The poor, wretched Russians who were employed aboard English and other vessels were treated with a cruelty that was hideous.  Before the emancipation of the serfs by the Emperor Alexander II. in 1861, it was not an uncommon occurrence for captains and officers and seamen to maltreat them, knock them on the head, and then pass their bodies over the side of the vessel into the Mole.  One of the first things I remember hearing in a Russian port was a savage mate swearing at some labourers and threatening to throw them overboard.  It is no exaggeration to say that almost every day dead bodies came to the surface and were taken to the “Bran” Wharf or to the mortuary, with never a word of inquiry as to how they came by their end, though it was well known that there had been foul play.  It is true they were awful thieves, very dirty, very lazy, and very provoking, and it was because the officers were unable to get redress that they took the law into their own hands.  It is incredible that such a condition of things was allowed to exist.

A stock phrase even to this day of predatory Russians is, “Knet crawlim, tackem”—­i.e., “I have not stolen, I have only taken.”  They have a pronounced conviction that there is a difference between stealing and taking.  Tradition has it that a humorous seaman ages ago conveyed this form of distinction to them, and it has stuck to them ever since.  Another peculiarity of the race is that they wear the same large grey coat in the summer as they do in the winter; they are taught to believe that what keeps out cold keeps out heat.  When they take drink they never stop until they are dead drunk, then they lie anywhere about the streets and quays.  The police, who are not much better, use them very cruelly.  During the Russo-Turkish war hundreds of the common soldiers, who are similar to the common labourer, were found lying on the battle-field, presumably dead, when it was found they were only dead drunk.  I was told by a doctor, who went right through the campaign, that it was customary to fill the “soldads,” as they are called, previous to a battle, with vodka.  The lower order of Russians must be hardy, or they could never stand the extremes of cold and heat, and the terrible food they have to eat.  They are not long-lived.  I cannot recall ever having seen a very old Russian labourer.

The emancipation of the serfs was a great grievance to the old seamen, who looked back to the days when they could with impunity chastise or finish a serf without a feeling of reproach.  After the emancipation it became a terror to have them aboard ship.  Many a mate has been heavily fined and locked up in a pestilential cell for merely shoving a fellow who was caught in the act of stealing, or found skulking, or deliberately refusing to work properly.  Labourers, in fact, became a herd of blackmailers, and were encouraged in it by some agency or other, who shared the plunder.  One old captain, with an expression of sadness on his face, told me, on my first visit to Cronstadt since I was a boy, that everything had changed for the worse.