1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 215 



impious an act as to defile the bones of Iiis ancestors or 

 curse his grandmother. 



One is sometimes in despair of any progress in the East- 

 ern world. The beginning must be made at the root. Edu- 

 cate the youtli, and they are as ready for improvement as 

 any people. In some places on the rich lands of the Danube, 

 modern implements of harvesting have been introduced, and 

 the produce doubled, because the farmer is no longer afraid 

 of sowing more than he can gather. The women do a great 

 deal of work in the fields, and may be seen laboring side by 

 side with the men. The position occupied by them may be 

 fairly well illustrated by the following story : A gentleman 

 riding one day in the country overtook a man who had laden 

 his wife with a heavy bundle of sticks. He remonstrated with 

 him, saying, " My good man, it is too bad that you should 

 load your wife down in this V7ay. What she is carrying is 

 a mule's burden." " Yes, your excellency," the man replied, 

 " what you say is true. It is a mule's burden. But then 

 you see Providence has not supplied us with mules, and he 

 has supplied us with women." It is the same all through the 

 East. Sir Thomas Munro, in his " Travels to the City of the 

 Caliphs," relates as a reason why an Indian should be 

 exempt from paying his tax that he pleaded the loss of his 

 wife, who *' did as much work as two bullocks." 



Stuart Wood, in a recent number of the Quarterly Jour- 

 nal of Economics, says : " The agricultural processes of dif- 

 ferent countries are among the surest indication of the 

 condition of the laboring population. In Germany it is a 

 common sight to see a cart drawn by a woman and a dog. 

 Where labor is dearer and money more plenty, or the people 

 a little easier, a horse releases both alike from their un- 

 natural task. In the United States, where labor is dear, 

 costly agricultural machinery is extensively used in spite of 

 the smallness of the farms. It is much used in England also, 

 because there the farms are large ; and wages, although lower 

 than in the United States, still far exceed those of other 

 countries. In Russia, on the other hand, in Turkey and in 

 Asiatic countries, we find the rudest tools ; baskets are used 

 instead of wheelbarrows, wooden ploughs instead of iron 

 ones ; and gangs of spade men replace both the ploughs and 



