Evening star., 1904-03-12
PRESENT DAY RUSSIA
WretChed Homes and Home
Life of the Peasants.
LITTLE BUT DRUDGERY
ABOLITION OF SFRFDOM WAS NOT
AN UNMIXED BLESSING.
How the People Came to Get in Debt
and Why They Can't Get
Out.

Sbeciai Correspondence of The Evening Star.
ST. PETERSBURG, February 2S 1904
A queer mixture of docilty and turmoil
is this vast Russian people, who hate their
czar with fierce malignity one moment, and
are ready to shed their life blood for him
the next
They are like great, shaggy, dumb beasts,
snaring and showing their teeth when
kicked by the one who masters them, and
waiting for chance to fly at his throat
when he is off guard but fearful and cow
ering before the recognition of his superior
power But let foreign beast attack their
master and woe betide the intruder If he is
less strong than they; they will tear him in
bits without the least compunction for dar-
ing to touch with anything less than rever-
ence the sacred person of their ruler.
But aside from this fierce uprising of the
emotions. the Russian peasant has no sense
of leadership about him. He can work un-
der head, but without that it is physically
impossible for him to accomplish anything,
and what small advancement is visible he
has copied from his more progressive neigh
boring countries. Like a sponge. Russia
has absorbed she has not assimiated.
Whatever there is of western civilization
in the Russian Is a veneer. There is no
original prOgressiveness in him, and al
though he is very apt at copying, his ability
stops there. HIS acquiring knowledge does
not enable him to initiate similar work, but
he becomes competent very quickly to act
exactly he is taught.
This is the country and these are the peo-
pie with whom the Jap. light, agile, intell
gent, up-to-date, with strategy in place of
strength, has to contend. 1t is battle be-
tween the bear and the scorpion, and the
strength of the great animal is as nothing
compared with the deadly sting of his foe.
though if he held the latter in his huge
paw he could crush ii in a moment.
Their Greatest Power
Brute strength has long been regarded as
the characteristic wherein lay the greatest
power of the Russian, but any foreigner
acquainted with the method of living of the
peasant class-''the people of Russia
wonders how trey acquire and hold it. The
truth is that the appearance of strength is
far greater than the real strength that
these people possess. 1t is the sins-or the
suppresson-of the fathers much farther
back than the third and fourth generations
that have brought about this deplora BILE
state of affairs today y Jap might find it
physical impossibility to draw for even
short distance heavy load that should
be assigned to at least four oxen, but he
could toll interminably in his rice fields
and still retain his hardness and agility;
his Muscovite neghbor could shatter a
bowlder into fragments but before his ordi-
nary days work is over his strength is
spent.
The secret of the endurance of the one
people and the failure of the other lies
wholly I'm their mode of living and that of
their forefathers.
Against the simple. wholesome diet and
cleanliness of the japanese peasants IS ar
rayed the neglect and insanitary condition
OF the Russians together with food which
the poorest and lowest class of Americans
would scOrn. This miserable state of living
probably also accounts for another charac-
tertstic that is conspicuous by it's absence
in the Russian. That is his ability to lead
ership.
The emancipation of the serfs was one of
the bitterest examples OF this lack ever