it:

"The law providing for the nationalization of women in Northeast
Russia has been suspended in one province as a result of popular
outcry, according to information reaching London today, from
Stockholm.

"The Commissary of Vladimir has, by decree, appointed a committee
of women, who are to inquire into operations of the law and make a
report with the least possible delay. His action has been approved
by the local Soviet.

"'The Krasnaya Gazeta' publishes an account of the results of
nationalization. The system provides that every girl on reaching
the age of eighteen must register her name in the Bureau of Free
Love, after which she is compelled to select a partner from among
men between the ages of 19 and 50 years old. The law led to
lamentable confusion, says the 'Gazeta,' in judicial notions as to
personal inviolability.

"A few days after the Soviet's decree, which women very generally
ignored, two men known to nobody, arrived in the town and seized
the two daughters of a well-known non-bourgeois comrade, declaring
they had chosen them as wives and that the girls without further
ceremony must submit, as they had not observed the registration
rule.

"Comrades Yablonovski and Guriakin, who sat as judges on the claim,
decided that the men were right, and the girls were carried off.
They have not been heard of since by the village folk.

"This, says the Gazeta, was done in the name of the nationalization
of women.

"Many other instances of the fantastic operation of the law, not to
speak of its inhumanities, are cited by the Gazeta. Enthusiasts for
nationalization, naturally all males, raid whole villages, seize
young girls, and demand proof that they are not over 18. As this
proof is difficult to give, many of the girls are carried off, and
there have been suicides and murders as a result.

"In the town of Kovrov, a campaign without parallel since the
Trojan war was waged between the vengeful relatives of an abducted
nationalized girl and her persecutors.

"In this town the 'register of nationalized women' was opened on
December 1, but up to February 1 last only two women, both over 40,
and neither of whom had ever been married, registered themselves as
willing to accept the first husband the state sent along.