The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-04
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

I made trip into Russia during one of my vacations while studying abroad, and ever since then it has had fasci nation for me, and I have read nAlct of its literature and tried to familiar ize myself with it's history and get an insight into it's political. social reli gous and business conditions.
 But no outsider from the west can spite of Kipling's famous dictum. East is east and west Is west, and the twain shall never meet" they have come mighty close together in the land of the great white bear, and one who knows oth occident and orient will run across many things which will give him pause ito wonder as to whether he is in the atmosphere of the mystic of breathing the air of the materialist.
 heard Sir John Foster Frazer's famous lecture on Russia when he was here last summer, and having read his book on Russia of Today" which, by the WnS, 10 oiiO VI thC iiioat ICddetbtc Wol hS on what was once the Czar's realm which has ever fallen into my hands. made it my business and pleasure to seek him out and have some inter : esting talks about his travels I will use some of his data and try and re- peat some of the things he told me or put in his volume.
 
 Now, in the deep humiliation and break-np of Russia under the subtle and poisonous fumes of bolshevism we must take cognizance of the fact that Russia is buttressed with alien races Just for example. the Films in the inces, the Poles in the west, the Mon ! gols in the east, veritable crazy quilt of nationalities or mixed races And then the Jews for she has within her border half the Jews in the world |
 :, If it is a land of alien races, it is a country with every kind of climate and it's physical configuration embraces about everything in natures line, plains valleys, mountains, rivers. lakes-but 1 one thing is lacking. a warm sea in
 which to bathe her cold feet This has
 been a source of grief and accounts for many of her wars. Time and again
 the great white bear has got down tn 1 wade in the water to be driven back north
 l Tnh
 cally says that whilst many races are under the Union >Jaek scattered
 throughout the world. the different al lien races which live beneath the Rus
 sian flag are all enclosed within one
 ring fence of something like 25,00t
 miles in circumference. To trace Rus sias line of territory would produce . measurement about the same as 5
 stretch around the world
 Russia, like Topsy, just '.growed up She kept getting bigger and bigger ! all the time. In the sixteenth century 1 Russian territory was quadrupled Al ltury the empire covefed 3.000.00i square miles; but before the war began lit covered S,0J0,oo0 square miles
 making her the biggest although th' youngest. nation in Europe It's possi
 ble to do large bit of carving and ye leave sufficient for one great govern llnent to possess.
 The largest landowner in pre-wa i times was the state. and its propert
 was mostly in the. north and chiefii
 forest. Since the liDeration of tn
 peasant in. 1861. the plot of groun Iallotted to each one has shrunk nearl
 one-half; s27.500.ooo acres were SC laside for the peasants. 2s2.5oo,0oo acre
 was owned by individuals, 1s2,Soo.oo lacres of this amount belonging to tn mobility. About half of these amount
 owned by individuals IS well as the stat