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COXR’s TRAVELS “IN RUSSTA. 863
were liable to this tax were rated in different proportions, as they were merchants,
burghers, or peafants. By the manifefto of 1775, promulgated after the conclufion
of the Turkifh war, the merchants were exempted from this tax; and it now includes
only the burghers and peafants.
Every fifteen or twenty years, the number of inhabitants throughout the empire is
ufually taken; and, in each diftri& fubject to the poll-tax, all males, infants as well as
adults, under the defcription of a burgher or peafant, are aflefled *; from that period
the fame affeflment is regularly paid till the next revifion, whether the population of
that diftri& increafes or diminifhes; in the latter cafe, the inhabitants or landholders
are bound to fupply the deficiency ; in the former, the tax is not augmented, and of
courfe falls much eafier upon a large number of perfons. The landholders are an-
{werable for the poll-tax of their peafants.
By a late imperial edict, the poll-tax was extended over the Ukraine and Cons
quered Provinces; and the other taxes paid by the peafants were abolifhed. This.
alteration has greatly increafed the public revenue, and the poll-tax is confiderably.
more produftive. Computing the average tax paid by each peafant at a rouble and a
quarter, the poll-tax amounts to 15,435,000 roubles, or nearly double its former
produce.
The cuftoms, or average duties on exports and imports, amount to 5,000,000
roubles. :
The excife upon falt, which is appropriated to the Emprefs’s privy purfe, produces,,
on an average, 2,000,000, Her Majefty has twice diminifhed the price of falt nearly
30 per cent.
The mines (See chap. vi. of this book) and coinage, and duties upon iron at the.
forge, yield. 3,395,910, exclufive of the profits from the coinage of gold and filver im-
ported into Ruffia.
The church lands, which are now annexed to the crown, produce about 2,000,000 :
part of this money is allotted for the falaries of the archbifhops, bifhops, and regular
clergy, for the maintenance of the feveral monatfteries, and for the penfions of officers
and foldiers difmified from the fervice. The remainder, which belongs to the privy
urfe, amounts.to about 300,000 roubles,
The fale of, fpirituous liquors forms at prefent nearly one-third of the Ruffian re-
venue. In every part of the empire, excepting the Ukraine and the Conquered
Provinces, the crownalone has the privilege of felling {pirituous liquors. This. branch
of finance yields 10,000,000.
“* Ttis.no eafy matter to convey a clear notion of this tax, as well from the complicated method of im-
pofing it, as from the different changes which are occalionally made in the mode of affeflment, —A burgher
pays ufually 4s. od. per annum ; a:peafant of the crown, in fome inftances, 8s ; in others, 4s. 42d.;.a
peafant of an individual, 2s. 9d.—Every perfon exercifing the trade of a taylor, {mith, fhoemaker, mafon,
orany fimilar handicraft trade, and who enrols himfelf in the company of any town, pays annually, befide
the poll tax, 2s. Every peafant who quits his village, to trade at Peterfburgh, Mofcow, or etfewhere,
pays sd. to the crown for his paffport. Thefe, and many other fimilar taxes, are all ranged under the
poll-cax The diffenters, or old believers in the Ruffian church, pay double poll-tax. Some burghers
and peafants, fue) as the yamthics, who find polt horfes, and others, are exempted from the poll tax ;
others pay it in labour ; fome in furs. &c. I found it impoflible to give equal attention to every objeé ;
and I frankly own, that amid the variety of intelligence which I procured in Ruffia, I.do not perfetly.
‘comprehend each mode of affefiment in the poll.tax.
Recapitulation,
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