SUSPICIOUS PEASANTS. 165 



the population. Neither the eldest son, nor a son on 

 whom depends the support of his parents, is required 

 to serve. The young man who can pass a certain 

 examination is required to serve only one year in the 

 regular army as a volunteer recruit. 



Between Kharkoff and Ekaterinoslav, the crops were 

 a failure. From April 1 to June 1 there had been no 

 rain, and all along our way were fields of grain too poor 

 to repay the expense of cutting. The country seemed 

 to be farmed mostly by large proprietors; villages were 

 becoming scarce and the mansions of big land-owners 

 became a prominent feature of the landscape. Jews 

 and sectarians began to be more prominent in the towns. 



At Constantinograd, the proprietor of the traktir was 

 a Jew, and on the wall of our room hung a steel por- 

 trait of Sir Moses Montefiore. This portrait of Sir 

 Moses is to be seen on the wall of every Jewish family 

 in Russia, who can afford the luxury of a picture. 



It was not always easy to distinguish, readily, Hebrew 

 proprietors by their features, in Malo Russia, for many 

 of the Little Russians themselves are dark and Israel- 

 itish in appearance ; but the absence of ikons and the 

 presence of the portrait of Sir Moses Montefiore in the 

 room would immediately put us right. 



However it may be with the Jews of Russia as a body, 

 the writer is bound to do them the justice of recording 

 the fact that such few specimens as I came in contact 

 with, chiefly keepers of village traktirs, were a decided 

 improvement, as regards cleanliness and willingness to 

 put themselves to trouble, on the Orthodox traktir-keep- 

 ers. And only in one instance did it seem to me that 

 they were in the slightest degree " smaller " and more 



