HAT at once strikes the stranger on entering Russia is the very Asiatic character of the country and people, and a long stay only confirms him in this impression. Russia is in Europe, but not of it, and we feel at once that we are among a people wholly different from ourselves or our imme

diate neighbors. The groups peasants at the wayside stations, in their red shirts, sheepskin coats, fur caps, and high boots, the women in brightly-colored kerchiefs, the primitive carts, the wretched cottages, the general air of squalor and untidiness, and the casual way in which everything is done, recall the East rather than the West, in spite of sleepingcars and electric light.

When I say that Russia is an Asiatic country, I do not mean that the people are of non-Aryan race. Although it contains an immense number of different races, belonging to almost every branch of the human family, the great majority of the Czar's subjects are pure Slavs, and therefore Aryans. But they have been in contact with and even governed by Orientals for many generations, and have imbibed their traditions and habits. The Russians are a western people who have lived outside the western system, and as part of the eastern world, until Peter the Great and his successors tried to graft a brand-new civilization on to them.

Peter tried to convert the Russians into Europeans, but by the methods. of an Oriental despot. He ordered

the people to become civilized then and there. They were horror-struck at this impious subverting of cherished customs, but like good subjects they obeyed. They cut off their beards, they adopted western attire, they aped French or German manners, they learnt foreign languages, they accepted western institutions, and they called their sovereign Gosudar Imperator instead of Czar. Under Peter's successors, especially Catherine II. and Alexander II., the work of Europeanization was carried on. But the character of the masses remained unchanged-mediæval, barbarous, and Asiatic. Hence the glaring contrasts which perpetually confront us. The highest classes show an outward refinement and a cosmopolitan culture that savor of the banks of the Seine rather than of those of the Neva; they also indulge in an ostentatious extravagance and immorality reminiscent of the later empire. We see side by side great wealth and the most grinding and sordid poverty, high culture and incredible ignorance, credible ignorance, servile docility and outbursts of savagery.

In the large towns there are railways, trams, smart shops, fine hospitals, large hotels, all the outward attributes of civilization. Nay, more: in intellectual circles we are startled by the most daring and advanced views, that would be surprising even in western Europe. The most extreme Socialism and Anarchism, the most destructive criticism of existing institutions, the latest theories of art, literature, and philosophy, find enthusiastic exponents in Holy Russia. On the other hand, there are immense

rural districts utterly untouched by the modern world-without railways, roads, or schools, inhabited by peasants of incredible ignorance, tilling the ground with ploughs more primitive than those described in the Georgics, and leading lives compared with which that of French serfs at the time of the Crusades was highly advanced.

These conditions exist even in the towns: the bazaars of Moscow and St. Petersburg, not to mention those of provincial centres, are fragments of the East, where business is carried on as it was in medieval Europe, and is still at Constantinople or Bagdad. Even among the cultured classes one meets instances of surprising ignor ance. In spite of imperial ukases Russia has been untouched by the three great movements which have moulded and formed modern Europe-the Europe the classical renaissance, the Reformation, and the French Revolution. The Russian Church has remained unchanged by any great revival or reform, crystallized since the ninth century. Allpowerful though it be, upheld by State protection and popular fanaticism, it lacks the living spirit; its theology is but the rattle of dry bones, its priests ignorant peasants, its monks cenobites of the desert, its episcopate a splendid anachronism. As for political revival, its total absence is testified by every detail of Russian life.

Another dominant note is the terrible monotony of the country. One may travel for days across vast unending plains, unrelieved by the tiniest of hills, sometimes without even a tree or a house for miles, passing apparently the same stations, the same towns and villages, the same peasants. One's travelling companions belong to certain set types which are unvarying from one end of the country to the other. The tchinovnik (official),

invariably in uniform; the fur-coated nobleman; the untidy female who takes off her jacket, smokes squashy cigarettes, and pesters the guard for hot water to make tea at every station; the dirty, strong-looking, keen-eyed mujik (peasant); the greasy, greyrobed priest; above all, the eternal blue-coated gendarme on every platform these characters you see repeated countless times. The provincial towns, with their long, broad, illpaved streets, their ugly, badly-built houses, painted the most gaudy colors; their untidy, noisy, and somewhat disreputable hotels; their flamboyant churches, are, with few exceptions, all exactly alike, utterly lacking in characteristic features.

The Czar and Grand Dukes.

