n which she alone could have conferred? The links that
bound her poor, rugged, but still woman's heart to both the sad past and
the hopeful future are severed, and she is almost alone in the world.
But her husband returns, and his joyful looks reanimate her. He has
succeeded. The tax is paid, and they are free for another year. But at
what a cost!

This sketch is far from being exaggerated. Too often does it happen that
despite these sacrifices the tax is not paid. Says Flerofski: "Along
that road walks a peasant's family in sorrowful procession, shedding
bitter tears. Is it a funeral? No, it is only the last calf being led
for sale with the aid of the local authorities. It is necessary to levy
rents with strictness, for are not the proprietors already ruined?" (He
means, ironically, by the emancipation of the serfs.) "And, in fact,
were it not for the deep impression thus made on the peasant, did he not
know that his last food-giving beast would be taken from him, his last
pot of milk carried out of his hut, although wanted for his newborn
child, which would perish without it, the landed proprietors could not
collect the tenth part of their rents."

In 1856 the Rev. T. Giliarofski, gold-medalist and corresponding member
of the Russian Geographical Society, published an inquiry into the
frequency and causes of infant mortality in the province of Novgorod,
the results of which are true to this day concerning the greater part of
Central, Eastern and Northern Russia. Let those who believe that it is
wise and merciful to subject women to hard work read the ghastly story.
In the first place, the reverend author mentions the notorious fact that
the statistics of illegitimate births in Russia, in which they are
stated to be but one-thirtieth of all the births, are kept down by the
great prevalence of certain practices, to which it is not necessary to
make further allusion here than to say that they put to shame all the
implications contained in Dr. Storer's erroneous pamphlet as to the
habits of Massachusetts women. Next, the Russian priest states that the
number of births is nearly the same in each month of the year, and that
out of 10,000 children born, 5537 die during the month of their birth.
Three out of four registered births in the months of July and August are
deaths before the termination of those months severally. By the twelfth
month death summons three-fourths, five-sevenths, or even six-sevenths,
of the infants b