I was not a little rejoiced when my letters of recommendation procured me better accommodation in the house of a wealthy merchant, who received me kindly. His property was valued at 17,000,000 rubles, which he had accumulated from the profits of selling brandy — a privilege which is farmed out by the government. Mr. T., a town-counsellor and potshetnoi grashdanin (highly honourable burgher), was born in some peasant's hut, a serf of the Sheremetieff or Demidofif. He is now an otkuptshik (brandyfarmer), and has for a number of years secured the privilege of supplying the people of St. Petersburg, and all the cities in ten other Russian governments, with spirits. A large part of this 17,000,000 rubles is, therefore, probably made up from the billions of copeks paid by the mushiks for their drams. Mr. T. has in his service a guard of several thousand men obyeshfshiks, or riders), armed with large whips and iron rods, to watch the towns he farms, and pre^'ent the introduction of Uquor from other quarters. Millions pass yearly through his hands, and he keeps up a correspondence with half Russia. Dm'ing my stay in Kharkoff one of his sons arrived from one of the governments of Siberia, with a million and a half in ready money, the product of his speculations for the last three years. I coidd not tliink without a shudder of the milhons who had swallowed the fiery poison to swell that heap !
Many wiQ inquire cmiously about the counting-house arrangements, which enable Mr. T. to carry on business on such a scale. Every grocer in a large way with us has his counting-house, and there are milk-dealers in London, who keep clerks and bookkeepei-s. It may excite some astonishment, therefore, among' our merchants, to hear that Mr. T., who with the money raised by farming brandy, has founded a midtitude of ostabhshments of other kinds, and has manufactories, sheep-farms, landed estates, &c., scattered throughout the empire, has no other accounts relative to his farextended commerce than what he is able to carry in his own head. He has much natural abihty, and an astonishing memory for figures. He knows all the governments of Russia in detail, retains the most exact statistics of Russian thijst in his head, and knows to a hair how much strong liquor this or that city consumes, and how far he may go in his contracts with government. In his minute knowledge of his native land, obtained by multiplied experience and countless journeys, his main strength lies, and if he did not find it to his interest to keep all this a profound secret, he could certainly give more minute statistical information than the journals of St. Petersburg, and much more trustworthy. His second assistant in his business is his reckoning-board, on which he pushes the beads backwards and forwards till he sees that so many hundred thousands clear profit will be the result of his labours. Bookkeeping by double entry he knows nothing about. Except the profits, there is nothing double in his business, all is in the highest degree simple. The contracts with his agents, riders, &c., are concluded by word of mouth, and in a hundred cases the presence of the principal, who flies from place to place with his six fleet horses, accomplishes what a voluminous correspondence would leave but half accomphshed. Mr. T. has three sons, to one of whom he has made over the. Siberian portion of his business, another overlooks St. Petersburg, and a third the territory about the Volga. These gentlemen travel about as their father does, and come occasionally to Kharkoif to give an account of their stewai-dship, and empty their purses into the common stock.