place.

the interests at least of those who had any- | been to connect the peasants more closely thing to lose. They had indeed been serfs, with the nobles and the larger landowners and had suffered much in former times for the defence of their common interests, from their masters; but those times were and this state of feeling will probably congone, and they were emancipated long tinue, unless a forcible confiscation takes before the abolition of serfdom had been proclaimed in Russia. They had now The second attack of the Muscovite become peasant-farmers and proprietors, press was directed against the Lutheran and they lived on the very best terms with Church and the German schools in the their former lords. Agriculture was in a Baltic provinces. The capitulation of 1702, prosperous state; the Diets advanced by which Livland and Esthland had become money for improvements, particularly for members of the Russian Empire, guarandraining the marshy soil. When therefore teed to them the right of Protestant worthe Moscow party promised them a new ship, whilst in all the other provinces the agrarian era, under a system diametrically Orthodox Church alone was recognized. opposed to that to which they owed their The Russian code, the Swod, forbids mempresent state of progress, they naturally bers of the Greek Church to pass over to asked how it was that in the Baltic prov- any other religious community; mixed marinces, where personal property in the soil riages are to be solemnized exclusively prevailed, land fetched thirty times and according to the orthodox rite; a Lutheran more the price of what it sold for in Russia, or Catholic priest who admits a member of where agrarian communism was practised? the Greek Church into his community loses They knew and saw that in the neighbour- his benefice. Proselytism is punished by ing Russian provinces where the principle banishment to Siberia; the Greek Church of equal and periodically-renewed distribu- alone has the right of converting to its tion of the soil is established, the peasant creed those who do not belong to it. cannot raise himself above the level of his fellow-brethren, that no advantage accrues to him by industry and intelligence. Why then should they adopt a tenure which seems inevitably to cast a blight on all national agriculture wherever it exists?

Till 1838 these intolerant enactments were never applied to Finland and the Baltic provinces; but at that time they were introduced in spite of the undoubted and established privileges of the people, and a Greek bishopric was founded in Riga for the express purpose of conversion. Promises of every kind were held out to those who would pass over to the Orthodox Church-exemption from military service, remission of taxes, free grants of land in Southern Russia, free education of the children at the expense of the Crown, and advantageous employment in the public service.

It is possible that the new gospel of Russian democracy found a favourable reception among the Lithuanian peasant-serfs, to whom the estates of their former masters were distributed by Muravieff; if a man has nothing, he will not reject a doctrine which places something within his reach. But by the same reason the Lettish and Finnish peasant was not allured by the bait offered to him, and the Moscow press has It is not surprising that many of the hitherto vainly endeavoured to convince poorer classes were deluded by these proshim of the advantages of the Russian sys- pects, particularly as there had been a tem. Their daily clamour for an agrarian famine in 1840, and great destitution prerevolution in the Baltic provinces has in- vailed in the country. Misled by the deed done great harm to the landed interest, deceitful promises of Russian itinerant because the incessant assurances of the preachers, about 100,000 of the poorest Russian papers that the Imperial Govern- Letts and Esths passed over to the "Forment was about to act on their principles eign Church," as they called it, in order to created numerous perturbations in the exist-purchase a better future. These deluded ing conditions of property, particularly people had to pay dearly for their apostasy; after two unusually bad harvests. But in none of the promises made to them were consequence of the urgent representations fulfilled, and they found themselves exof the Governor-General, Count Albedin- cluded from the educational institutions of sky, that the sweeping measures advocated their Lutheran brethren. Living in the by Katkoff and his disciples would throw all the agrarian relations of the provinces into bottomless confusion, the Government remained passive. The result of the communist campaign against the tenure of land in the Baltic provinces has therefore thus far

midst of a Protestant country, they were separated by their nationality from the Russian people, whose crude system of worship soon became disgusting to them; and the Greek priests showed a contemptuous indifference to their fate when once they had

