“But the most glaring act of injustice under the old system was that all the taxes were paid by the session-holding peasantry, while the nobles were privileged and tax-free.  They absolutely contributed nothing to the revenue of the country in the way of direct taxes!

“This peculiarity of the Constitution made it the interest of the Crown to preserve the area of the tax-paying peasant-land against the encroachments of the tax-free landlord.  It often happened that on the death or removal of a peasant-holder the lord would choose to absorb the session-land into the allodium, which, being tax-free, resulted in a loss to the imperial revenue.  To prevent this absorption of session-lands by the landlord, and also to accommodate the burdens of the peasantry, which had become almost intolerable in the last century, owing to the tyranny of the feudal superiors—­to prevent this, I repeat, a general memorial survey with a view to readjustment took place in 1767 by command of Maria Theresa.

“This very important settlement, which came to be known as the ‘URBARIAL CONSCRIPTION,’ laid down and defined the rights and services of the peasants, and the amount of land to be held by them.  The nobles henceforth were obliged to find new tenants of the peasant class in the event of the ‘session-lands’ becoming vacant.  Likewise their unjust impositions on the serfs were restricted, and the rights of the latter, in respect to wood-cutting and pasturage on the lord’s lands, were established by law.

“This was all very well as far as it went,” said my friend; “but the inequality of taxation and the forced labour were crying evils not to be endured in the nineteenth century.  Our people who travelled in England and elsewhere came back imbued with new ideas.  We in Transylvania assume the credit of taking the lead in liberal politics.  Baron Wesselenyi was one of the first to advise a radical reform, and others—­Count Bethlen, Baron Kemeny, and Count Teleki—­were all agreed as to the necessity of bringing about the manumission of the serfs.  It is an old story now.  I am speaking of the third and fourth decades of the century, and political excitement was at white-heat.  The extreme views of Wesselenyi raised a host of opponents among his own class, who regarded the prospect of reform as nothing short of class suicide.  Everything else might go to the devil as long as they retained their privileges; the devil, however, is apt to make a clean sweep of the board when he has got the game in his own hands, but these noble wiseacres could not see that.  In other parts of the country good men and true were working up the leaven of reform.  The great patriot Szechenyi, as long ago as 1830, when he published his work on ‘Credit,’ had shown his countrymen their shortcomings.  He had proved to them that their laws and their institutions were not marching with the spirit of the age; that, in short, the ‘rights of humanity’ called