not state clearly how much they had lost or gained, and when definite information was obtained from them it was not always trustworthy.  In the time of serfage very few of them had been in the habit of keeping accurate accounts, or accounts of any kind, and when they lived on their estates there were a very large number of items which could not possibly be reduced to figures.  Of course, each proprietor had a general idea as to whether his position was better or worse than it had been in the old times, but the vague statements made by individuals regarding their former and their actual revenues had little or no scientific value.  So many considerations which had nothing to do with purely agrarian relations entered into the calculations that the conclusions did not help me much to estimate the economic results of the Emancipation as a whole.  Nor, it must be confessed, was the testimony by any means always unbiassed.  Not a few spoke of the great reform in an epic or dithyrambic tone, and among these I easily distinguished two categories:  the one desired to prove that the measure was a complete success in every way, and that all classes were benefited by it, not only morally, but also materially; whilst the others strove to represent the proprietors in general, and themselves in particular, as the self-sacrificing victims of a great and necessary patriotic reform—­as martyrs in the cause of liberty and progress.  I do not for a moment suppose that these two groups of witnesses had a clearly conceived intention of deceiving or misleading, but as a cautious investigator I had to make allowance for their idealising and sentimental tendencies.

Since that time the situation has become much clearer, and during recent visits to Russia I have been able to arrive at much more definite conclusions.  These I now proceed to communicate to the reader.

The Emancipation caused the proprietors of all classes to pass through a severe economic crisis.  Periods of transition always involve much suffering, and the amount of suffering is generally in the inverse ratio of the precautions taken beforehand.  In Russia the precautions had been neglected.  Not one proprietor in a hundred had made any serious preparations for the inevitable change.  On the eve of the Emancipation there were about ten millions of male serfs on private properties, and of these nearly seven millions remained under the old system of paying their dues in labour.  Of course, everybody knew that Emancipation must come sooner or later, but fore-thought, prudence, and readiness to take time by the forelock are not among the prominent traits of the Russian character.  Hence most of the land-owners were taken unawares.  But while all suffered, there were differences of degree.  Some were completely shipwrecked.  So long as serfage existed all the relations of life were ill-defined and extremely elastic, so that a man who was hopelessly insolvent might contrive, with very little effort,