Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-05-05


Outside Of the great estates. the Galician
peaSantry in general are of two distinct
races--the Ruthenians, of Russian descent
and the Poles. Their conditions are equal
but they have many distinct character
istics. Neither actually possesses a foot OF
soil. Most hold their patches of ground,
or huts, when they are simply cotiers and
laborers, at the will of the lord; and rent
IS seldom collected in money. for of money
they have little or none. Field products
are sometimes taken in lieu of money,
but rents are usually, almost universally,
collected in labor, amounting to from 80
to 100 working days in each year to each
man.
The Ruthenian is the tidier, thriftier,
more Inanful man of the two. His dress
is of coarse, henpen stuff with his shirt
hanging outside his trousers, with occa-
sionally sacklike coat made of the coarse,
long hair of the mountain sheep. His
feet are covered with moccasins pointed at
the toes and laced from the toe to the
ankle. He wears no stockings, but loosely
winds his legs with cord from his ankles
half way to the knees, where 1t binds his
baggy trousers closely. In the summer he
wears Il straw hat, and in the winter
Lapland hood. lie is a coarse, clean man,
never fat, of splendid muscular develop
ment; wiry, active, alert and by all odds
the best workman or laborer in Galicia.
The Ruthenian woman has some odd
ideas of dress. The material is usually of
coarse linen. Her gown, which is in
reality her cheinise, is open from neck to
knees, and is bclted in loose folds about
the waist. Another curious and distin-
gushing article of dress is her wooleh
apron. She is never without this, but it is
worn behind, never in front. She has no
stockings or under garments, but her feet
are shod like her husbands-with pointed
and laced moccasins. Her head, in winter
and summer, is always bound in q CANDY
handkerchief, but she possesses no other
article of clothing whatever, except sheep
skin coat for winter use. What she lacks
next her skin she makes up in ornamen-
tation. have counted more than score
Of brass rings ON the fingers of her two
hands. Her earrings of hollow brass
would hold enough oil to light the family
iireside for an evening, and her necklace
of glass or imitation coral beads, coiled q
half-dozen times about her by no means
charming neck, is always yards in length.
The Ruthenian ''stove" is nothing more
or less than a wigwam fire, which
shoulders continually upon clay floor in
the centre of the hut. 1t is never allowed
to die, out, A space about 40 feet square
is laid with we'll -kneaded clay.a The edges
are slightly raised. In the centre of this
the fire is lighted. All cooking utensils
are ranged about the fire and have no
other piace. They arc not many, for the
food of these Ruthenians consists almost
wholly Of corn meal boiled in porridge or
baked in a cake resembling the southern
corn ''pone,' and they rarely use other
condiment than salt.
The appearance and regimen of the
Polish peasantry, whether laborers about
the oil fields, woodsmen or agrlculturists,
are very different The men are of slower
action, dark, unganly and wear nous
taches of great size and tierceness of APP
pearance. The women are bony, hard
naidens, with black, beady and restless
eyes. Neither men nor women are pleas
ant in appearance or temper.
They have no distinctive dress, unless
rags may become by their universal use
distinctive They are the most uncouth
and forbidding lowly folk i'll their homes
or ut labor | ever met. But none are SO
poor as to not possess neat suits for Sun
days, feast days and market time diver
sion. On these occasions the women APP
pear in cottons of the most striking colors.
Like the Ruthenian women, they are
loaded down with Brumagem jewelry,
and green, yellow or red kerchief turbans
their heads, while the men invariably
appear in black.
Often live to ten families live under one
roof, but usually the donna, or house which
the Ruthenian calls his buda, is tiny hut
| OF one room. All the furniture in this
| cots, stools, tables and chests--are hand
made and almost always made by the
peasant himself. There is invariably one
| box on which he has lavlshed his most
| loving art. IL contains his keepsakes and
treasures and all his krcutzers and gulden.
| He never reinquishes the key to this, and
not even his wife knows how littleor great
is the store it contains.
| The Polish peasants stove is square
| box of stone or brick, with IA square hole
| in front and another square hole on top.
AS his stove is more modern than the RIi-
thenian's, his food is more varied and bet
ter. He is u lover of all vegetables, and
cabbage is almost "A staple OF food. This
is varied by his barsz soup, or II vegetable
soup containing chunks OF pork, and each
| Polish peasant is said to consume half II
| ton of gorken, or cucumbers preserved
| with bay leaves and salt, every year. An
other meal of which he is very fond is po-
taioes and sour milk. The latter costs
but five kreutzers per quart, or eight
cents per gallon. lie is slave to spirits
and the average Polish peasant consumes
one gallon OF vile German schnapps every
| week.
The houses of both Ruthenian and
Polish peasants are but one story high
with one room open to the roof They are
made of slabs and bits of refuse timber
from the mountain mills. These bits art
rudely mortised together When the innel
structure is completed, pegs are driver
into the sides. Clay mortar Is then thrown
upon the pegs and pounded until it il
solid. The surfaces are then wet ant
worked by hand and light mallets unit
perfectly smooth and dry, when the hut,
are whitewashed and matched. Little
groups of these charningly diversity til,
often dreary Galician landscape.
EnEAp T. ltARFMAN