The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1916-07-19
Some Remote Sections Of
Our Old Earth
WHERE FIGHTING IS UNKNOWN
The Main Struggle In Mems
Environments Is To Per.
petuate Existence.
WAR NEWS AFFECTS THEM NOT

Battle history nalts at the Arctic
Circle. Beyond that, human life is
so difficult to sustain that its willful
waste is unthinkable. The Lapp;
and Samoyeds OF Arctic Russia, like
the Eskimos of North America and
Greenland, are so often compelled
in times of dearth and famine to
sacrifice their aged weaklings that
this form of death has become a
vague religious and social principle
with them.
The armies of the Great White
Tsar. like those OF the King Emper-
or, are Aot recruited in such distant
places; indeed, the men are of such
meager stature and intellect that a
military training is next to impOssi-
ble-certainly not thing to be pre-
served with in the days of great
campaign.
The population of Arctic Russia,
both in Asia and in Europe, outside
the official and mercantile classes,
contain few elements which are tru-
ly Slavonic, but in the minds of in
Sular BritOns the reputation OF Are
tic jewellers pertains to all the peo-
pie living in Siberia. which is al
ways portrayed as a land of ice and
snow and unhealthy marsh.
The Siberian battalions, which
have won so great fame in the
Russian campaigns. are drawn main
ly from territory as near the Equa-
tor as Great Britain. 1t is undenia-
BILE that their winters are terribly
severe, but in the hot summer crops
of the utmost value can be sown,
ripened and harvested. 1t is not
impossible to lead a robust life in
the Siberia of military Russia.
The real natives of the Arctic can
endure hunger and fatigue-can
march in their own fashion through
hurricane and blizzard-but their
value is rather to the explorer of the
inhospitable North than to the sol
dier. AS hunters they are wonder
fully clever, yet they are curiously
formal in administering the coup de
grace.
They will apologize to the fierce
white bear which they have corner
ed before advancing to a close at
tack with bone-tipped arrows and
spears, a duel in which the odds
seem decisively on the bear destroy
ing the man. They are therefore
not towards in any sense. and few
British sportsmen would risk their
lives against bear and wolf and wal
rus protected only by futile weapons
and their own personal deXterity.
How goes the news OF war to
these Arctic jewellers?
Most casually and slowly without
a doubt. There are colonies in the
frozen North which have not yet
heard of the Ruso-Japanese war,
and certainly have no knowledge of
the present war.
They are free from national du-
ties and taxation. and their inter
even with fur-traders of
blood alien to their own, is meager,
indeed. There are dialects spoken
by those tribes which have never
been interpreted and never reduced
TO writing. and their ideas of the
great world outside the tundras and |
steppes are very crude.
A generation may pass before the
story OF the Grand Dukes great
filters north. and even
hen II will be incomprehensible to
persons to whom a crowd of even |
100 human beings would be a mar
vel. Now and again a stray whaler
Or exploring ship comes within sight
II the shore camps. and a little bar
.er by means Of signs is carried on,
but the inland dweliers have not
sven this communication with the
outside world Il Pearson's Weekly