Such are the services owed by the peasant, and happy would he be were he subject to no other claims. Unfortunately, however, the peasant of Hungary has scarcely any political rights, and is considered by the government much more than by the landlord, in the light of a slave. By an unlimited extension of the aristocratical privilege, the noble is free from every burden, and the whole is accumulated on the peasant. The noble pays no tribute, and goes freely through the country, subject to neither tolls nor duties; but the peasant is liable to tribute, and though there may be some nominal restrictions to the services due from him to government, it may safely be asserted, that there is no limit in point of fact to the services which he is compelled to perform. Whatever public work is to be executed, not only when a road is to be repaired, but when new roads are to be made, or bridges built, the county-meeting gives the order and the peasant dares not refuse to execute it. All soldiers passing through the country are quartered exclusively upon the peasantry. They must provide them without recompense with bread, and furnish their horses with corn, and whenever required by a particular order, they must provide the person bringing it with horses and means of conveyance. Such an order is always employed by the officers of government, and whoever can in any way plead public business as the cause of his journey, takes care to provide himself with it. In all levies of soldiers, the whole falls upon the peasant, and the choice is left to the arbitrary discretion of the lord and his servants.
This system is not calculated to satisfy either the landlord or the peasant. The benefit derived by the latter is by no means proportionate to the sacrifice which the former is obliged to make. The quantity of land appropriated to the peasant is enormous: still he labours unwillingly, and of course ineffectually, under the idea that he works from compulsion and not for pay. In order to do all the farming work upon a given estate by the peasants, nearly one-half of the land capable of cultivation is portioned out among the labourers; nay there are estates every acre of which is occupied by the peasants, the landlord receiving nothing but the tenths and other casual services, unless he has occasion to send them to labour on some other of his estates. On other properties again there are no peasants--and this appears to be the state of things most desirable to the proprietor--so much so, that there are instances even where peasants have been on an estate, in which the lord has almost neglected to require their services, finding his labour better performed by hired servants.