrat's conduct.
In this state of things the Emperor was forced to compro-
mise, and, unwilling either to give up his favourite project,
or to have the appearance of yielding to the clamour of the
old nobility, he issued the ukase above alluded to for the modi-
fication of the condition of the serfs, accompanied at the same
time by an order of the police, explaining it in a manner cal-
culated to satisfy the apprehensions of the opposition.
The question now remains in this rather uncertain position.
The violent and headstrong character of the Emperor, who is
never known to recede from any resolution deliberately formed,
gives reasons to believe that he will proceed to other and more
decided acts, while the deeply-rooted prejudices of the nobility,
who are equally reckless in their resolves, may lead them,
rather than submit, to make such a resistance as might be fatal
to the Emperor.
Viewing this subject in all its bearings, it is one of great im-
portance, ,and neither the Revolution of 1830 in France, nor the
Reform Act in this country, have led to the, serious conse-
quences which may arise from further agitation of it.
We need only add that our information on this matter is
drawn from the best and most authentic sources.
UKASE TO: THE DIRECTING SENATE.
In the ukase of his Majesty to the Directing Senate, dated
2d of April of this year, and signed with his own hand, it
is raid:—
" The articles 440 and 457 of paragraph 9 in the code of
laws, fixes the regulations according to which seigneurs are
allowed to convert their serfs into free labourers, in making
over to these in full property seignorial lands, in consideration
of certain reciprocal advantages to be specified in special con-
tracts. But, willing, in the interest of the State that these
feudal lands; one of the privileges of the nobility, and which
are engaged by contract, be guaranteed from all that might
endanger property belonging to the nobility, we have Thought
proper, by interpreting article 442, paragraph 9of the codes of
laws, to concede to the seigneurs who should be disposed to
conclude with their peasantry contracts based on the skid ar-
ticle, and this without prejudice to the interests of the labour-
ing peasantry, to concede to them the right of supremacy over
the lands thus conceded. And we order that all peasants who
shall receive portions of the said feudal lands to recognise this
supremacy. 'Wherefore we have decided that all contracts
passed by mutual consent between the seigneurs and their
peasantry shall be based on the following dispositions, which
have been examined in the Council of the empire, and sanc-
tioned by us
" 1. The tenure of the peasant to the seigneur can be regu-
lated in the contracts by money arising from the produce of
the land, or from any other kind of industry.
"2. Should the peasant refuse to fulfil the conditions of the
contract which they have accepted, they shall be compelled
thereto by the local police, under the guarantee of the head
of the nobility of the distict, and under the superintendence of
the Government authorities.
" Ihe peasants who shall have entered into contracts
with their seigneurs shall henceforward bear the denomination
of 'peasants who have obligations to fulfil.'
"4. In as far as these peasants are concerned, the recruiting
service shall follow the rotation laid down by the ordonnances
for that service.
"5. With respect to the support of the Greniers d' Abon-
dances (depots for grain), and the assistance to be given in
case of fire, which are at the charge o(' the free peasants,
under the direction of their seigneurs, if the latter refuse to
take upon them this responsibility, the obligation shall be ful-
filled by the nearest authorities.
"6. The seigneurs shall organise among the labouring pea-
santry a local administration, and shall have the high police.
" 7. As for the contracts to conclude with the peasants who
belong to the properties engaged with the banks of the empire,
if the intention of, the seigneurs these properties in pledge,
they must obtain the content of the bank before passing a
contract.
"8. The seigneurs and the labouring peasants, who will
have been liberated, are to consider the contracts passed between
them as indissoluble, each, however, keeping the right to
change certain clauses of it in case the property should be
engaged to the banks of the Crown. These charges must be
guaranteed by those banks.
" 9. The contracts entered into according to the above dis-
positions shall be drawn upon stamped paper of the fourth class,
and submitted for our sanction tnd signature according to law.
"10. The directing Senate is entrusted with the carrying
into effect of this ukase."
" The next document is from the Minister of the Interior,
dated April 2, 1842, addressed to the head of the police at St.
Petersburgh. The Minister, in forwarding the above ukase,
says that the object of it is to determine the nature of the te-
nure of the peasantry in the contracts they will form with
their seigneurs, but that the lands remain, as heretofore, the
lands of the nobility. From hence it clearly results, that the
relations which exist between the seigneurs and the peasants,
with whom no contract should have been concluded, remain
the same as ever, and experience no change. All this is ex-
plained in the terms of the ukase, and it must be understood
in that spirit. If the Emperor had had any other view he
would have openly declared, it. As he has not done so, to seek
in the imperial ukase, or to persuade ethers that it can bear
any other signification, would be a great crime, since it will be
acting against the will of our Sovereign.
" His Majesty therefore orders to all military and civil
Governors to watch with care that no false interpretation be
given to the present ukase, such, for instance, as the freedom
of all peasantry. If among any class should bo found eviledis •
posed persons, spreading false and dangerous intelligence to
delude the people, they are to be arrested and punished with all
the rigour of the law.
" They are equally to take care that the peasants remain in
the same subserviency to the legitimate power of their
seigneurs. If any should prove contumacious, they, are to he
brought back to their duty by mild means and persuasion, and
in failure of this by the rigour of the law.
(Signed) " PEROWSKY."
"To this letter is subjoined an order from the Grand
Master of the Police, aide-de-camp of the Emperor, prescribing
to the masters of police to give their utmost attention to pre-
vent any false interpretations and false reports that may be
spread about on the imperial intentions as manifested in the
above ukase.

(Signed) "CACOCHEKINE,
Grand Master of Police."

LEARNixa TDB; SWORD ExEubige.—On Tuesday
evening, as Sergeait Rarnsden, belonging to the Arundel and
Bramber Corps of Yeomanry Cavalry, was giving a few les-
sons to a recruit, who had recently entered the service, in-
cautiously allowed him to use the naked sword, and, in the act
of " cutting six," the unfortunate sergeant had his rr se nearly
half cut off, but a medical gentleman being on the spot, -ban-
dages were applied, and we are happy, to say the poor fellow
is doing well. •

....,..,, ~ J.