me that if I were asked to dwell on the most remarkable trait of the Russian, it would be upon his kindliness that I would rest longest. It is the best and greatest gift of muzhik and lord alike. And it is distinctly un-Asiatic, in spite of Russia's many resemblances to Asia. Every where that you glance it is upon smiling, kindly, friendly faces. Every accident, misfortune, or embarrassment you see or meet with strikes the note of sympathy, which is most easily sounded in all Russian breasts. If you ask peasant, priest, or noble to direct you on your way, he will often go part of the way with you. If you cannot speak the language, and yet try to make yourself understood, there is never any ridicule or half-concealed amusement-only a demonstrative effort to understand and assist. The native African is happier, because the Slav blood in the Russian makes him hang forever between elation and despondency, but the African is nowhere so sympathetic, so friendly, or so kindhearted. His critics call the Russian a great prevaricator, and declare him singularly lacking in a knowledge of the difference between meum and teum, but at least he is kindly-always, every where,

chronically. And when we consider the rigid veracity of the Fiuns, and see it accompanied with cold selfishness, easily aroused anger and pursuit of revenge, or when we contemplate the extraordinary honesty of those who live next beyond the Finns, and have their own hard faults, we turn to the kindliness of the Russian, and say to ourselves that it is at least a compensating virtue.

The Russians are a restless people, and if the railway statistics do not show that they travel as much as we, it is partly because so many move about on foot, partly because so few, comparatively, have the means to make long journeys by rail, and partly because of the limitations imposed on travel by the passport system. The railway fares are the lowest in Europe. Since they were made so the chief cities of the country have grown remarkablySt. Petersburg most of all. The trains run very slowly, express trains are few, and, so far as I saw, are confined to the railroad between St. Petersburg and Moscow. On all the other roads the trains stop for tedious lengths of time at all stations. Here criticism of the roads ends, and this is a criticism not expressed in

Russia, where the rate of railway speed is satisfactory to the people. The road-beds, the maintenance of way, the stations, coaches, and engines, are equal to the best on the Continent, and whoever takes a French sleeper into Russia finds, when he gets there, that the first-class Russian sleepers are better. The first railway in Russia was built by an American, and the influence of American railway methods is still apparent on all the roads. The passenger-cars are modified to meet the exigencies of caste, but the better-class freight traffic is carried on with very large box cars, as with us, instead of on flat cars roofed with tarpauling, as in England and France. Wood-burning locomotives, like those we used to have, are still to be seen, but on the main lines they are stoking with coal or with naphtha refuse. The first-class trains are corridored, and carry primitive dining-cars as well as excellent compartment sleepers, like those used in America.

The stations are uncommonly large, well built, and handsome, with orderly and often beautiful grounds. Labor is so cheap and plentiful that the whole route is often permanently manned, and instead of a mere "grass line," or tidied edge beside the road-bed, such as a few of our great railways maintain, I have seen the soil between the ends of the ties and the

grass line scraped smooth, then patterned with a rake, and in one case sprinkled for miles. At all the busy stations there are restaurants, which are a great deal better than any we ever knew before the days of dining cars, the rule being to set a large and handsome room with small tables and a bar, and to serve a warm meal either à la carte or table d'hôte. In this land of good fare I have had nearly as satisfactory meals in some of these stations as

in the best hotels. The trains are started with two warning-bells preceding the starting-bell-a practice we have no time for, but which is admirable where the stoppages are so long. The use that is made of spare rails is most extraordi

nary.

All the telegraph poles are short sticks riveted to upright rails; the crossroad gates are made of rails; so are the frames of the cement platforms of the stations; so are the station-garden railings, which are made by crossing the rails in a great variety of pretty patterns.

The views from the car windows have been often said to remind us Americans of home, but they only suggest a certain part of our country-South Dakota more than any other-and only this because of the great areas of land under wheat, the nature of the trees, the appearance of lowgrade lignite coal in the earth, the use of wood for all structures, and in a general way by the character of the surface of the earth. The tremendous and showy-white churches which tower devouringly above the villages, the villages themselves, which are often mere collections of huts and cabins, and finally, the windmills set in rows or framing hollow squares- these are common Russian objects that are not at all American-like.

