Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1893-06-08
in RUSSIAN sARR&cKs.
One View of the Military life OF tho Czsp'
Country.

Country.
"'Shall we take look at the bar
racks?' suggested the colonel, Moth.
ing would suit me better" l answered.;
so leaving our horses in charge of the
CossaclS, Chumsld led the way through
a series of vast spaces occupied mainly
by little wooden beds, Each little bed
had on it hard mattress, a pillow,
and q coarse woolen blanket Be-
meath each bed was box. in which tho
Soldiers lsit was kept, and at short in
tefvals throughout the buildings were
chrome portraits OF the czar, and very
gaudy pictures of Russian saints. The
barracks were entirely of wood, the
ceilings low, and the windows infre'
quent, yet so clean was everything
kept that | detected no disagreeable
odor. In the kitchen helped myself
to taste of the soup that was simmer
ing in vast caldrons over the brick
oven, and made up my mind that |
could stand a pretty long canoe
cruise if my food were no worse than
this There are two fast-days in the
weekly ednesday and F'riday-and this
was one of them, so that all they had
was lentil soup. Black bread went with
the soup-not such very bad bread,
either. They had drink that suggest
ed the mead we use at harvest time,
consisting of water in which rye bread
has been absorbed. OF this | drank
whole glass with relish. so far, then,
l had stumbled ON nothing about the
Russian soldiers life that would have
discouraged me from enlisting had
been brought up to accept the czar's
word as law.
"Do you have much descrtion?"
Not many in my regiment" an.
swered the colonel, with complacency;
my men are pretty well cared for.
But" said he, 'the Jews have rath-
er tough time of it, have about a
hundred of them in this regiment, and
they do their work as well as any Of
them. In most cases, however, they
are exposed to much instilt and brutal.
ty. Sometimes the soldiers beat them
numerically, and it is no wonder that
they try to desert. The rough peasant
has q traditional hatred of the jew,
and if the officers of the regiment are
not energetic in setting their faces
against it. there is pretty sure to be
some deviltry against them. The Rus
sian peasant finds it delightful to get
even with the man whom he looks upon
as the author of all his ills"
In the twenty-seven governments"
ma king up the western frontier of Rus
sia, ten of which constitute Poland, the
Jews are very much crowded to-
gether. In 1874 Russia followed Ger
many in adopting the principle of
universal military service, and conse-
quently forcing Jews into the army.
The government has only published
the statistics of desertion between 1876
and 1888, and for these years the num-
ber of Jew deserters in those districts
amounted to round ninety thousand
men. The government ceased then to
publish such figures, but it is estimated
that the number of Jews to-day who
have run away from their regiments
or at least have failed to appear after
passing the necessary physical tests,
and after being ordered out-that this
Humber is at least one hundred and fifty
thousand
As we galloped home to the monday
dinner, noticed that my colonel greet
ed the men of other regiments than his
own by merely conforming to the usual
military requirements; but when he
met any of his One Hundred and Seven
tieth, he shouted out hearty
good-day to them, which they
answered with burst of strange sound
intended to convey the notion, 1--WE are
| glad to have our colonel's greeting
This struck me as very pleasant in.
terchange of civility-much better than
the silent and perfunctory ordeal in
vogue amongst western armies. In the
German army the emperor still greets
! his grenadier guards by hearty
Good morning" and is answered as
heartily as in Russia; but this is in
Germany as historically unique as the
'beef-eaters'' at the Tower of London.
In Russia the life of the people is what
it was in England when Queen Bess
boxed the ears of her favorites-an odd
medley of barbarism and parental gen
tleness Bigelow, in Harpers
Magazine.