A “soul,” be it known, is a different object in the land of the Czars to that vague protoplasm about which our young persons think such mighty thoughts, our old men write such famous big books.  A soul is namely a man—­in Russia the women have not yet begun to seek their rights and lose their privileges.  A man is therefore a “soul” in Russia, and as such enjoys the doubtful privilege of contributing to the land-tax and to every other tax.  In compensation for the first-named impost he is apportioned his share of the common land of the village, and by the cultivation of this ekes out an existence which would be valueless if he were a teetotaller.  It is melancholy to have to record this fact in the pages of a respectable volume like the present; but facts—­as the orator who deals in fiction is ever ready to announce—­facts cannot be ignored.  And any man who has lived in Russia, has dabbled in Russian humanity, and noted the singular unattractiveness of Russian life—­any such man can scarcely deny the fact that if one deprives the moujik of his privilege of getting gloriously and frequently intoxicated, one takes away from that same moujik the one happiness of his existence.

That the Russian peasant is by nature one of the cheeriest, the noisiest, and lightest-hearted of men is only another proof of the Creator’s power; for this dimly lighted “soul” has nothing to cheer him on his forlorn way but the memory of the last indulgence in strong drink and the hope of more to come.  He is harassed by a ruthless tax-collector; he is shut off from the world by enormous distances over impracticable roads.  When the famine comes, and come it assuredly will, the moujik has no alternative but to stay where he is and starve.  Since Alexander II. of philanthropic memory made the Russian serf a free man, the blessings of freedom have been found to resolve themselves chiefly into a perfect liberty to die of starvation, of cold, or of dire disease.  When he was a serf this man was of some small value to some one; now he is of no consequence to any one whatsoever except himself, and, with considerable intelligence, he sets but small store upon his own existence.  Freedom, in fact, came to him before he was ready for it; and, hampered as he has been by petty departmental tyranny, governmental neglect, and a natural stupidity, he has made very small progress toward a mental independence.  All that he has learnt to do is to hate his tyrants.  When famine urges him, he goes blindly, helplessly, dumbly, and tries to take by force that which is denied by force.

With us in England the poor man raises up his voice and cries aloud when he wants something.  He always wants something—­never work, by the way—­and therefore his voice pervades the atmosphere.  He has his evening newspaper, which is dear at the moderate sum of a halfpenny.  He has his professional organizers, and his Trafalgar Square.  He even has his members of Parliament.  He does no work, and he does not