been enrolled as members of the Orthodox | sation of the Letts and Esths, was immediChurch. They had contracted an obliga- ately deposed. The national party is contion which they soon found it difficult to stantly endeavouring to prove that the inshake off. Nevertheless, a mighty reaction terests of the Empire demand the degradasoon occurred, the converts poured in tion of the Lutheran Church in the Baltic crowds to the secular and religious authori- provinces to the position of a tolerated ties of the country, imploring to be re- heresy, which it holds in the rest of Russia. ceived back into the Lutheran Church; but They therefore encourage different sects they were met by the inexorable law that which have recently appeared, particularly whoever belonged to the Orthodox Church the Baptist immigrants, who, molested in could not leave it again. When the re- Prussia, have come in considerable numbers quests and remonstrances of this con- to Curland. science-troubled multitude met with a flat Especial zeal was displayed against the refusal, the indignant proselytes declared German tendency and character of the Balthat nothing at least should ever compel tic school-system. Russian schools were them to attend the service of the Orthodox established, not only in Riga, but in other ritual. The Lutheran clergy being forbid- towns, where scarcely any Russian populaden under severe penalities to administer tion exists, and in all national schools into them the sacramental rites, they thronged struction in the Russian language is renin disguise to the Lord's Supper. They introduced a sort of civil marrriage amongst themselves, and baptised their own children. The government resorted in vain to means of persuasion and violence, but it was at last obliged to let the matter drop, and to check the misplaced zeal for conversion which had produced such deplorable results. The law against mixed marriages remained in force, however, and in spite of all the representations of the Russian governors, children were torn forcibly from their parents who wished to educate them as Protestants. At last, in 1864, the Government tacitly allowed the inhabitants of the Baltic provinces freedom of confession with regard to children born in mixed marriages. The Moscow press attacked this decison as a wilful injury done to the most sacred interests of Russia and her Church; and in spite of the complaints of the wretched converts, who vainly implored permission to return to their original creed, the Russian party never ceased to complain of the oppression of the Greek Church in Livland. The Greek clergy opposed a passive resistance to every concession, by refusing to perform the marriage ceremony between persons of the Orthodox and the Lutheran faith; and in the following year the Government sanctioned this refusal as against the Lutherans. In 1867 the Orthodox Archbishop of Riga publicly insulted the Lutheran Church in a pastoral letter which put the whole country in commotion; but he was simply translated to a bishopric in Southern Russia. But a Protestant clergyman was deposed from his office because many years before he had censured the worship of pictures. In like manner, the Lutheran Bishop of Livland, Dr. Walter, having ventured to allude in a sermon to the necessary and natural Germani

dered obligatory. The provost of the University of Dorpat, who is at the head of the educational department in the provinces, has been coupled with a Russian colleague, specially appointed to watch over the interests of the Russian language-i. e., its extension, and the gradual extinction of German in the schools. The University itself, as one of the strongest bulwarks of German civilization and Protestantism, is of course an object of particular hatred to the Moscow party. No pains are spared to undermine it, and to transform it eventually into a Russian institution. The natural consequence of these principles is that the introduction of Russian language in the Courts of law and in the administrative departments is demanded in the name of equality and progress. The old law of the country, confirmed by the capitulation of 1702, distinctly established a purely German administration. Even a decree of 1845, regulating the civil administration of the Baltic provinces, acknowledged that public affairs were generally to be transacted in German, except that in the parish vestries the prevailing local idiom-i.e. the Esthnic or Lettish language was to be adopted. In 1850, for the first time, the Emperor Nicolas prescribed that in all transactions of the Government authorities the Russian language was to be introduced. This decree remained a dead letter, because not one in fifteen of the civil functionaries could speak or write Russian. In 1867 the edict of 1850 was renewed; henceforth only persons conversant with the Russian language were to be appointed as officers of the Crown. The Governor-General notified that for the future letters written in Russian would alone be received by the public authorities. This notification was sent in Russian to the senates of the cities, to the

:

