THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 493 



attributable to the fact that in the country the necessaries 

 of Hfe are extremely cheap, and in the towns the demand 

 for labour frequently exceeds the supply. Although 

 commercial affairs appeared to be in a chronic state of 

 depression, and the peasant was said to be taxed to the 

 last rouble note that he could possibly realise, we saw 

 nothing approaching destitution. Whatever may be the 

 case in the more densely-populated districts in South 

 Russia, wherever we travelled there appeared to be a 

 superabundance of land. Bread, meat, milk, and 

 potatoes generally abounded at fabulously low prices, 

 and the heavy taxation did not appear, after all, to be 

 such a very terrible thing. Neither the peasant nor 

 his children had any occasion to starve. They might 

 possibly have to go on short rations of their favourite 

 tea, or be obliged to drink it without sugar ; or they 

 might be compelled to let their wardrobes run to seed, 

 and have to make up for the thinness of their old clothes- 

 by putting an extra log on the fire. On Sundays and on 

 holidays the rouble which the government or its repre- 

 sentative had annexed would be most missed. The poor 

 peasant might be obliged to forego the luxury of getting 

 drunk, but possibly his inability to purchase vodka is a 

 blessing rather than a curse. The struggle for existence 

 in the parts of Russia which we visited is very easy, and 

 the rate of development of the Russian mind can only be 

 proportionately slow. The uneducated Russian is a 

 child, with a child's virtues and a child's faults. The 

 uneducated Englishman is a brute, a savage, with 

 nothing of the child about him. The Englishman has 

 learnt many a bitter lesson in the school of adversity. 

 He has had many a battle with the wolf at the door — 

 terrible battles — of the anguish and desperation of which 

 the Russian can form ik) conception whatever ; battles. 



