INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 347 



facturers. But many articles of luxury, too, 

 are made in the villages, especially around 

 Moscow, by peasants who continue to cultivate 

 their allotments. The silk hats which are sold 

 in the best Moscow shops, and bear the stamp 

 of Nouveautes Parisiennes, are made by the 

 Moscow peasants ; so also the " Vienna " fur- 

 niture of the best " Vienna " shops, even if it 

 goes to supply the palaces. And what is most 

 to be wondered at is not the skill of the peasants 

 agricultural work is no obstacle to acquiring 

 industrial skill but the rapidity with which 

 the fabrication of fine goods has spread in such 

 villages as formerly manufactured only goods 

 of the roughest description.* 



As to the relations between agriculture and 

 industry, one cannot peruse the documents 

 accumulated by the Russian statisticians with- 

 out coming to the conclusion that, far from 

 damaging agriculture, the domestic trades, on 

 the contrary, are the best means for improving 

 it, and the more so, as for several months every 

 year the Russian peasant has nothing to do 

 in the fields. There are regions where agri- 

 culture has been totally abandoned for the 

 industries ; but these are regions where it 

 was rendered impossible by the very small 



* Some of the produces of the Russian rural industries have 

 lately been introduced in this country, and find a good sale. 



