Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1858-07-17
Emnncipn1iOD of serfa In RunSin.
TRANSLATED for the N " POST the Correspondence
the Independence BeIge.l
Sr PErERsBuRG, MAY "a 05,) 1858.


ST. PETERSBURG, May "a Q5) 1858.
You know how far the grand scheme OF eman.
cipation is advanced. The committees are hard
at work but, pending their decisions about put
ting the act into operation, means should have
been employed to have its principles sanctioned
in the public records, without, however, inter
fering with the committees deliberations inns
is now accomplished. A ukase dated the l1th
(29th) of May, or according to some, the l4th
(2Gth) declares legal and preremptory the aoo-
liton of serfdom in Russia must tell you
that the deeds of the sale of real estate are made
out in the provincial and district civil courts;
the formula of these documents, when the sale
was one of land, containing villages and peas
ants, invariably commenced in these words:
"Such party sells to such party so many
souls (douchbi,) or hundred souls (of peasants)
with their wives their children and, generally,
all they possess, etc.
Thus. both soul and body were sold, and with
the sale of family went the enormous privi-
leges which ancient customs and the law gave
land owners on their serfS. But the ukase OF
the nth (26tD of May puts an end to this
shameful traffic in human species tits address
sed to the courts, and requires them to give
notice at every sale of land with inhabitants,
that the soil, with the houses and other build
ings erected upon it, is alone to be sold, and
that the deed shall mention the peasants simply
as a statistical datum.
1t is n singular InlnS tnaC Ine meaning VI
this ukase, so clear and evident, was no! at first
understood; and many have ingeniously asked
what it meant. From this moment the Rus
sian serf is raised from his AMUSEMENT in society,
while his right to property is now secured
Henceforth we shall no longer witness whole
tribes transferred from one estate to another,
by the caprice Of their master, and with
out any consideration as to the distance
or climate, which lately occurred close
to the very gates of St. Petersburgh, when
serfs were sent to the opposite bank of the
river, and if do not mistake, to the village
Of Bcklechorka. More than quarter of CEN
fury ago, the owners of this place brought to
populate it number of peasants from land they
possessed three hundred yersts distant, in the
government Pskof. The Russian peasant is in
dustriOus These serfs, after they had submitted
to their masters will, began to turn their new
position to account, commenced building small
country seats, to let in the summer time to the
inhabitants of the capital, to raise vegetables,
rear cows, &c. They thus became comfortable
aud awell provided, owing these advantages
entirely to their labor and industry; when, at
the end of thirty years the actual owner of
Beklechorka takes n fancy suddenly to send
them back to their former villages long since
forgotten, and which many of them have never
even see. need not represent to you the de-
Spair Of those unfortunate creatures. Their de-
parturc, as related to me by an eyewitness, was
heartrending sight. 1t is unnecessary to add,
that the houses which they built have passed
into the hands of the landowner, who will let
them for his own benefit.