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A MERCHANT OF KALOUGA.
T h e native merchants of Russia are included in the third division of
Russian subjects, which comprehends an intermediate class of men,
between the nobles and the peasants. The merchants are distributed
into three classes: the first contains those, who have a capital of two
thousand pounds, and upv ards ; the second, those who have one
thousand pounds ; and the third, those who are worth only one
hundred pounds. Cv the forty-seventh article of the celebrated i\ianifesto
of Graces, as it is called, which the late Empress conferred upon
her subjects, at the conclusion of the Turkish war, in ¡775, all persons,
who choose to enter themseh es in any of the three classes, are exempted
from the poll-tax, upon annually paying one per cent, of their capital,
employed in trade, to the crown. The extent, however, of their
capitals is not verj' rigorously inquired into, for it entirely depends
upon the merchants thsmselves to name the ostensible sum, which
they ;u-e supposed to be worth ; and any person possessing upwards of
two thousand pounds may, if he pleases, enrol himself in either of
the inferior classes, or even in that of the burghers, if he chooses to
pay the poll-tax in preference to one per cent, of his capital, and be
entitled to no more privileges than they enjov.
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