44 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



depend on tips for their remuneration. The Tartars, 

 who three or four centuries ago were dominating the 

 country, and at one time enslaved and persecuted the 

 Russians, have now become table waiters in the 

 country. Nearly all the large hotels, as well as the 

 railway restaurants, have Tartar waiters. They form 

 a guild, or artel, and their numbers are regularly 

 recruited by young boys, who are brought from the 

 Tartar villages of the Volga provinces. Making them- 

 selves useful among the young men, at a big railway 

 restaurant or hotel dining-room, you see two or three 

 small boys, yellow-cheeked, oblique-eyed, and black- 

 haired. They are young Tartars, learning to be 

 waiters, under the watchful eyes of their elder 

 brothers. 



All the tips are pooled and the various sources of 

 income go into a common purse, and the proceeds are 

 periodically apportioned. An artel is a species of 

 workmen's commune, by means of which the welfare, 

 honesty, and earnings of each is the concern of all. 

 Some of the artels, as the artel of bank porters and 

 hotel employees, among other functions insures the 

 honesty of its members. If one of its members steals 

 money or property, the artel makes good the loss. 

 Notices in the bedrooms of the hotels advise guests to 

 deposit their valuables, not with the hotel clerk, as 

 with us, but with the agent of the artel, who has an 

 office and a safe in the hotel, and is responsible for 

 any losses. 



The grade of accommodation, to suit the length or 

 shortness of the passengers' purses, is admirable. You 

 can spend twenty rubles on a dinner, or you can carry 



