The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1900-10-12
LIFE of RUSSIAN PEASANTS.
-Four or Five Poorly Fed Families
Sometimes Occupy the Same
Small Hut.

An Englishman In the government
of Smolensk, Russia, thus writes of
the peasants of that country:
"The Russian village consists of
from Is to 40 log cabins, each IS to
30 feet square, and about seven feet
high to the square. They are heated
by a large brick stove about six feet
square in the center of the hut, and
on, three sides of the stove there are
wood benches about three feet from
the floor. On these the Russian
sleeps, and under this bed,' or bench,
The pig sleeps and the hens roost.
The only other furniture is table
about three feet square and plank
on the side of the hut TO sit upon.
In one corner you will see the store
of onions and potatoes, and overhead
arc sheep and calf skins being dried
and prepared ready to make the win
ter coat. In one of these huts three,
four or five families huddle together.
The villagers work the land together,
blowing, sowing, tilling and reap
ing and moving in a body, and they
divide the produce, not equally.
Their focks Craze in one lot and are
attended by herders, usually cou-
pie of boys or girls. They have plots
of ground for cabbages and potatoes,
and some villages have a few fruit
trees apples, pears, plums and cher
ries. The crops they raise in this
district are hay, rye (the staple food
of the peasants), barley, millet and
oats, fax, beans and peas. There is
either a windmill or horse mill in
most villages to grind the rye.
'sThe whole of the PEASANTS work
lies in attending to his cattle and
land, cutting his wood for fuel and
carting away any surplus he may
have to the nearest town to sell, SO
that he may be able to buy any OF
the iron tools he requires, such as
pillow, spade, ak, saw or stew pot of
iron, the only cooking utensil most
of them have. In addition he may
buy little tea, sugar, tobacco, gin
or some sailed behring's, piece of
gaudy cotton print for Sunday
dress for his wife or print hand
kerchief for her head. These are
about all the things the peasant
wishes for that he does not produce
himself
'.They spin and weave by hand
their own wool and flax and make
their own clothing out of the cloth.
Their feet they cover with strips OF
the homemade cloth, and they make
sandals from birch bark. He is
thought a rich peasant who can af-
ford u pair of leather boots for Sun
day and holidays. His winter coat
consists of home-cured or tanned
skins of sheep or calf, and his dress
in winter consists of shirt, a coat
of skin, pair of homespun trousers,
rags for his feet and skin cap.
They make their own wooden carts
and sledges. Some of them have iron
hoops on their cart wheels, and that
is all the iron on them; many have
not even that. The whole of the fuel
is wood, and the artificial light is
furnished by pine stick or spill, lit
and stuck in a crevice of the hut
WAASA DuA az Ouo " OC kCpldSC0 OX
another.
"They seldom get meat, and their
food is mostly rye bread, cabbage and
onion and potato soup, fat bacon and
miflet porridge and SKINNED milk
The butter they make they sell in
the towns. Few of them can read
or write, and few can tell the time
from watch or clock. Many villages
have no clock or watch at all. The
people are about in the same stage
of civilization that the English at
tanned in the seventeenth century,
although, of course, they are rapidly
being transformed by means of the
railway. Another 80 years will COM
pletely change the whole tenor of
their lives, and the change will in
crease their wants, and in this way
find markets to absorb the goods
which their own mills and workshops
produce. Of course, there is no
opening for foreign textile goods, be-
cause the protective tariffs are too
heavy. If these tariffs were abol-
ished the Russian mills would get
their machinery for rs per cent. less
money, and this is no little item when
the interest on money ranges from
s to IL per cent"