By articles 42 and 59 of the Treaty of Berlin, signed July 13, 1878, Russia added to its vast territories the province of Bessarabia, taken from Roumania, together with the districts of Ardahan, Kars,

and Batoum, in Asia Minor, detached from the Turkish Empire. Bessarabia has an estimated area of 3,720 English square miles, with a population of 140,000. According to the most reliable estimates the newly acquired district in Asia Minor, formed, provisionally, into the government of Kars, embraces an area of 5,670 English square miles, with a total population of 600,644, comprising 417,602 Mahometans and 183,042 Christians.

Only one-seventh part of European Russia is well-peopled, containing four-ninths of the entire population of the European provinces of Russia proper. The central, or 'great' and 'little' Russian provinces, which constitute the heart of Russia, are the most densely populated. These are the richest agricultural provinces, and they form the centre of the manufacturing industries of the Empire.

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 at various periods there are but sixteen towns containing more than 50,000 inhabitants. The list is as follows:

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

The population of Russia Proper is composed of three groups: Great Russians, or Veliko-Russ; Little Russians, or Malo-Russ; and White Russians, or Bélo-Russ. The first, numbering 35,000,000, all belonging to the Slavonian race, occupy the central provinces; the second, numbering about 11,000,000, compose the bulk of the population of Poltava, Kharkof, Chernigof, Kief, Volhynia, Podolsk, Ekaterinoslaf, and the Taurida; the White Russians, about 3,000,000, inhabit the provinces of Monilef, Minsk, Vitebsk, and Grodno. Besides these three groups of Russians proper, there is a great variety of national elements in the general population of the Russian Empire: among them, Finns, 3,038,000 in number, who are divided into two groups, western and eastern. The western group is composed of Esthonians, Livonians, Karelians, and Laparis; the eastern group is composed of the tribes of Mordva, Cheremisses, Zyrians, Permiaks, Votiaks, Chuvashes, and Voguls, Next follow Lithuanians, 2,343,000; Jews, 1,631,000; Tartars,

2,500,000. Of other races, the most important are the Slavonians of Poland and Lithuania, numbering some 7,000,000; and the Armenians, to the number of about 2,000,000. These figures, however, are mere estimates, for there exist no official returns regarding the various nationalities inhabiting the empire.

Previous to the year 1861, 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 1861 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 whole 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 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 give immediately 20 per cent., while the remaining 80 per cent. were disbursed as an advance by the Government to the owners, to be repaid, at intervals extending over forty-nine years, by the freed peasants. According to an official report, the whole of these arrangements were completed at the end of July, 1865, so that, from this date, serfdom ceased to exist in Russia.

Besides the 22,000,000 of serfs belonging to private owners, there were, according to a census taken at the time, 22,225,075 Crown peasants-that is, 10,583,638 men, and 11,641,437 women. The emancipation of this class began previous to that of the private serfs, and was all but accomplished on September 1, 1863. By an imperial decree of July 8, 1863, land was granted to the peasants on the private and appanage estates of the Crown, and to the peasants who belonged to the imperial palaces, which they are to pay for in forty-nine years in instalments, each equal in amount to the obrok,' or poll-tax formerly yielded by them. The peasants on these Crown estates, about 2,000,000 in number, were thereby elevated to the rank of rent-paying peasants, a situation in which they will remain for forty-nine years, when they become freehold landowners.

Since the Emancipation Act of 1861 the cultivable lands of Russia proper in Europe have been approximately distributed as follows:

It will be seen that about one-third of the cultivable land in Russia proper is held by the State; one-fifth by landed proprietors; and one-fifth by the peasantry.

Trade and Industry.

The commerce of Russia with foreign countries is officially divided into trade with Europe, and trade with Asia; the former being subdivided into trade through the Baltic ports, through the White Sea ports, through the Southern ports, and over the European land frontier. The immense extent of the Empire, and its ever-changing limits eastward, make it difficult to obtain exact returns of the aggregate amount of its foreign commerce, which must be partly estimated. According to official and other statements, the total value of imports in the five years 1873 to 1877 averaged, in round numbers, 55 millions sterling, while the value of the exports during the same triennial period averaged 60 millions sterling per annum. The four principal articles of import during the period were raw cotton, iron and other unwrought metals, tea, and machinery of all kinds, while the staple article of export was grain and other agricultural produce.

The two principal countries trading with Russia are Germany and Great Britain. Of the imports, about 40 per cent. annually came from Germany, and 20 per cent. from Great Britain; and of the exports 35 per cent. went to Great Britain, and 20 per cent. to Germany, on the average of the five years 1873 to 1877.

The commercial intercourse of Russia with the United Kingdom is shown in the subjoined tabular statement, which gives the value of the total exports from Russia to Great Britain and Ireland, and of the imports of British and Irish produce into Russia, in each of the ten years from 1868 to 1877 :