The terrible burdens which the government and social system of Russia heap upon the peasant-man can best be realized from a description of its effects upon the unhappy creature whom this man, himself a slave in all but name, may treat--nay, almost must treat--as a slave. To pay the quit-rent and taxes the peasant hires himself to the neighboring lord to mow his corn at sixty-five cents an acre--a price which falls to forty cents an acre before the harvest is completed. At the most, he can earn an average of twenty-five cents a day, for his food has been poor, his body is weak, his hands tremble, his scythe is antiquated and blunders at its work. Yet swath after swath marks the sweep of his arms, and his poor dull mind is filled with the thought of the day of liberation that is drawing nigh. Still, he has not earned by a good deal the sum that will save him from starvation. Starvation! Why? Because should he fail to pay, the lord has the power, and will not fail, to seize every piece of property which the peasant has in the world--his cow, his bed, his clothing, even the uncut corn upon his little field, the very bread from off his table. Where is that lord? Has he no heart, no mercy? Alas! he is far away, in Vienna, in Rome, in Paris. He is at the Carnival, the opera, the club-house. He has presented a diamond necklace to Schneider, he has bought a new race-horse, he has lost fifty thousand francs at _rouge et noir_. Meanwhile, his agent and the law do his cruel bidding far away at home upon the bleak plains of Russia, and the peasant works under them as Damocles sat under the sword.