The superintendents of those estates enriched
themselves at the expense of the blind or careless and carefree owners
under the very eyes of the peasants who hated the superintendents, pitied
or despised the liberal owners, as the case might be, and gloomily compared
their own poverty and labor with the ease and wealth of their employers.
The more thrifty and less liberal owners, who remained the greater part
of the year on their estates, were perhaps more respected but still less
liked. Any attempt at careful management of the estate was invariably
considered to be a sign of stinginess or of hardheartedness. The idea of
property is not clearly defined in the mind of the average peasant who
considers plants that are not planted but grow wild to be a gift of God.
In disputes involving such cases the line between rightful possession and
theft is difficult to draw, and men who took the controversy to court were
invariably hated. A glaring example of this kind was an otherwise
liberal minded landowner, a well known professor of sociology, who spent
three-quarters of a year in lecturing at a foreign university of which he
was a member and who was finally murdered on his own estate.
The home life of even liberal intellectuals was another barrier between
them and the masses. Not only was coarse food considered to be good enough
for domestics, but they seldom, if ever, had a decent corner for themselves
in the house and their miserable wages were out of all proportion with the
long hours of service required.
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