but when the day comes on which they will awaken to their true condition, how fearful will be the retribution on the heads of those who have thus oppressed them. “We all look forward to a revolution,” said a gentleman of great talent one day; “we all look forward to a revolution; and when it does break out, the French tragedy will be but a game of play in comparison to it.” I often thought of his words when I saw the peasantry with their axes stuck into their girdle, a national custom, and shuddered to imagine the horrid deeds they will commit with these weapons when their vengeance shall have been aroused for the many years of injustice and cruelty to which they have been subjected. Under the large landowners the lot of the peasantry is often tolerably happy; and as they do not know what freedom means, slavery is not greatly felt; but it is under the petty proprietors that they suffer the most; then indeed they are to be pitied. It is among these that we are continually hearing of such detestable actions as in any other country would cause them to be excluded from respectable society. I remember, among dozens of other instances, some little anecdotes which illustrate this:— A _lady_ (?) who was in St. Petersburg for the winter, and whom I met two or three times at evening parties, was one day extremely unlucky at cards: she had some servants (slaves) who possessed very beautiful hair; and as she had not enough ready money to pay the debt incurred by her losses, she actually sent to a barber and had all their long tresses cut off, the sale of which enabled her to discharge it _honourably_! As closely-cropped hair is a punishment for immoral conduct, and exposes a girl to the jeers and mockeries of her companions, it may readily be imagined what a bitter mortification such an act must have been to them. I must, however, add that the person in question was a _Pole_; and as far as I have been able to judge, the Poles are infinitely more unfeeling and tyrannical to their serfs than the Russians.