The opinion we have often expressed, that the dislike to
agri- cultural labour as a hopeless labour is growing throughout the world, and will modify all tenures, receives this week some curious confirmation in an unexpected quarter. A very able and interesting correspondent of the Times has been travelling down the Volga, and one main feature of his report is that the Russian peasantry are thronging to the factories, which arc rising everywhere, till the villages are deserted. He believes that but for the obrok, the poll-tax which every Russian must pay to his commune, it would be impossible to keep the pea- santry on the soil; they like the lively, brisk life of the factory or the city, with its chances, so much better. The original cause of serfdom in Russia was this habit of avoiding agriculture, which irritated the boyars beyond measure, and it is still one of the most serious preoccupations of the Russian Ministry. The desire to wander which lingers in Russians is increased by resentment at the climate, which, as the correspondent shows, locks the Volga for six months in the year, till there is serious reason to believe -that the northern Governments of Russia will be abandoned to the desert. The people silently glide south by scores of thou- sands every year, till the life of Russia is concentrating in the south,—a fact of which politicians may have to take serious note. Russia with Odessa for capital will not be the Russia of St. Petersburg.
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