ii6 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



the History of the Reformation, suggested a call upon 

 Madame Louise Kruppi, who had just returned 

 from a tour of Russia. 



Madame Kruppi is one of the noted women of 

 France. Through the establishment of trade schools, 

 she has enabled soldiers' wives and widows to become 

 self-supporting. Already classes have been formed in 

 fourteen trades and professions. Her visit to Russia 

 was partly a government mission to gain information 

 from the technical schools for which Russia is famous, 

 which would advance her own undertaking. 



Like Professor Simpson, she prefaced the interview 

 with the confession that she went to Russia neither a 

 prohibitionist nor teetotaler. 



"And now," she piquantly explained, "I am both. 

 I am everything that will bring to my country the 

 blessings I found in Russia. At first it was hard to 

 give up wine, but if, in a city of two millions, one can- 

 not get it, one must do without; and it was so in 

 Petrograd. Moscow was as bad, I mean as good," 

 was the smiling correction, "for one could not get it 

 there." 



"Oh, " she replied to my suggestion, "they have 

 temperance drinks, but they are frightful!" The 

 statement was accompanied with a charming moue 

 and with an expressive shrug of the shoulders. And 

 then madame suddenly became grave. 



" It is strange, is it not," she mused, " that in France 

 we not only drink but think wine. Nothing is good 

 that is not wine. But that is a mistake, as I learned 

 in Russia. The temperance drinks were nice, very 



