Historical and Statistical Sketch of Bessarabia…

Putting aside all political considerations, this measure of the government was unquestionably premature. Nothing in the moral or physical condition of the Bessarabians could as yet justify so radical a destruction of all that belonged to the old system. The state of the serfs was in fact very tolerable, and quite in harmony with the civilisation of the country. The peasants were no further bound to the soil, than inasmuch as a certain portion of it was placed at their disposal. Their duties to their lords were defined by rule, and consisted generally of eighteen days' labour in the year, some haulages, and the tithes of their produce. The landowners, no doubt, occasionally abused their power in a cruel manner; but these abuses were not without remedy. A resolute and conscientious administration might easily have put an end to them. Under the present system, the peasants possessing no lands appeared to us in reality much more enslaved, and in a far less satisfactory physical condition. Formerly, the interests of the lords and the serfs were closely united, the prosperity of either necessarily inferred that of the others; but now that the emancipated serfs, possessing no means of subsistence of their own, cultivate the land only in virtue of a contract, the landowners think only how to get as much profit out of them as possible, during the time the engagement lasts, and care nothing what becomes of them afterwards. The peasants, it is true, have a right of appealing to the tribunals; but in consequence of the venality of the latter, their complaints generally serve only to put them to expense, and make their condition worse. A rich boyar said very naively to me on this subject, "How do you suppose the husbandman can obtain justice, when for every egg he gives we give a silver ruble?" Again, the frequent changes of abode are very pernicious, from the loss of time and the expense they occasion. Other dwellings must be built, new habits must be contracted; the peasant is soon reduced to destitution, and finds himself obliged to accept whatever terms are offered him. In this way the dependence of the rural population is but the more grievous for being limited, and their situation towards the landlords is without security for the present, or guarantee for the future. Nor have their duty labours undergone any modification, and the abuses are exactly the same as under the old regime. Without exceeding the limits of the regulations, a peasant pays his master tithes of all agricultural produce, besides 1^r.20 for every head of large cattle, 0.16 for each sheep, and one hive of honey out of every fifty he possesses. He takes upon himself, moreover, all repairs of buildings, enclosures, &c., supplies night watchers, executes annually at least three haulages over thirty-eight miles of ground, and seldom works less than twenty-eight or thirty days for his landlord, often as much as fifty or even sixty. In point of physical welfare, therefore, the results of emancipation are quite illusory, and the more so as the peasants enjoy no political rights, and support all the burdens and corvees. In fine, the new system has as yet produced only loss, trouble, and embarrassment, both to large and small fortunes. As to hopes for the future, none can be seriously conceived, except for very distant times. It will require many years even for a wise and enlightened administration to rectify the state of a country whose population consists of a scanty body of landowners, and a mass of peasants without fixed domicile, possessing no other resources than the chance of a limited engagement, and the labour of their hands.