ints of the census-takers and
directors, and afterwards carry it on; (4) That all who, on account of
age, weakness, or other causes, cannot give their personal labor among
the needy, shall intrust the task to their young, strong, and willing
relatives. (Good consists not in the giving of money, it consists in the
loving intercourse of men. This alone is needed.)

Whatever may be the outcome of this, any thing will be better than the
present state of things.

Then let the final act of our enumerators and directors be to distribute
a hundred twenty-kopek pieces to those who have no food; and this will be
not a little, not so much because the hungry will have food, but because
the directors and enumerators will conduct themselves in a humane manner
towards a hundred poor people. How are we to compute the possible
results which will accrue to the balance of public morality from the fact
that, instead of the sentiments of irritation, anger, and envy which we
arouse by reckoning the hungry, we shall awaken in a hundred instances a
sentiment of good, which will be communicated to a second and a third,
and an endless wave which will thus be set in motion and flow between
men? And this is a great deal. Let those of the two thousand
enumerators who have never comprehended this before, come to understand
that, when going about among the poor, it is impossible to say, "This is
very interesting;" that a man should not express himself with regard to
another man's wretchedness by interest only; and this will be a good
thing. Then let assistance be rendered to all those unfortunates, of
whom there are not so many as I at first supposed in Moscow, who can
easily be helped by money alone to a great extent. Then let those
laborers who have come to Moscow and have eaten their very clothing from
their backs, and who cannot return to the country, be despatched to their
homes; let the abandoned orphans receive supervision; let feeble old men
and indigent old women, who subsist on the charity of their companions,
be released from their half-famished and dying condition. (And this is
very possible. There are not very many of them.) And this will also be
a very, very great deal accomplished. But why not think and hope that
more and yet more will be done? Why not expect that that real task will
be partially carried out, or at least begun, which is effected, not by
money, but by labor; that weak drunkards who have lost their health,
u