, by birth
or language. In the state, two opposing parties are the Russian,
which desires the ascendency of the native Muscovites, and the German,
which appreciates the fact that the best and most valuable of the
Tsar's subjects are of German or other foreign descent. During the
past twenty years the Russian party has gradually got the upper hand;
and the result of this ascendency at Pulkova will be looked for with
much solicitude by astronomers everywhere.

Once a year the lonely life of the astronomers is enlivened by a
grand feast--that of the Russian New Year. One object of the great
dining-room which I have mentioned, the largest room, I believe, in
the whole establishment, was to make this feast possible. My visit
took place early in March, so that I did not see the celebration;
but from what I have heard, the little colony does what it can to
make up for a year of ennui. Every twenty-five years it celebrates
a jubilee; the second came off in 1889.

There is much to interest the visitor in a Russian peasant
village, and that of Pulkova has features some of which I have
never seen described. Above the door of each log hut is the name
of the occupant, and below the name is a rude picture of a bucket,
hook, or some other piece of apparatus used in extinguishing fire.
Inside, the furniture is certainly meagre enough, yet one could
not see why the occupants should be otherwise than comfortable.
I know of no good reason why ignorance should imply unhappiness;
altogether, there is some good room for believing that the less
civilized races can enjoy themselves, in their own way, about as
well as we can. What impressed me as the one serious hardship of
the peasantry was their hours of labor. Just how many hours of
the twenty-four these beings find for sleep was not clear to the
visitor; they seemed to be at work all day, and at midnight many of
them had to start on their way to St. Petersburg with a cartload
for the market. A church ornamented with tinsel is a feature of
every Russian village; so also are the priests. The only two I saw
were sitting on a fence, wearing garments that did not give evidence
of having known water since they were made. One great drawback to
the growth of manufactures in Russia is the number of feast days,
on which the native operators must one and all abandon their work,
regardless of consequences.

The astronomical observations made at Pulkova are not published
annually, as are