[22] I. e. dovecot.
[23] Lady Verney's 'Cottier-owners, Little Takes and Peasant Proprietors,' published last year, is replete with facts drawn from actual life, showing that small peasant-proprietorship is proving ruinous on the Continent, even where the system has grown up naturally.
[24] In No. 302, April 1881.
[25] It is certainly remarkable to find that Australian tallow, Indian linseed, and German barley are being imported at St. Petersburg, whence those articles were, in the days of large landed properties, extensively exported. The Minister of Finance, following the example of Prince Bismarck, attempts to check this competition with the staple products of the small landed proprietors by imposing protective duties.
[26] Rs. 846,068,368, at the exchange of 32d., current when the great bulk of the expropriations were effected.
[27] In provinces of Russia Proper alone, the landed proprietors (exclusive of the ex-serfs) have mortgaged their estates in various land and other banks to the extent of 30-3/4 per cent. of their aggregate acreage, the total remaining debt on such lands being about 49 millions sterling at the present reduced value of the rouble, or 65 millions sterling at the rate of exchange adopted in estimating the indebtedness of the peasantry.
[28] At the same rate of exchange.
[29] This tax had previously given to the Imperial Treasury a sum of about 5-1/2 millions sterling, at the depreciated rate of exchange. It was assessed at rates that varied in the different Provinces between 2s. 7d. and 4s. 4d. per head of the male registered population, or 'per soul.'