Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/74

 50 of justice; over this abuse custom spread a generous cloak of tolerance. In theory, bribes (viatki) were severely forbidden, but in practice, parties presenting themselves at the bar of justice had to lay an offering 'for tapers' before the holy pictures, and at Easter, magistrates of every degree had a right to receive 'red eggs,' accompanied by several ducats each. Vassili, father of the Terrible, heard that a judge, having accepted a sum of money from one of the parties to a suit, and another and smaller sum from the other party, had then given his verdict in favour of the man who had paid him most. The magistrate, summoned before his sovereign, admitted his act, and thought to justify it by saying, 'When I have to deal between a rich and a poor man, I never hesitate about believing the rich man's word, for his interest in deceiving me is smaller.' Vassili smiled, and was merciful.

Let us, in our turn, shew mercy to a society in which the struggle for life was embittered, in every class, by the uncertainty affecting every condition, and let us try to realize the nature of an economic régime under which the inception and maintenance of the praviéje were possible.

Apart from the industrial and commercial centres to which reference has already been made, the Russia of the sixteenth century, like the Russia of the present day, was an essentially agricultural country. Yet the art of cultivation tarried in its earliest stages of development, and was limited to the most elementary of methods. The province of Jaroslavl, to the north of Moscow, and the banks of the Oka, from Riazan to Nijni-Novgorod, on the south-east, were reckoned amongst the most productive parts of the country. According to Herberstein, indeed, the lands along the Oka yielded something between twenty and thirty fold. Northward, again, in spite of the severity of the climate, the land along the banks of the Northern Dvina, fertilized by spring floods, produced very large harvests. But little wheat was grown there. The most usual crops were rye, oats, and buckwheat, consumed for the most part in the country. There was a certain amount of exportation to the west, by the seaport of Narva, and at a later date by Arkhangel, and overland into Poland. But this trade could not attain any great volume, for the needs of Europe were not then what they are now. The State paralyzed this, like every other traffic, by its monopolies, and, finally, any large exportation of corn was discouraged as likely to impoverish the country. Prices, too, were so ruled by the yield of each harvest, and by the relative remoteness of the places where it was grown, by