What sort of a society has grown up amidst all these incongruities? The Czar, a ruler with infinite power for good or evil if he be a man of character, is regarded as a semi-divinity by the mass of his people. But the present occupant of the throne is a man of good instincts, perhaps, but weak, hysterical, not over-burdened with brains, and brought up in an utterly false atmosphere, where he learned to see things in an entirely wrong focus. Intensely superstitious and obstinate, he is swayed now by one set of opinions, now by anotherby Grand Dukes, by spiritualist mediums, by meteorologists, by company promoters, by the notorious procurator of the Holy Synod, and by peace. enthusiasts. The Empress-Dowager is said to exercise the strongest permanent influence over him, but in favor of reaction: as the widow of his "never-to-be-forgotten father," she deems it her duty to guard him against all dangerous contact with liberalism. But it is the numerous bevy of Grand Dukes which constitute the worst influence in the coun

try, each with his own establishment, his own court, his own set of intrigues and scandals, disliked and despised by all classes, and regarded as the fontes et origines mali. They are the most strenuous opponents of reform, because they derive every advantage from the continuance of the existing order of things. Russians delight in recounting discreditable exploits of which the Grand Dukes are heroes, which form an unending topic of conversation among the educated classes.

Then comes the bureaucracy, a vast unwieldy machine, spreading its ramifications all over the country, tyrannical, inefficient, troublesome, affecting every aspect of national life, and formed into an elaborate hierarchy closely akin to Chinese mandarinism. The Russian Government is a vast business concern, owning immense tracts of land, forest, mines, railways, and all kinds of industries. At the same time it exercises a powerful control over private undertakings. Many of the individual officials are honest and capable men, but the system is such that a premium is placed on corruption. The salaries are absurdly low-fifty roubles ($25) a month is not at all unusual-but the officials enjoy an immense amount of arbitrary power. They must keep up appearances, and by nature the Russian is inclined to be extravagant: men earning $50 a month will not hesitate to spend $100 on a single evening's entertainment. Hence bills, debts, and the acceptance of bribes.

(town police), gendarmes, secret police, etc. A form of police administration which is particularly surprising to the foreigner is the dvornik system. Every town house has one or more dvorniks (porters), who are paid by the landlord but responsible to the police, by whom they are appointed. They are responsible for every one who enters or leaves the house, and must report the suspicious goings-on of any tenant. But it often happens that people really desirous of escaping notice square" the dvornik by a judicious tip to shut his eyes. The dvorniks must assist the ordinary police in executing arrests or maintaining order. When a gorodovoi has executed an arrest, he summons the nearest dvornik, who escorts the prisoner to the police station. On the occasion of processions and other public functions I have seen rows of dvorniks lining the streets helping to keep order. Of the extreme cases of police oppression, of men and women hauled out of bed at night, and perhaps never heard of again, I shall not speak, for English readers are familiar with them. But it is not so generally known that the Russian police is extraordinarily inefficient. The famous secret police is for me a lost illusion.

An institution closely connected with the police régime is the passport which may be regarded almost as the pivot round which Russian town life revolves. A peasant who does not leave his native village is exempt from having a passport, which is a form of taxation. But any one who wishes to travel must be provided with one, and show it at all requests. As soon as he arrives at an inn the landlord asks him for it, and sends it to the police, who affix their visa to it. If he has no passport no hotel will receive him, and he is liable to immediate arrest. If he wishes to leave the country he

must get an authorization from the police to cross the frontier affixed to the precious document. The object of all these elaborate regulations is to enable the authorities to control the movements of the population, and know the whereabouts of any person at any given moment. But the system is not carried out thoroughly few things are in Russia.

The Czar's subjects are divided by law into four classes unequal in size, almost castes, and this division is an important feature of Russian social life. The law recognizes four main classes-viz., nobles, burghers, clergy and peasants; but these names do not quite correspond to similar expressions in western Europe. The nobles are not a feudal estate, but an official order. They are, as their name implies, courtiers, and owe the origin of their privileges and advantages to the favor of the Czar. Their estates are merely sources of revenue, and have no connection with their rank or position. Nobility is closely bound up with the service of the State; indeed, until recent times a noble who did not enter the public service lost his nobility, while to this day a noble who has no Government position enjoys very little consideration, which, of course, leads to absenteeism.

