ST. PETERSBURG. 1 7 



people, and have no elders, no officers of any kind. 

 The more officials who have the handling of our taxes 

 and the management of our affairs, the worse for us." . 



" But the mir has the election of its own officers. If 

 the present starosta (mayor) and the elders are dis- 

 honest and grasping, why don't you elect honest men, 

 like the blacksmith there, in their places? " 



" The blacksmith doesn't know how to read and 

 write," they laughed ; " how could he be starosta ? 

 We have tried to remedy matters, but the educated 

 people are too sharp for us ; they always manage to 

 keep in office whomever they choose, and the wisest 

 moujik keeps his mouth shut closest. The elders 

 assess each one of us the amount of taxes he has to 

 pay, the amount of work to be done on the roads with- 

 out pay, and have the regulation of everything in the 

 mir. If I am their friend, they take care that my 

 share of the taxes shall be light and my work on the 

 roads easy, and when the Czar demands soldiers they 

 will pass by my son and pick out the son of a moujik 

 who has made himself objectionable to them by 

 grumbling at them and voting against them at the 

 elections. There are moujiks in the mir who pay next 

 to no taxes at all, and moujiks who have to work away 

 from home like batraks, besides tilling their land, to get 

 money enough to pay their taxes. It is the same in 

 nearly every mir. If every man had a good heart the 

 mirs would be happy and prosperous, the moujiks well 

 fed and clad, and our taxes would be light and easily 

 paid. But every mir is a house of intrigue, in which 

 the moujik is, in one way or another, cheated out of 

 most of his earnings." 



