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offered them turned out to be a bog. As the peasants were more interested in growing corn than in shooting snipe, they sent in a fresh petition.
The Crown Court and the Treasury then treated this as a fresh case. They discovered a law which provided that, in cases where unsuitable land had been allotted, the grant should not be cancelled but an addition of 50 per cent should be made ; they therefore directed that the peasants should get half a bog in addition to the bog they had been given already.
The peasants sent in a third petition to the Supreme Court.
But, before this was discussed, the Board of Agriculture sent them plans of their new land, duly bound and coloured ; with a neat diagram of the points of the compass 'arranged in a star, and suitable explanations of the rhombus R R Z and the rhombus Z Z R, and, above all, with a demand for a fixed payment per acre. When the peasants saw that, far from getting back their good land, they were to be charged money for their bog, they flatly refused to pay.
The rural inspector informed the Governor of this ; and the Governor sent troops under the command of the town inspector of Vyatka. The latter went to the spot, arrested several men and beat them, restored order in the district, took money, handed over the 'guilty' to the Criminal Court, and was hoarse for a week after, owing to the strain on his voice. Several of the offenders were sentenced to flogging and banishment.
Two years afterwards, when the Crown Prince was passing through the district, these peasants presented a petition, and he ordered the matter to be examined. It was at this point that I had to draw up a report of all the proceedings. Whether anything sensible was done in consequence of this fresh investigation, I do not know. I have heard that the exiles were restored, but I never heard that the land had been given back.
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In the next place I shall refer to the famous episode of the 'potatorebellion'.
In Russia, as formerly throughout Europe, the peasants were unwilling to grow potatoes, from an instinctive feeling that
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potatoes are poor food and not productive o f health and strength.
Model landlords, however, and many Crown settlements used to grow these tubers long before the 'potato-revolt'.
In the Government of Kazan and part of Vyatka, the people had grown a crop of potatoes. When the tubers were taken up, it occurred to the Board of Agriculture to start communal pits for storing them. The pits were authorised, ordered, and constructed ; and in the beginning of winter the peasants, with many misgivings, carted their potatoes to the communal pits. But they positively refused, when they were required in the spring to plant these same potatoes in a frozen condition. What, indeed, can be more insulting to labouring men than to bid them do what is obviously absurd ? But their protest was represented as a rebellion. The minister despatched an official from Petersburg ; and this intelligent and practical man excused the farmers of the first district he visited from planting the frozen potatoes, and charged for this dispensation one rouble per head. He repeated this operation in two other districts ; but the men of the fourth district flatly refused either to plant the potatoes or to pay the money.
'You have excused the others,' they said ; 'you are clearly bound to let us off too.' The official then tried to end the business by threats and corporal punishment ; but the peasants armed themselves with poles and routed the police. The Governor sent a force of Cossacks to the spot ; and the neighbouring districts backed up the rebels.
It is enough to say that cannon roared and rifles cracked J>efore the affair was over. The peasants took to the woods and were routed out of their covert like wild animals by the Cossacks. They were caught, chained, and sent to Kosmodemyansk to be tried by court-martial.
By a strange chance there was a simple, honest man, an old major of militia, serving on the court-martial ; and he ventured to say that the official from Petersburg was to blame for all that had happened. But everyone promptly fell on the top of him and squashed him and suppressed him ; they tried to frighten him and said he ought to be ashamed of his attempt 'to ruin an innocent man'.
The enquiry went on just as enquiries do in Russia : the peasants were flogged on examination, flogged as a punishment,
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flogged as an example, and flogged to get money out of them ; and then a number of them were exiled to Siberia.
It is worthy of remark that the Minister passed through Kosmodemyansk during the trial. One thinks he might have looked in at the court-martial himself or summoned the dangerous major to an interview. He did nothing of the kind.
The famous Turgot,8 knowing how unpopular the potato was in France, distributed seed-potatoes to a number of dealers and persons in Government employ, with strict orders that the peasants were to have none. But at the same time he let them know privately that the peasants were not to be prevented from helping themselves. The result was that in a few years potatoes were grown all over the country.
All things considered, this seems to me a better method than the cannon-ball plan.
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In the year 1836 a strolling tribe of gipsies came to Vyatka and encamped there. These people wandered at times as far as Tobolsk and lrbit, carrying on from time immemorial their roving life of freedom, accompanied of course by a bear that had been taught to dance and children that had been taught nothing ; they lived by doctoring horses, telling fortunes, and petty theft. At Vyatka they went on singing their songs and stealing chickens, till the Governor suddenly received instructions, that, if the gipsies turned out to have no passports - no gipsy was ever known to possess one - a certain interval should be allowed them, within which they must register themselves as members of the village communities where they happened to be at the time.
If they failed to do so by the date mentioned, then all who were fit for military service were to be sent to the colours, the rest to be banished from the country, and all their male children to be taken from them.
Tyufyayev himself was taken aback by this decree. He gave notice of it to the gipsies, but he reported to Petersburg that it could not be complied with. The registration would cost money ; the consent of the communities must be obtained ; and they would 8. Turgot (172.7-1781) was one of the Ministers of Finance under Louis XVI.
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want money for admitting the gipsies. After taking everything into consideration, Tyufyayev proposed to the Minister - and he must get due credit for the proposal - that the gipsies should be treated leniently and given an extension of time.
In reply the Minister ordered him to carry out the original instructions when the time had expired. The Governor hardened his heart and sent a detachment to surround the gipsy encampment ; when that was done, the police brought up a militia battalion, and scenes that beggar description are said to have followed -