The tall gaunt man, somewhat over middle age, who sits a little to the left is Prince Vassiltchikof.  He too, has an historic name, but he cherishes above all things personal independence, and has consequently always kept aloof from the Imperial Administration and the Court.  The leisure thus acquired he has devoted to study, and he has produced several valuable works on political and social science.  An enthusiastic but at the same time cool-headed abolitionist at the time of the Emancipation, he has since constantly striven to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry by advocating the spread of primary education, the rural credit associations in the village, the preservation of the Communal institutions, and numerous important reforms in the financial system.  Both of these gentlemen, it is said, generously gave to their peasants more land than they were obliged to give by the Emancipation Law.  In the Assembly Prince Vassiltchikof speaks frequently, and always commands attention; and in all important committees he is leading member.  Though a warm defender of the Zemstvo institutions, he thinks that their activity ought to be confined to a comparatively narrow field, and he thereby differs from some of his colleagues, who are ready to embark in hazardous, not to say fanciful, schemes for developing the natural resources of the province.  His neighbour, Mr. P——­, is one of the ablest and most energetic members of the Assembly.  He is president of the executive bureau in one of the districts, where he has founded many primary schools and created several rural credit associations on the model of those which bear the name of Schultze Delitsch in Germany.  Mr. S——­, who sits beside him, was for some years an arbiter between the proprietors and emancipated serfs, then a member of the Provincial Executive Bureau, and is now director of a bank in St. Petersburg.

To the right and left of the president—­who is Marshal of Noblesse for the province—­sit the members of the bureau.  The gentleman who reads the long reports is my friend “the Prime Minister,” who began life as a cavalry officer, and after a few years of military service retired to his estate; he is an intelligent, able administrator, and a man of considerable literary culture.  His colleague, who assists him in reading the reports, is a merchant, and director of the municipal bank.  The next member is also a merchant, and in some respects the most remarkable man in the room.  Though born a serf, he is already, at middle age, an important personage in the Russian commercial world.  Rumour says that he laid the foundation of his fortune by one day purchasing a copper cauldron in a village through which he was passing on his way to St. Petersburg, where he hoped to gain a little money by the sale of some calves.  In the course of a few years he amassed an enormous fortune; but cautious people think that he is too fond of hazardous speculations, and prophesy that he will end life as poor as he began it.