?o THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



every blade had been paid for by villagers, who 

 could ill afford to giveaway even a bite of grass. The 

 Imperial Russian Government considers it beneath its 

 dignity to sell its superfluous parks and palaces, but be- 

 fore the moujik may thrust his scythe into a bunch of 

 grass growing on the big military road, which his taxes 

 and his labor built and keep in repair, he has to pur- 

 chase the privilege. 



This seems rather overdoing the thing, in a govern- 

 ment that considers itself, first of all, " paternal." 

 That it fully deserves the name, however, in gen- 

 eral, evidences were not wanting every hour of the 

 day, as we rode along. On every house in the village 

 is painted a rude picture of one or another household 

 implement. On one is a bucket, a second a spade, a 

 third an ax. These primitive hieroglyphics are the 

 outward and visible signs of paternal forethought in 

 the matter of fires. Every peasant is obliged by law 

 to insure his house to the amount of seventy-five 

 rubles. This costs two rubles a year. Beyond this he 

 can insure to any amount. 



As a further safeguard, every village community is 

 organized into a primitive fire-brigade, and the pictures 

 on the houses indicate to the occupant what he is 

 required to do in case of a fire breaking out in the 

 village. The man on whose house is pictured an ax, 

 is required to bring one of those tools ; a householder 

 whose property is decorated with the sign of a bucket 

 is to hurry to the scene of the conflagration prepared 

 to carry water, etc. This is a primitive form of fire- 

 brigade, suitable to the little clusters of log houses 

 that pass for villages in Russia, 



