The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

23GRUSSIA IX EUROPE.wealthy townsfolk speak German, while the peasantry, labourers, and even artisanse'.illcling- to the old national speech.*To the period of " Germanisation " has succeeded one of "Russification," aterm already employed by Catherine II. In 183-3 the Russian civil code wasintroduced, and the use of Russian in official correspondence was prescribed in1850, and again in lSb'7. In 1S77 the administration of the municipalities wastaken from the privileged German corporations, and the election of municipalcouncillors intrusted to all the inhabitants complying with certain property andeducational qualifications. The correspondence of these municipalities is stillconducted " till further orders " in German, but it is to be replaced by Russianin due course. In the primary schools, over 500 in Esthonia, instructionis always given in the native tongues, German retaining possession of thesecondary and higher schools. But the Government is taking steps for the"Russification of the schools," and in the training institutions Russian alreadyprevails, and military service is shortened in favour only of those able to conversein the language of their Slavonic officers.During the Germanic tenure the condition of the natives was truly wretched.Amputation of the leg was the legal punishment of runaway serfs, and even nowthe Esthonian mother still threatens her child with the words, Saks iulcb" The Saxon comes !" The Lett mother in the same way uses the term Vahzech,which means German, and is at the same time the grossest insult you can offera Lett. Under Swedish rule the condition of the serfs was somewhat bettered,especially in the matter of statute labour. But after the expulsion of the Swedesby the Russians the privileges of the German lords were revived and confirmedby imperial charter, and most of the lands of the peasantry again confiscated.Serfdom lasted till 1816 and 1819, when the people were everywhere emancipated,but received no right of any sort to the land, and the ' _>cal magistracywas left in the hands of the old proprietors. Since 1859, however, certainlands have been secured to the peasants, and regulations were introducedallowing them to purchase farms by agreement with the owners.But while theboors, or farm peasantry, were thus partly emancipated, the Knechte, or farmlabourers, comprising nine-tenths of the rural population at the beginning of thecentury, still remain in a deplorable state, so that many, driven by hunger,emigrate to the interior of Russia, and even as far as the Crimea and the Caucasus.But in other respects agriculture is much more developed than elsewhere inRussia, and a due rotation of crops is generally practised.Topography.There are few towns in the interior, and large centres of population are stillconfined to the seaboard. Of these one of the most favourably situated is Revel,* Germans in the Baltic Provinces :—Boekh's Estimate- Eittch's Estimate.Esthonia 14,700 12,150Livonia 63,300 64,120Kurland 77,100 44,150.,100 120,420