Arizona weekly enterprise., 1882-08-26
RUSSIA.
Condition of the Peasants and Ex-
 Serfs.

SerfSs
 The incompletaness of national re- form is always proportioned to its vio- lence, and few favorite abuses are wont to finger long after the rest have vanished. More especially is this the case with Russia. Nine-tenths of the abuses swept away by the great tide of reform that flowed unchecked from 1861 to 1870 affected not the bulk of the Russian people, but merely the limited section of it compressed into the large towns. The popular belief that the Czar's decree of February, 1861, turned 23, 000,- 900 slaves into freemen is grievous error. All that it did was to substitute for the capricious tyranny of a master the organized tyranny of system. In some respects, no doubt, the Russian "moujik" has profted by the change. He can no longer be scourged, tor tured or killed with impunity. His term of military service has been vast ly abridged and frightened, and he has become, to some extent at least, land- holder and a citizen. But he IS as far from being really free as in the savage old days when Russia was wilderness infested with certain beasts of prey called nobles, who alternated between tearing each other and devouring the beasts of burden called peasants. He has been changed from well fed slave to half-starved freeman. Though no longer rooted like tree to the soil on which he was born, he is so hampered by official restrictions on one side and adverse circumstances on the other as to have practically just as little freedom of action ts ever. Thanks to his ill l judged haste in borrowing money to purchase land, his ignorance of farming and his utter want of thrift, he has passed from the power of master, whose interest 1t was to take good care of him, only to fall into that of ra- pacious usurer, whose interest 1t Ia to suck his blood to the last drop. In 8 word, his so-called s'hberty" is merely that of a convict who has been allowed the run of the prison courtyard
 Such are the conditions under which 49,00O, GOO Russians-23, GOO, GOO freed serfs and 26,0O0, 600 free peasants-are now living and have been living for years past. Naturally sluggish and fatalistic, and hindered from seeking better fortune elsewhere, the moujik makes no effort to devise a remedy fol his troubles, but vegetates on his unpro- ductive land in a state of helpless resig. nation, without fear and without hope. Moreover, to the evils of compulsory res. idence are not infrequentiy added those of compulsory migration. It is the greatest curse of despotism that, while resisting all moderate and rationa changes, 1t IS subject to 8 periodica mania for enforcing other changes of tht most violent and abnormal kind, as if tC assert it's own superiority over the very laws of nature. When any district O the Russian empire seems too thinly peopled its rulers meet the difficulty by simply decanting so many souls iron one province to another, who'll, ignoring such trifes as difference of soi and climate, insufficient transport, phys ical weakness, or want Of supplies. An, traveller who has encountered one of thes dismal caravans on the great plains o Siberia or Central Asia will not easil, forgot the sight. Men plodding througl the burning sand with bare and bleedin; feet: haggard, fever-stricken women toss ing restlessly among the sacks and chest of an unsheltered wagon, beneath vel tical sun; half-claa children, their eye red end swollen ftom want of sIeer their lips cracked and blistered wit thirst, their poor little faces black wit dust and sand flies, looking wistfully u as if wondering why no one tried to hel and comfort them; worn-out sutfere, dropping down on the march to die all
 be buried in the drifting sand, only to be dragged forth gain and torn piece meal by vultures almost before thei comrades are out of sight, and all thes horrors going on day after day, and wee after week, through a journey of seyer' thousand miles.