roubles, are taken from us each year for taxes and other exactions?[1]
Besides this revenue, the great lords, the pomestchiks, the merchants, and all the rich possess innumerable millions. But money is not given away. It must he earned by our arms of flesh and blood, according to the commandment I have given, and not by the pen or the tongue.
62. Your manner of living is to us a most cruel offence, and to yourselves a shame. I know you are a hundred times more educated and intelligent than I, and therefore you take my money and my bread. But since you are so intelligent, you should have pity on me who am weak. It is said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," and I am your neighbor, as you are mine.
Why are we poor and clownish? It is because we eat the bread of our own labor. Have we time to study and to be instructed? You have taken both our bread and our intelligence from us by fraud or violence; you have criminally appropriated all.
- ↑ The taxes are not levied on us, but on the mines and other works. The manufacturers, however, raise the prices of their merchandise, and so make us pay the amount of the taxes. And I ask you, whose hands have labored to earn this money? In truth they are ours. But in whose hands does the money remain?
In your white hands, that you may enjoy your luxury.
In a word, the whole world is in our hands. (Author's note.)
