The National tribune., 1892-08-11

would like to see the bakery where it is being
made into bread. We reply, Yes; and he takes
as 10 q square white building of one story,
where, night and day, for months. half dozen
bakers have been at work baking this bread
for the people. Entering low door, we find
ourselves in a room about is feet square, in
one side of which two great ovens are blazing
away Upon shelves are dozens of loaves OF
black bread, and in pans on the floor there are
about 20 loaves waiting to cool. These loaves
are bigger than any loaves you ever see in
America. They are foot wide and nearly
two feet long, and each one of them weighs
as much as a two-year-old baby. / am not just
certain how much -year-old baby weighs.
but put the average at 20 or 81 pounds, which
is the actual weight of these loav.. They
are made of Iowa corn and rye fion mixed
together, and they are black on the insi, g, and
their crust is sort of dark chocolate.
In the doorway / saw q sack with the 'rds
some of the ground corn-meal. The peasants
like this bread very much. 1t tastes like the
rye bread they have been accustomed to, and
one of these loaves is the allowance of food
given TO good-sized family for one day. The
bakers stopped work as / came in, and as we
went out a crowd of peasants had come up
and these were supplied with food.
Leaving the bakery, we took walk to one
houses of the peasants. / found here little
sickness and no signs of terrible want. The
people are poor, and they have not what we
call the comforts of life; but they were not
starving, and their faces were fat enough and
| their bones we'll enough padded to have salts
| fed anyone This village was about a mile
| long. 1t consisted of two struggling rows of
huts set irregularly on the greensward.
Each hut was about 90 feet square and about
| 20 feet high from its foundation on the ground
to the ridge-pole which supported its matched
roof The walls were of logs notched and
put together as we build our log cabins, and
the roof began about eight feet from the
ground. and went sharply upward at an angle
| of AS TO the rid pole. This thatch was about
foot and half thick, and it was in the
houses of this village uninjured, though in
| others which i have seen nearly every other
| house had been unroofed to feed the stock
during the Winter.
The average house contains two rooms and
the matched loft, which is always used as a
store-room. The first room is a sort Of half
| stable, half vestibule to the main room of the
house, and in it you see, perhaps, the harness
Of the horse belonging 10 the owner, his agri-
cultural implements, chicken or so, aud often
| in the evening some of his stock.
Some of the houses have barns or stables con-
nected with them in the shape Of an l. in the
rear but the average man has little objection
| 10 the asSoclatloN OF us utasts AHe LIVING.
room, sleeping room, and in fact the only room
of the family, is generally reached through this
entrance. 1t is about IL feet square; it is
foored with logs, aud one-fourth Of lis space
is taken up by a great brick stove or oven
which is built up from the floor in the shape @!
wide chimney and oven combined, so that
one side of it near the roof is in the shape Of O
ledge four feet or more wide two feet below the
ceiling, aud about six deep.
1t is upon this ledge, made hot by the oven
that the family crawl in and sleep at night in
the Winter time. They have no beds and lit.
tie or no bed clothing and they huddle up TO.
gether like sheep-men and women, boys and
girls. babies and old grandmothers all punched
in together. Several families often occupy one
of these rooms, and one stove does for the
women, men, and the young and erown-ur
children of the families. They all sleep in The
same clothes they wear in the daytime. and
some of their habits are more like those oil
sayages than those Of civilized beings.
The furniture of one of these Russian houses
would not bring more than its value in FIRE
| wood at an American auction. The chairs ar,
of the rudest description, and in many of TIT