But soon rose again that great problem of old—­that problem ever rising to meet a new autocrat, and, at each appearance, more dire than before—­the serf question.  The serfs in private hands now numbered more than twenty millions; above them stood more than a hundred thousand owners.  The princely strength of the largest owners was best represented by a few men possessing over a hundred thousand serfs each, and, above all, by Count Scheremetieff, who boasted three hundred thousand.  The luxury of the large owners was best represented by about four thousand men possessing more than a thousand serfs each.  The pinching propensities of the small owners were best represented by fifty thousand men possessing fewer than twenty serfs each.

The serfs might be divided into two great classes.  The first comprised those working under the old or corvee system, giving usually three days in the week to the tillage of the owner’s domain; the second comprised those working under the new or obrok system, receiving a payment fixed by the owner and assessed by the community to which the serfs belonged.  The character of the serfs had been moulded by the serf system.  They had a simple shrewdness, which, under a better system, had made them enterprising; but this quality soon degenerated into cunning and cheatery—­the weapons which the hopelessly oppressed always use.  They had a reverence for things sacred, which under a better system might have given the nation a strengthening religion; but they now stood among the most religious peoples on earth and among the least moral.  To the picture of Our Lady of Kazan they were ever ready to burn wax and oil; to truth and justice they constantly omitted the tribute of mere common honesty.  They kept the Church fasts like saints; they kept the Church feasts like satyrs.

They had curiosity, which under a better system would have made them inventive; but their plough, in common use, was behind the plough described by Vergil.  They had a love of gain, which under a better system would have made them hardworking; but it took ten serfs to do, languidly and poorly, what two free men in America would do quickly and well.  They were naturally a kind people; but let one example show how serfage can transmute kindness.  It is a rule, well known in Russia, that when an accident occurs, interference is to be left to the police.  Hence you would see a man lying in a fit, and the bystanders giving no aid, but waiting for the authorities.  Some years ago, as all the world remembers, a theatre took fire in St. Petersburg, and crowds of people were burned or stifled.  The whole story is not so well known.  The theatre was but a great temporary wooden shed—­such as is run up every year at the holidays, in the public squares.  When the fire burst forth, crowds of peasants hurried to the spot; but though they heard the shrieks of the dying, separated from them only by a thin planking, only one man in that multitude dared cut through and rescue some of the sufferers.