In the Russian cities one lives fairly well, from a European stand-point. The

showy design, but while stopping there four days on my first visit I saw four women servants drunk, the hall porters were often smoking or asleep on duty, and the halls and stairs were very dirty. An excellent thing about all the hotels in Russia is that the servants needed for each floor are kept on that floor, where there is also a rudimentary kitchen. Tea, coffee, cooked eggs, bread and butter, hot water, and such simple things are to be had quickly, and so is the attendance of the hall porter, boy, and maid. Russia is

than the Hungarian, is the Russian white bread. The bread of the people is black rye bread, like pumpernickel, but sweeter, damper, and looser. It is said to keep the teeth of the peasants white and their bodies strong. The tea of Russia, to one who has lived in England, where they drink a sort of tanners' dye and call it tea, is delicious. It is always served in thin glasses, with sugar and a slice of lemon. The wines are extravagantly bad, excepting certain brands from the Crimea and from Bessarabia, which are nearly as

good as the Californian-the best lowpriced table wines in the world. The servants are lazy, loquacious, and familiar. You always find this suggestion of democracy where there is autocracy, or tyranny, or slavery, or where society is divided into only two classes, as in Russia.

The heaviest swell on the steamship going to Russia, an officer of the Empress's Guard, kept stiffly aloof from the cabin passengers, but was freely approached and engaged in conversation by the Finn and Russian peasants of the steerage. The fashionable men on their way to Yalta on the Black Sea for the grape-cure and the whirl of social dissipation went among the bundled-up dirty peasants on the forward deck, and passed their cigarettes to them to light their own with, and chatted freely with them. Every where in Russia I noticed this. The position of the man in uniform is as secure as that of the wretch in long boots and a sheepskin coat, therefore they are at ease with one another. It is so in China, where the mobs flatten their noses against the mandarin's windows to see what he is doing in his house. It is so in Turkey, where the Araba-ji, or cabman, turns his

back to his horses and chats with his fare, the pasha. Exactly so does the isvostchik, or cabman, of Russia. Of course this used to be so in the English feudal hall, where the lord and his retainers all ate together, and rejoiced over his successes and mourned his bereavements together. But to-day it has become an Asiatic condition.

In an article about the people of Russia and the degree of their civilization there should be a note upon the appearance they present. Since they include no middle class, there are but two sets to describe, and these may be fairly dealt with as the uniformed class and the muzhiks. When a visitor observes, before anything else, the multiplicity of uniforms in the streets, far exceeding in number even those to be met with in Germany or France, and then learns that the cities are under military rule, he jumps to the conclusion that it is an abundance of soldiery which litters every view with dull blue or gray cloth touched with buttons of silver or gold. It was a long time before I learned that these military-looking garments were by no means all on the persons of soldiers, and

to-day I cannot always be certain whether a man in uniform is a warrior or a professor of rhetoric in a boys' academy. It was in the Caucasus that I travelled along with a man in uniform who said he was an engineer, and offered to prepare for me an account of the resources of that mountain district. Supposing that he was a leader in the highest branch of the army, I rejoiced at my good fortune; but presently another Russian said: "You must not trust too much to what he says. He is simply the employé of some company owning land here and wishing to attract capital with which to develop it."

ter they donned their warm sheepskin coats and wrapped their legs in cloth. At both times they were dull-looking, dirty folk, with very long hair and beards, with wives cruelly aged before their time. and bent and wrinkled terribly. I thought them a very fine race physically, the men being stout and strong and often very large, while the young women were as promising, from the important point of view of motherhood, as any peasant women I ever saw. The utter hopelessness

of the condition of the great black mass of peasants which underlies the light embroidery of the uniformed class in Russia makes it the drunkenest peasantry in Europe. The fact that Russia is mainly a huge farm brings to that mass a winter of idleness. The shortness of the daylight over the great northern half of the empire in winter tends greatly to increase the drinking habits of the muzhik. Corn brandy, or whiskey, as we would say, is the staple intoxicant. It is a colorless liquid, as transparent as gin, but with the almost sparkling clearness of distilled water-fire would be a better word for this sparkle, because vodka is a liquid which starts a train of fire at the palate and blazes its way through one's body to one's boots. den drunkenness is what I saw most of. The peculiar, hilarious, noisy, exuberant intoxication of the whiskey drunkard which I had expected to see continually fell under my observation only two or three times in all my journeyings.

diers I saw romping with maid servants, wheeling baby carriages, loafing and smoking on the corners, and going about by the thousand with overcoats caught by one button at the neck and worn with the sleeves loose, may not have been soldiers after all. As for the nobles, barring the quantity the men drank and the publicity with which the elderly women smoked cigarettes, they were as like the aristocrats of Europe in taste and richness of dress and apparent cultivation as one silk hat is like another. The muzhiks have been described to tiresomeness perhaps. I was so fortunate as to see them in both their summer and winter costumes-that is, before and af

Sod

Among the many important activities of M. Witte, the Finance Minister, none is more extraordinary than his effort to make the vodka trade a government monopoly. The scheme is attractively subtitled one