From these penalties a correct estimate may be formed of the principles upon which the social fabric was erected. In all these provisions the rich were favoured above the poor, the strong above the weak. The life of a woman, because her utility in a barbarous community was rated according to its menial value, was fixed at half the worth of a man’s, to be proportioned according to her station. The murder of a slave was not visited with any penalty whatever; the exception constituting, in fact, the privilege to kill a slave at pleasure. Slavery was carried to extremity in Russia. Prisoners of war and their posterity were condemned to perpetual slavery; the poverty of the soil, and the oppression of its lords, forced many to sell their freedom for limited periods; insolvent debtors became slaves by law; and all freemen who married slaves unconditionally, participated in their servitude. Yet, degrading as these institutions must be considered, it appears that the rights of the person were scrupulously maintained. Thus this code enumerates penalties for striking a blow, describes the different degrees of the offence, and regulates the responsibility accordingly. The distinctions drawn between the different modes of striking are singular, and help to show that, ill as the Russians could appreciate public liberty, they had a jealous sense of that individual respect which, in modern Europe, is called the point of honour. The penalty for striking a blow with the scabbard or handle of a sword, with the fist, a stick, cup, or goblet, was twelve grivnas--equal to the fine for murdering an artisan or a schoolmaster. If the blow was struck with a club, which, we presume, was considered a plebeian weapon, the penalty was only three grivnas. But the most characteristic penalty was that of twelve grivnas for pulling a man by the beard, or knocking out a tooth. The origin of this law may be easily traced to the Goths and Germans, who were rigid in the preservation of their hair, to which they attached extraordinary importance. In the same spirit was the enactment that prohibited the making use of a horse without the permission of the owner, and that visited with imprisonment for life the crime of horse-stealing. This legal protection of the horse is still preserved in the Saxon laws.