An

official, on the other hand, who reaches a certain grade in the official hierarchy becomes a noble. Nobles are personal or hereditary; in the case of the latter the dignity extends to all the sons. Consequently the aristocracy is extremely numerous, and its ranks have been further recruited by numbers of dispossessed Circassian, Tartar, Siberian and Kalmuck tribal chiefs. Many of the nobles are men of great patriotism and liberal ideas, while others are reactionary bureaucrats or mere empty-headed voluptuaries. Among the ladies of the aristocracy

are to be found many women of wide culture and superior intellect.

The burghers are divided into several groups, of which one has some curious characteristics-viz., the merchants. Russian merchants are divided into guilds, not according to the character of their trades, as in medieval Europe, but according to the importance of their business. The old-fashioned Moscow kupietz is a very primitive person, uneducated, often illiterate, narrow-minded, conservative, but possessed of considerable business shrewdness, which enables him sometimes to build up an enormous fortune. In manners he is hardly above the humble mujik, but although he leads a home life of great simplicity, he occasionally indulges in outbursts of Oriental ostentation and splendor. Usually he wears the traditional costume of his class—a long frock-coat-tunic, high boots, and flat cap and is a mighty drinker. He is seen at his best when, after a good stroke of business, he celebrates the occasion at one of the large Moscow restaurants. He invites a party of boon companions, and hires a cabinet particulier for the evening. All the most expensive dishes are ordered, champagne flows like water, and everybody gets royally drunk. Then the mirrors are smashed, the rest of the champagne sprinkled over the flowers or poured down the necks of the guests, and the proceedings close with the upsetting of all the glass and crockery on to the floor. The vagaries of the Moscow merchant are the standing joke of the aristocracy, although their own amusements even in Grand Ducal circles are often of this same description. The kupietz conducts his business on old-time methods, and indeed affairs generally in Russia are transacted in quite an Oriental and medieval way. As for

his commercial integrity, foreign merchants in Russia complain that it is not above suspicion; a great English authority on Russian affairs said that ordinary business is carried on in that country on the same principles as horse-dealing is in others. But within the last few years a new class of educated merchants is growing up, men who have lived abroad, studied modern methods and foreign languages, and are imbued with progressive ideas. It is a class from which the country in future may expect a great deal.

The peasants form the enormous majority of the population of Russia -some 85 per cent. of the total. They are not only in the rural districts, but are very numerous even in the towns, a great many being employed in the urban trades. The mujik is a docile, kind-hearted, childlike creature, utterly uncivilized, elemental, ignorant, and superstitious, inclined to be lazy, but strong and capable of the hardest. toil. He is wretchedly poor, and while in normal times he can just rub along, if the crops are but slightly below the average-every year the harvest fails in some part of Russia -he is faced with starvation. He is improvident in the fat years, frequently in debt, and does not take kindly to agricultural improvements. As members of village communities. the majority of the peasants have a plot of land which is inalienable. From the peasants, but especially from the descendants of the unendowed, domestic serfs, the factory hands are largely recruited, and indeed until recent years there was no fixed artisan class, factory labor being carried on by peasants who worked half the year on the land and half in the mill. the growth of the population, the diminishing fertility of the soil, and the establishment of large modern industries, has brought a class of per

But

manent operatives into being, who are the most advanced and intelligent section of the lower orders. Oppressed, badly fed, worse housed, underpaid, yet they are groping in the darkness towards a higher development. The factory is a powerful moulder of character, and in it men acquire a self-reliance and a consciousness of human dignity which had hitherto been lacking in the Russian poor.

What of the Future?

Out of all these elements what possibility is there of a free and healthy organic nation arising? Things are clearly not well with Russia of today, and some change from the existing régime is inevitable. There is no doubt that the whole country is seething with discontent, and that all intelligent people feel that there must be an end to the present state of things. But the various elements of discontent are so scattered, so unconscious of each other, so ill-organized, that one does not see how they are to offer any concerted opposition. The great weakness of the Russian character is its want of organizing ability, and this is seen in the army, the civil service, and in business. The problem lies in how best to unite all these divers elements-progressive nobles, "intellectuals," men of business, working men, Socialists, and Constitutionalists, not to speak of Finns, Poles, Jews, and other non-Russian peoples. The aspirations of these various groups are not always definite. There is a very general but vague desire for thorough reforms, for the purifying of the administration, for education, for greater efficiency in all departments; a hatred of the bureaucracy, and a longing for security against arbitrary arrest, and for some measure of representation. The zemstvos embody these ideas to some extent,