Peter the Great, after the peace of Nystadt, claimed a vote in the German Diet at Ratisbon, because he had become sovereign of a province which belonged to the Empire and had never ceased to do so; and the time may come, perhaps it is come already, when the Germans will seek to resist this odious persecution of the property, the religion, and the language of their northern brethren. But the final issue of this struggle will depend mainly on the internal policy of Russia. Whilst railways are progressing, agriculture is fast retrograding in the Empire. The communist tenure of land and the system of temporary distribution of holdings, above described, was possible only as long as the peasants were serfs and could be forced to work in the fields by their masters. But now being free to do as they like, they only work as much as is necessary to keep themselves from starvation; the rest of their time, which formerly belonged to their masters, is spent in the brandy-shops. Drunkenness is increasing in frightful proportions. The peasant moreover knows that his bankruptcy does not place him in embarrassment, but the village; according to the communist system, the community, not the individual member of it, is responsible. This is enough to check all assiduity and

local courts and justices of peace, who in against a German race; nevertheless she is their turn sent back these rescripts, because anxious to remain on good terms with they could not understand them. After Russia. It is however remarkable, that much dispute the Government was obliged to give way so far as to send a German translation with the original text. In St. Petersburg, indeed, men were not wanting, able to discern how deeply the forcible introduction of a difficult foreign language must disturb all private and public interests, and injure the transaction of business. They saw that it was impossible to enforce such a system from want of a staff of officials who could speak and write the Russian language; and they knew that it was equally impossible to introduce into the Baltic provinces the ignorant and corrupt functionaries of the interior of the Empire. But these more moderate men were few and isolated, whilst Katkoff's party numbered numerous adherents at the head of affairs, and exercised great influence. The remonstrances of the moderates and the indignant protestations of the Baltic population have alike been overruled; and thus one by one the intelligent and highly-deserving Baltic statesmen have been removed from the higher posts and replaced by Russians who know nothing of the country. When the magistrates and the Diets complained of breach of privileges, their addresses were answered by severe rebukes or not received at all. The Baltic press was restricted from any effectual defence of the interests of the country; for whilst improvement. The nobility is nearly ruthe press of Moscow had unlimited liberty of attack, the censorship was maintained in Riga, Dorpat, and Reval. The provincial newspapers could therefore only answer their opponents so far as the Russian censor would allow it, and whoever resorted to foreign journals was declared a traitor, conspiring with Count Bismarck to sever the provinces from the Empire. For the Esthnic and Lettish prints there is only one censor in the three provinces, the manuscripts of all books, papers, prayer-books, &c., edited in those languages, must be sent to Riga, to receive his imprimatur.

un

ined; it has lost immensely by the abolition of serfdom; and the highest wages will not induce the peasants to dertake the regular cultivation of the lands of their former lords. In short, if the picture drawn by Dr. Eckardt and the other writers before us is correct, Russian landed society is in a state of moral and economical dissolution, which sooner or later must produce a terrible crisis.

To this disordered society, instead of trying to cure the dangerous disease which consumes its best forces, the Moscow party is preaching a crusade against the heteroHow long the Baltic provinces will be dox boundary provinces. Five millions of able to stand this siege of the democratic Catholic Poles, two and a half millions of party, backed by the autocratic authority Protestant Swedes, Germans, Finlanders, of the Czar, nobody can tell. They have Letts, and Esths, are to disappear, in order little to hope for from foreign intervention. to realize the Emperor Nicolas' shibboSweden, which would have a right to in- leth, one God, one Czar, one language. terfere as a party to the peace of Nystadt, We doubt the success of the experiment, by which the privileges of the provinces were confirmed, has neither the power nor the interest to quarrel with so dangerous a neighbour for such a cause. Prussia has no right to interfere, but looks of course with pain at this war of extermination

even though it be attempted by all the power of the Court of St. Petersburg, backed by the enthusiasm of the Russian democrats. The absorption and assimilation of nationalities is one of the slowest and most difficult processes in history. It

