Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-08-09

distinct alliance of roughness and semi
culture between the rich merchant, who
does business daily in the White Town,
and the wretched street-venaer, whom he
passes on his way dozen times; yet the
two are farther apart than the poorest
and the richest classes in western Europe.
Moreover, poverty is so unspeakably mis-
cradle in Moscow that it seems to be the
characteristic rather Of a distinct species
Of the animal man than of any particular
layer of the population. The streets
daily yield figures which can only on gen
eral principles of anthropology be called
human. The eye diseptapgles q face
from these moving masses OF rags but
slowly and painfully; unless the ipspec-
ton is at long range, the nose itself is
apt to protest.
The Russian summer calls enumerable
sasant beggars and country paupers &c
Moscow. In the daytime they explore
the city from gate to gate, hating from
time TO time to beg aims, or MUNICH the
fragments of black bread which form
the chief spoils Of their diurnal quest.
Many women of this class are young and
robust; fresh from the labors of the field;
but some are old, infirm, haggard. All
trudge along with the aid of staff, and
all wear rude canvas bag tied around
their neck. At night. long after the last
vesPer has died away, when the White
Town is deserted, and the suburban resi-
dences are gay with lights, with music,
and with the laughter OF happy men and
women, this vast army of penniless and
the miserable seeks its nocturnal repose
Heaven alone knows where,-on the for
seken field of the days markets in the
open air, on the steps of churches and
cathedrals, or in the quadrangles and
courts of palaces and public buildings.
To be unutterably wretched, and yet to be
a nightly sojourner in the "outer courts
Of heaven" to be poor, and yet to fall
asleep with only the thickness of wall
separating one from some of the most
useless and costly accommodations of treas
ure in Europe, the conversion of which
into money would furnish the means for
banishing acute poverty from Russia al
together.-such experiences as these are
the lot of thousands to whom Mos COW is
less a place of pilgrimage than centre
of hot, weary, dusty life, focus OF burn
ing despair.
The very bells in Moscow suggest the
impression mace by many visits to Rus
sian cities,-the impression of some
strange complex of sociological condi-
tions, the unraveling whereof discloses
new and moro intricate eptanglements
still, of some mighty power of special
lied manners, unyielding as the coerciye
force of magnitized steel; and withal of
some awful tragedy bending over indi-
vidual and collective humanity with a
destiny of iron. In these silver tick
Iings, in this multitudinous clsmor of
sounding metal, in the sonorous, perez
siYe, vibrating boom, running like a
ground swell through all the higher notes
you listen but to the clumsy play of some
cruel titan on that instrument of many
string it may be, but wonderful
ly sensitive-the Russian heart. Yet
these uery discords are the delight of the
native Imagination, and to faith deep
as mine they are the promise of har-
monies to come.