The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-12-29

Such is the case ofsthe Russian man of the
| peasant class. The woman is much the same,
| only you find her Weakened and wrinkled
| with the raising Of children. The Russian
women are fond Of children and the bigger
the families they have the better they like it,
| They are not pretty at any time, and the
beautiful girls among the peasants are ex-
ceptions. They begin life plump and rosy,
| but hard work, child-bearing, and oppression
| soon turn them into old women, and the
| American girl would die under the sufferings
| which they have. fasetg
| The woman of the Russian family has no
seclusion whatever. Several generations of
! husbands and wives sometimes occupy q
single hut, and young girls and married
| people all huddle together at night in the
same part of the hut or sandwich themselves
in, like so many sardines, on the top of the
stove. There is no seclusion or separation of
the sexes, and the only wonder is that Rus
sian morality, in this regard, exists at ALL
| Girls marry young, and they work both be-
fore and after marriage, for man takes wife
as much for her muscle as for her beauty.
| The women have rights in the villages They
| are looked upon as SO much working capital
| by the elders, and they can vote as to how the
| land shall be apportioned and as to who shall
govern the town. Land is given to them Just
as it is to the men, and q widow has the same
rights as man. They make very good moth
ers so far as kindness to their children goes,
but they understand so little about the laws
of health that the half of their babies die be-
fore they reach what in America would be
considered school age. They have more
property rights than have American women.
There are villages in Russia which have
women Mayors, and there are some, l am
told, which are entirely run by women.
These peasant women of Russia devote but
little time to dress. Their costume is not
very pretty one, and they know nothing about
corsets or Undertaking No peasant girl
here has any idea of the luxury of barber
pole stockings and the footwear of the peasant
maiden is long rag which she wraps around
and around her feet, up her ankles and over
her calves, and ties it around and around
with string. She wears pair of felt boots
of the ugliest shape during the Winter over
this, and in the Summer her feet are clad in
low shoes of bark. She goes barefoot in the
fields and her head-dress is always handker-
chief, the colors Of which usually swear at
each other. Her ordinary costume would not,
all told, cost more than 81, and the same is
true of the dress of the men.
There is never change of fashion in Russia
and the people wear the same styles which
they have had for years. 1t will be great
stride toward civilization when you can make
them believe that they need more clothes,
and the Goddess of Fashion may in time
stimulate these people to the lettering of their
condition. Their social state is such that
reform, if once introduced, would spread
rapidly, and they have in their characters the
foundation, physical and mental, for the great
race of the future, if their slumbering germs
can ever be reused to an active growth.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.