has not been accomplished in these islands. | against it. What you attempt now has

been

It has not even been accomplished in equally tried by Polish and Swedish kings France. Least of all can it be effected by both in their turn the most powerful rulers in persecution or by the brute ascendency of Eastern Europe; we have been obliged to give an inferior over a superior and more civi- way for the moment, but our right proved lised race. But the nationalities against stronger than the power which had curbed it. which the Moscow press declares war in We are convinced that also in this century it the name of democratic progress, stand on The inhabitants of a country which for seven will be strong enough to outlive your aggression. a much higher level than the Russian hundred years has lived under German influpeople. Professor Schirren, in his able ence, cannot in a few years be transformed into answer to Juri Samarin, who accuses the Russians; you may cripple the strength of an Baltic provinces of conspiring against Rus-aged tree, you may cut it down, but you cannot sia, says with perfect justice:

transplant it like a sapling, nor compel it to produce another kind of fruit by compulsory grafting."

The respectful petition which the Diet

"Our culture is our conspiracy: we have always been faithful to the Emperor; we have never shrunk from the greatest sacrifices, even The rage which Schirren's pamphlet prowhen they were required of us in support of a voked in the Moscow press, compelled bad system; we even are willing to be Russified the Government to dismiss him from the if you can do so by legal means, and by convincing us of the superiority of your intellectual professorship of history in Dorpat, but his culture; but we protest against the method answer has never been refuted. which you adopt. As long as you have nothing to offer but an agricultural system, which would of Livland has lately addressed to the turn our country into a wilderness, a Church Emperor, enumerating the violations of the which sanctions the most abject Cæsaro-papism, constitution and praying for its re-estaband as long as you have no other means of pro- lishment, has received a negative answer. pagandism but brute force, we shall maintain The country is obliged to suffer in silence, our institutions and our autonomy to the very and bide its time, but no pressure will exlast. We have not been incorporated by con- tort from it a voluntary abandonment of quest, but by a bilateral contract, by which the its right. The people of the Baltic provcountry acknowledged under certain and well- inces are confident that the experiment of defined conditions the Russian Czar at its mas- Russifying by compulsion five different ter, whilst he solemnly promised to maintain nationalities must in the long run prove a these conditions. Our ancient privileges were disastrous failure and recoil on its authors. confirmed by the Capitulation of 1702, which is published in the general collection of Russian They maintain that their cause is that of laws, which has been acknowledged by all the Western civilization, against Russian barEmperors of Russia, and which, up to this day, barism, to which the theories of Herzen forms the only basis of our political relation to and Katkoff have only given a superficial the Russian Crown. You may induce the Gov- varnish, and they answer to every new agernment to violate our rights, and we may be gression of the Moscow fanatics, "You obliged to submit, but whilst obeying the as- may oppress us, but you will not subdue cendency of force we shall never cease to protest us."

It will be well if the Francophobia now rag- own language. This does no permanent injury ing in Germany puts a stop to the deterioration to the mother tongue, and Dickens's well-known of the German language by the incorporation objection to the use of any foreign words whatof French words. The Cologne Gazette, speak-ever was carried rather too far, but a German ing of the Emperor's proclamation to the fleet, Dickens would have sound cause for complaint. is guilty of this offence, as well as of incivility, when it remarks that this production is as colourless and "affectirt" as though he had drawn it from the soul of his wife Eugenie. The naturalization of French words in Germany has reached an absurd pitch. Such expressions as Ich bin frappirt," "Er ist hochst amusant," &c., are of constant occurrence. Many English writers, it is true, use French words too often, but they only employ them as quotations, and do not amalgamate them into their

A CURIOUS discussion has arisen in Bombay. Tigers having come to Salsette and killed several people, the magistrates applied to increase the reward, but the Government have refused, thinking that the report of the presence of tigers there will attract English sportsmen from Bombay.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

"SIC TRANSIT."

