"Ivan Dovgotchkun, son of Nikifor, nobleman of the Mirgorod District,
presents a plaint, and begs to call attention to the following points:--

"1. Through his hateful malice and plainly manifested ill-will, the
person calling himself a nobleman, Ivan Pererepenko, son of Ivan,
perpetrates against me every manner of injury, damage, and like spiteful
deeds, which inspire me with terror. Yesterday afternoon, like a brigand
and thief, with axes, saws, chisels, and various locksmith's tools, he
came by night into my yard and into my own goose-shed located within it,
and with his own hand, and in outrageous manner, destroyed it; for which
very illegal and burglarious deed on my side I gave no manner of cause.

"2. The same nobleman Pererepenko has designs upon my life; and on the
7th of last month, cherishing this design in secret, he came to me, and
began, in a friendly and insidious manner, to ask of me a gun which was
in my chamber, and offered me for it, with the miserliness peculiar to
him, many worthless objects, such as a brown sow and two sacks of oats.
Divining at that time his criminal intentions, I endeavoured in every
way to dissuade him from it: but the said rascal and scoundrel, Ivan
Pererepenko, son of Ivan, abused me like a muzhik, and since that time
has cherished against me an irreconcilable enmity. His sister was well
known to every one as a loose character, and went off with a regiment
of chasseurs which was stationed at Mirgorod five years ago; but she
inscribed her husband as a peasant. His father and mother too were
not law-abiding people, and both were inconceivable drunkards. The
afore-mentioned nobleman and robber, Pererepenko, in his beastly and
blameworthy actions, goes beyond all his family, and under the guise of
piety does the most immoral things. He does not observe the fasts; for
on the eve of St. Philip's this atheist bought a sheep, and next day
ordered his mistress, Gapka, to kill it, alleging that he needed tallow
for lamps and candles at once.

"Therefore I pray that the said nobleman, a manifest robber,
church-thief, and rascal, convicted of plundering and stealing, may be
put in irons, and confined in the jail or the government prison, and
there, under supervision, deprived of his rank and nobility, well
flogged, and banished to forced labour in Siberia, and that he may be
commanded to pay damages and costs, and that judgment may be rendered on
this my petition.

"To this plaint,