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RUSSIA.

The vast majority of the population of Russia are devoted to agricultural occupations, and dwell in villages, spread thinly over the vast area of the empire. According to local enumerations made by order of the Ministry of the Interior in the year 18G3, there were, at that time, fifteen towns containing more than 50,000 inhabitants, as follows : —

Towns

Population

Towns

Population

St. Petersburg.

. 539,475

Nickolajew

64.561

Moscow

. 351,627

Kasan

63,084

Warsaw

. 162.805

Saratov

62,923

Odessa

. 118,970

Tiflis (Trans-Caucasia)

. 60.776

Kischinew (Bessa

•abia)

94,124

Tula ....

56,679

T\i<?a.

. 77,468

Eerditscbew

53.169

Wilna

69,464

Charkow.

. 52.056

Kiew.

.

6S,424

In the larger towns a considerable proportion of the trading and industrial population are either aliens, or of foreign extraction.

More than a hundred tribes, with as many different languages, are comprised within the circuit of the Russian empire, but nearly all these live on the frontiers of the country ; the interior is in- habited by a homogeneous race, the Russians, numbering about 50,000,000, whereas all the other tribes of the empire united do not exceed 24,000,000. The Russians are generally subdivided into Great Russians, numbering about 30,000,000 ; Little Russians, or Ruthenes, to the number of 10,000,000 ; and White Russians, about 4,000,000. The dialect of the Little and the White Russians slightly differs from that of the Great Russians, but not so much as to prevent a mutual understanding. Of other races, the most im- portant are the Slavonians of Poland and Lithuania, numbering some 7,000,000 ; the Fins and Lettons, some 2,500,000 ; and the Armenians, to the number of about 2,000,000. These figures, however, are mere estimates, and there exist no official returns regarding the various nationalities inhabiting the empire.

Previous to the year 1863, the greater portion of the inhabitants of the empire were serfs, belonging either to the Crown or to private individuals. The number of the latter class was estimated in 18G1 at 22,000,000, who were the property of 109,340 nobles and other private persons. By an imperial decree of March 3, 1861, coming into final execution on March, 3, 1863, serfdom. was abolished, under certain conditions, within the Avhole of Russia. The owners of the serfs were compensated for their land on a scale of payment by which the previous labour of the serf was estimated at a yearly rental of 6 per cent., so that for every six roubles which the labourer 1 earned annually, he had to pay 100 roubles to his master as his capital value to become a freeholder. Of this sum, the serfs had to'