Ident hope of netting by it, from first to last, some 30,000l. Yet he trusted they would find elements of comfort in the case, to soften a blow that must fall heavily at best, and he should have been cheered indeed when first taken into their melancholy confidence, could he have hoped the state of things he had a certain satisfaction in reporting, would have been half so favourable.

FOR the last time we assemble with the members of the fallen Company. A different gathering it was from the days when, blooded to gold, they gathered to listen to flattering tales, vote themselves dividends and bonuses, and cheer their Governor to the echo. A liquidator, with tongue drop-In the first place, he had the pleasure of ping gall instead of honey, looked down on informing them, that a member of their blank and black, instead of beaming faces. body and a fellow-sufferer, who, it apThere were visages the last month or two peared, laboured under the additional mishad drawn out by inches like the india-rub- fortune of being related by ties of blood to ber ones that change as you press them, their absconded Manager (vells, howls, from smiles to unutterable woe. There and groans of execration), — that this genwere pale cheeks and sunken eyes, quiver- tleman had exerted himself, and exerted ing lips, and slovenly toilettes, and hands himself successfully, to recover much of the that trembled as they fumbled with docu- abstracted property. Moreover, independments that had been officially circulated ent of its very considerable actual value, one of them containing a general review of that recovery had enabled him to form a the situation, the other formally calling tolerably reliable estimate of their prosupon the contributors to show cause why pects. In making it, he had been naturally they should refuse to listen to a 67. call. led to examine cursorily into their prospectConticuere omnes, intentique ora tenebant. ive assets. Here he was happy to have it In the suspense of the coming explanation, in his power to pay a high tribute to the late pregnant with his fate, no man felt much management. He could assure the meeting disposed to talk or even to grumble: the room was pervaded with the rustle of papers and a murmur that might have come from souls moaning in the dull pains of a distant purgatory.

On the elevated platform behind the liquidators, their solicitor, and a secretary detailed to read papers and minutes, sat a melancholy group of ex-Directors, unfortunates detached alike from the sympathies of one element and the other: like the flying ish, threatened at once by the monsters who gnashed on them with savage teeth from the swelling ocean below, and by the liquidators who hovered over their heads with calls and outstretched claws. There was Sir Ralph, the mere shadow of his former state; McAlpine grave and anxious; and Rushbrook alone, to outward seeming, as unconcerned as ever, twisting the paper in his fingers into a foolscap, and suggesting to the unappreciative Schwartzchild that he should move its adoption by the meeting. And there sat Hugh Childersleigh, his expression not out of keeping with the deep mourning he wore, yet looking round with clear steady eye that bore down, in spite of them, the angry glances it encountered from all sides.

that advances, generally, seemed to have been made with excellent judgment and on ample security. What most unfortunately compromised them, was the wreck of those subsidiary companies they had promoted, and, on the other hand, it was the ruin of the parent which had involved its progeny in the common misfortune. It might, in one way, add a poignancy to natural regrets; but in justice to their late Directors, and in elucidation of their present position, he was bound to tell them that the collapse could only be attributed to that abnormal condition of the commercial atmosphere which had made all credit unsubstantial as vapour, coupled with the most unfortunate quarter in which they had reposed their confidence- - he alluded of course, to their defaulting Manager (Cries of "The Governor too," No, no," Yes, yes," Shame," "Go on: "-through which our friend Hugh, although his cheek might have flushed and his brow darkened, sat otherwise as unmoved as if his late worshippers had still been vociferating his praises).

66

66

66

After a most elaborate condescension on facts and figures, Mr. Auditt approached the engrossing question of the call. It had been the opinion of his colleagues and himMr. Auditt broke ground with the accus- self that a call was imperative; that it was tomed phrases of regret, as obligatory on eminently advisable, moreover, in the intersimilar occasions as her Majesty's health at ests of the shareholders themselves, as the a public dinner. No one could deplore only means of avoiding a wholesale sacrifice more sincerely than he the calamity that of assets which, with time and care, might brought them together; - he had a confi-realize the full value they stood for in the