The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-02

ordinary shoe is made of straw and the | stocking is a rag tied on with strings. l Most of the women are very good-na- tured. I have chatted with them through my interpreter and I got a snap shot of one to show you the style of fork used in the country districts here. Before snapped the camera at the girl gave her a rouble and she laughed all over. l The hours of labor are longer here than with us. I have ridden through the black earth zone on the cars in the ear | ly morning and have seen the people | starting out to work at o'clock They | labor from then until or 8 in the even | ing and are satisfied with 20 or 26 cents a day am told that you can get girls at ten cents a day in some parts of Rus sla, and that they board themselves. Men everywhere are much lower than with us.
 Tn a Russian Farm Village. l I wish I could take you into one of these Russian villages There are 50o.OOo of them in Europe alone and they are also | to be found along the Trans-SIberian raii- read and in the valley of the Amoor river. They are the same everywhere. differing | only as to the character of building ma terial. In northern Russia and in the black zone the houses are log cabins, roofed with boards or thatched with straw. Furthe south where timber is scarcer they are made of sun-dried bricks or wattled twigs.
 The ordinary village has but one street, It is a country road with grass along the sides. and back of this the huts. irregu- larly placed and running a distance of a mile or more up and down 1t. The cabins are seldom of more than one story and l an attic. They have no gardens and often the barn will be a part of the house form ed by lean-to at the back. The common house is not more than twenty feet square and eight feet In height to where the roof begins.
 In a Russian Hut.
 Entering we first come into a sort of a storeroom filled with rude farming tools. old harness. and perhaps chickens and possibly calf. From this we pass into the living room of the cabin. It is often the only room, being kitchen, dining room sleeping room all in one. One-fourth of 1t Is taken up by the oven or stove. This is built of bricks, a ledge being left under the roof large enough for a half dozen or more people to sleep there at night They lay down in the clothes they wear in the daytime, men and women huddling to- gethar that the animal heat may aid the bricks In keeping them warm. The rest of the family sleep on the floor.
 The furniture of such a house Is scanty. There is a rude table. few stools and bench and 1t may be box or so for cloth ing. In one corner you will see an icon, a picture of the Virgin or the Saviour with a candle burning under it, and if you are good man you will cross yourself and make a prayer before this as you enter. There are no comforts of any kind and the ordinary farmer is almost as poorly housed as his cattle.
 The most of the cooking Is done in the oven, although the bread sometimes comes from the public oven belonging to the village. This oven. strange to say. sometimes forms the public bath house as well. After a big baking water Is thrown over the bricks, creating a dense steam. and those who wish crawl in and parboil themselves. I am told that in some of the villages people of both sexes go into these baths at the same time, men, women and girls bathing together. Such baths are very cleansing They open the pores of the skin and there is little danger of taking cold from them.
 What the Farmers Eat
 The food of the poorer farmers Is chiefly rye bread and vegetable soup, with now and then bit of fish or meat as a change The soup bowl Is put in the middle of the table and every one dips into 1t with his own wooden spoon and thus carries the soup to his mouth. The peasants are fond of sour cabbage and cucumbers Most of them have chickens and other