Photo by Gilbert II. Grosvenor 



Besides their church duties, the priests teach in sjmodical schools, where they give 

 lessons in church history and the catechism and in reading and writing Church Slavonic — 

 the language in which the church services are conducted. 



restaurants even have particular colors 

 in their signs, something like our bar- 

 bers' poles. The name is Avritten in 

 green and yellow — the top part of the 

 letters green and the lower part yellow. 

 We were told that the green stood for 

 eating and the yellow for drinking, so 

 that at a glance the most ignorant might 

 recognize a restaurant or a cafe (p. 460). 



A WELL-PAID RULER 



The Tsar of Russia is a well-paid ruler. 

 He receives the revenues from the Rus- 

 sian crown lands, and their area is equal 

 to that of one-third of the United 

 States — aggregating more than a million 

 square miles. If you were to take all of 

 the land in the United States lying east 

 of the ]\Iississippi you would still need 

 several States like Massachusetts to 

 make up an area equal to that of the 

 domain whose revenues are the property 

 of the Tsar His total income ranges 

 around 30 million dollars a year. Sev- 

 eral years ago the imperial treasurer 

 made a report on the Tsar's private bank 

 account, in wliich is said to have oc- 

 curred the following passage : 



"Yo.ur Majesty need have no fear of 



ever coming to suffer the stings of pov- 

 erty. Financially you are solvency itself. 

 With one hand you could buy out the 

 American multimillionaires, Morgan and 

 Rockefeller, and still have sufficient to 

 talk business with Baron Rothschild." 

 The story goes that the flippancy of his 

 treasurer very much displeased the Tsar. 

 Whether the incident be an apocryphal 

 tale or a true account of an actual hap- 

 pening, the royal banker told the truth 

 if he wrote what is attributed to him. 



When stern old Alexander gave or- 

 ders to the tutors to the then heir to the 

 throne, he said to them : "Neglect nothing 

 that can make my son truly a man." 

 Nicholas H, the present Tsar, was born 

 in 1868, and ascended the throne in 

 early manhood. At the age of 24 he 

 made a tour of the Far East, visiting 

 China and Japan. He returned to St. 

 Petersburg by way of Siberia, and is the 

 only Tsar who ever visited his Asiatic 

 doininions. 



Tsar Nicholas is noted for having 

 made an effort to secure the peace of the 

 world by a general conference. In his 

 famous rescript of August 24, 1898, he 



465 



