After the nobles come the merchants and burghers, about a million and a half in number, and now constituting the first nucleus of a middle class. They are wholly engrossed with commerce and their pecuniary interests. Among them there are some very wealthy men, and they are allowed to discharge the inoffensive functions of mayors in the towns. The nobility profess almost as much contempt for this class as for the slaves, and are not sparing towards it of injustice and extortion. But the Russian merchant is the calmest and most patient being imaginable, and in comparison with slavery and the sad condition of the soldier, he regards his own lot as the very ideal of good fortune. Down to the reign of Ivan IV., merchants enjoyed tolerably extensive privileges in Russia. They were, it is true, placed below the lowest class of the nobility, just as in our days; but they were considered as a constituent part of the government, were summoned to the great assemblies of the nation, and voted in them like the boyars.
The Emperor Nicholas has sought of late years to raise their body in public estimation, by granting them many prerogatives of nobility; but his efforts have hitherto not been very successful. The only means of giving outward respectability to this important class, would be to afford it admission into the body of the nobles without compelling it to enter the government service. And surely an individual who contributes to develop the trade and commerce of the land, has as strong claims to honorary distinctions as a petty clerk, whose whole life is passed in cheating his superiors, and robbing those who are so unfortunate as to have any dealings with him. Should the emperor ever adopt such a course, there would follow from it another advantage still more important, namely, that it would gradually extinguish the abuses of the present nobiliary system, and would immediately rid the public departments of all those useless underlings, who now encumber the various offices solely with a view to acquire a footing among the privileged orders.
The Russian and foreign merchants, established in the country, are divided into three classes, or guilds. Those of the first guild must give proof of possessing a capital of 50,000 rubles. They have a right to own manufactories, town and country houses, and gardens. They may trade with the interior of the empire, and with foreign countries; they are exempt from corporal punishments, and are privileged like the hereditary nobility to drive four horses in their carriages; but they must pay 3000 rubles for their licence.