serve a man in every respect his inferior. The
chief man was ignorant, low-bred, tyrannical, and
exacting; as bad a specimen nearly as his
country could furnish; but he was master over
this work, employed from eight hundred to one
thousand hands, and being in the interior—
irresponsible and unchecked by any kind of
popular observation—he gave free play to his
unbridled temper and his greed.

The mill went night and day—" sootkie "—
the workpeople were hired principally from the
steward, some were paid wages, and found
themselves, others were paid nothing, but were fed,
the chief paying the steward a stipulated sum per
soul per annum—from thirty shillings to not quite
five pounds. These people were driven to work
in gangs or shifts, by the overseer and his men
over hundreds and over tens; and the scenes of
cruelty and inhumanity which were constantly
occurring were exceedingly excruciating to my
feelings. My windows faced the mill-yard, and
my study-window looked into the whipping-
court of the stanavoy's house. Few days passed
but some of the poor creatures were led there
to receive punishment. If the chief was ignorant
and low-bred he was a splendid slave-
driver and detective. He was in the habit of
bouncing into the mill at all unlikely hours of
night or day, and then woe to the skulkers, or
any one he imagined to be in a fault; he could
swear eloquently in Russ or English, and his
English assistants sometimes received a volley
of abuse. He durst not carry a " cat"—that is
against rule in Russia—the thrashing must be
done legally and officially; but he seldom left
the works without carrying a list of names; this
list, accompanied by a note to his friend the
"stan," securing the owners of the names a
certain portion of the "stick." I have from
my observatory seen married women, pregnant
women, girls, boys, and men grey-haired, tied
down on a board in that court, their clothes
indecently torn up, and the rods applied by
a man on each side for faults of the most
trifling character. I have remonstrated with
him, but was told, " No stick, no work."
Certainly this man fully believed and acted on that
Russian saying.

One day I met the starosta leading four
women through the yard.

"Tell me, Evan Evanovige, what are you
going to do with these."

He handed me a paper, and I read—" Give
these four (here followed the names) thirty blows
each," signed by the director.

This did not surprise me; but it may surprise
my readers that a magistrate would, without
any trial or investigation—without even knowing
the faults for which these people were sent,
execute an order of this character.

"Mother," I said to one of the women,
"what have you done to deserve this?"

"God knows; the master found me asleep."

"And what have you done?" I said to
another.

"I was suckling my little one, and my
machine was standing."

"And you?" to a young woman.

"Oh, he knows very well I am not in fault;
but I would not go into his small room last
night with him."

"Have you been there before with him?"

"Oh yes, he takes any of us; he is a pig.
I won't go any more, for I am to be married
next week."

"And what is your fault?" I said to the fourth,
an old withered hag.

"It was nothing. I only took a little yarn,
only a little to knit with, you know. What's to
be done?"

For faults such as these the poor creatures
were thrashed, by order of a foreigner, who
for a few roubles to the needy stanavoy could,
without judge or jury, get all the hands in
his mill lashed and beaten, to suit his
caprice or administer to his amusement, at any
time.

It is not creditable to Englishmen that men
such as this are to be found among them. But
there have been and are found occasionally men
who would revive in Russia greater evils ten
times than any ever experienced under the old
extinct factory system of their own country.
Such men are ignorant, to begin with. They
possess no fixed principles to go on with; and
when they find themselves amongst a degraded
people, and in nearly an irresponsible position of
authority, they finish by being heartless tyrants.
I have known some of them who could scarcely
read or write. One of them, who went to Russia
fifteen years ago to be a director of a cotton-mill,
had to make his + to documents;
another sent the following characteristic order
to a friend of mine, which I shall copy
verbatim:

Maecter Broon,—Ave you any pices of 3 Karter
piope, has we wants em to tprisnik to meend testome
piopes the Mugiks as you cent av al bin ont spree
frou Munday, cend the piopes and cend the plates has
wur ordered bee th' mon as wur cent on tusdy so no
more at preasante from your unable cert.
GORG.—

Such men, though deplorably ignorant in everything
else, generally possess a good practical
knowledge of their trade, and a powerful amount
of self-assertion. They have been overlookers,
spinners, or carders in some well-regulated work
in England, under an educated director, and
might have remained decent worthy men in their
own sphere, at wages varying from 20s. to 30s.
per week. To such people appointments in
Russia as head men, at £4, £5, or  Â£6 per week,
suggest a Dorado—a great spring from the
pipe and glass of ale in a taproom to cigars
and brandy in an hotel. From very little
men they swell into very great men. Their
wives commence at thirty or forty years of age
to learn to be " leddies," as one of them told
me herself, whom I found one day, shortly after
her arrival, buying rings, brooches, gold watch
and chain: " Maister says I mun learn to be a
leddy noo." And while she is undergoing
this expensive change, " Maister" is learning to