It so happened, that at that time the landowners, or rather serf-owners, constituted the most depressed 'interest' in that portion of the Russian Empire. Not that they were suffering from free-trade of any kind, or clamouring for open or disguised protection: the cause of their depression was the prevalence of a deadly epidemic, which reduced the number of their serfs with remorseless vigour--combined with the tax which a paternal government levied on them, as a consideration for its maintaining them in their humane and Christian property. One of the principles of Russian taxation is this: that as every individual in the empire, European or Asiatic, is the child of the czar, owes him fealty and obedience, and receives protection, light, and glory from him, as from a central sun, so every individual owes in return a direct contribution to the fund by which the czar-father supports that light and glory. This is the theory of Russian taxation; but against its actual carrying out in fact, is opposed the old difficulty, that from him who has nothing, nothing can possibly be extracted; and as the poor serfs have no more means of paying taxes than the hogs and cattle their fellow-slaves, a considerate paternal government drops its theory, and makes the landowner pay the poll-tax for the slaves he possesses, much as an English gentleman pays taxes for his horses and dogs, horses and dogs being as little able to pay tax themselves as the Russian serf. Now, in a kind of deep irony, a serf is called a _soul_. M. K---- or M. T---- owns so many _souls_, Miss L----'s marriage-portion was so many _souls_, Madame B----'s dowry was a hundred _souls_; and this word soul only applies to the male serfs--women and children being given in, or there being only one soul per family among serfs. Well, a landowner paying so much per soul to the government, and it being a work of much time and trouble to take a census of souls every year, an estimate is made at long intervals--say ten or twenty years--and the landowner is compelled to pay accordingly till the period expires, whether the number of his serfs increase or diminish. It is therefore self-evident, that if the former occur--that if his serfs propagate their species with due rapidity--the serf-owner is a clear gainer during the interval between the soul-censuses, as he will be paying tax for a given number, while he is actually reaping the profit of the labour of treble or quadruple that number; while, if cholera, fever, or any other of the ills that flesh, and especially serf-flesh, is heir to, come and slay their thousands, the exact converse obtains, and he will be paying tax for a certain number, while he only reaps the profit of a third. In the latter case were the landowners of Nikolsk. Cholera had more than decimated the serfs; the impoverished owners regarded their unreaped fields and untilled lands and impoverished exchequers with a sigh--a sigh which deepened into a shudder, when they reflected how soon the collector would arrive with his inexorable demand for soul-tax. The landed interest is in no country, we believe, celebrated for bearing reverses with dignified composure; and the depressed condition of the serf-owning interest was as much noised abroad in that district, as a certain professedly depressed interest connected with the soil has been, and is, in another country we know of much nearer home.