Evening Star Newspaper, July 14, 1894, Page 16

16° WELLMAN IN THE ICE A Rapid but Rough Journey to Table Island. THE JARL IN TOW OF AN ICEBERG The Farewell to Oyen When Leav- ing Dane's Island. OF CONGELATION FREAKS (Copyrighted, 1894, by Walter Weilman.) ON BOARD THE RAGNVALD JARL, OFF BRANDY BAY, SPITZBERGEN, May 11, 1994. E ARE MAKING rapid progress to- ward the most north- ern lands of this archipelago, The Sev- en Isiards are in plain view from the deck of the ship, and with open water ahead it looks as if we should be able to Teach them in the morning or during the night. We leit our headquarters at Dane's Island last evening at So’clock. All day the barometer had been risiag and the wind diminishing, and during the afternoon We saw that the favorable moment for an advance to the north and east had arrived. In arctic navigation one must always be ready to advantage by the first good open- ing which presents itself. We therefore made all possible haste toward completion of our headquarters and getting things aboard. The dogs gave us some trouble. They had enjoyed themselves so much at the island that they were loath to leave it, and one little fellow we could not catch at ell, but left him as another companion for Prof. Oyen. This made the number of dogs on board forty-five, quite enough for our Durpose, if the majority ot 3 y prove useful in harnean, Late in the after. moon Prof. French went ashore and made observations for the magnetic variation, which he found to be 18.49 west. The closing scenes at Dane's Island were Father picturesque. At 7 Prof. Oyen came aboard, gatherel up the last of his house equipment and after saying his good-byes to the other members of the expedition * started ashore. Between the ice flae to which the Jar! was moored and the shore it had been necessary to bridge a narrow Water opening with two of our ice ladders, which came in very conveniently for the purpose. A number of Mr. Oyen’s Nor- wegian companions had remained at the Fouse to say farewell to him, and when he had joined them they shook his hand, cross- ed the little bridges, pulling the bridges after them, and then stopped and gave three rousing cheers for Peter the First, “King of Spitzbergen,” as they have dubbed their comrade. Carrying the bridges, they came aboard, the colors were run up, and the Jarl steamed out of the fiord. We waved our good-byes to the sturdy and studious scientist, who stood in front of his habita- tion watching the last human faces he is Likely to behold for several weeks, without @ doubt the only man whose feet at that moment were touching the soil, or rather the snow, of the Spitzbergen arehipelago. He was indeed monarch of all he surveyed. A Smooth Sea tu Sight. At 9 o'clock we rounded Hakluyt’s Head, the extreme northwestern point of Spitz- bergen, and were surprised to find the sea Perfectly smooth after the long north- easter. This was the only unfavorable sign to be seen, for the absence of swell in- dicated that at no great distance the sea was covered with ic>. Yet no ice was in sight from the deck, and as we peered to the east we waited with considerable anx- lety the news which Capt. Bottelfsen would Presently bring from the crow’s nest. Our anxiety was justifiable, for at this point many expeditions and hunting vessels in- fumerable have in the past been corapletely stopped by pack ice barring their way in tion save south. It was here that Sir Edward Parry, on the Lith day of June, 1827, plunged into the pack by which ing about and a water sky to the north and This good news induced us to change course of the ship from the east more to the north for the purpose of picking up the ice, wherever it was, and following along its edge for a closer study of its char- acter. That we should steam alone unim- peded in an open, smocth sea, with beauti- ful weather, where so many of our prede- cessors had been stopped, was rare good fortune indeed. But with all our jubila- tion over the outlook, we did not forget that our joy might in an hour be turned into sorrow, for hereabouts the ice has an inconvenient way, like some people we know, of making its appearance when least wanted. But it Is one of the principles of this ex- Pedition to have a good time while we may, and to make the most of our luck while it is with us, knowing full well! that there are plenty of hardships ahead. So we stood on the bridge and cracked our jokes, ali with- out gloves or mittens, basking in the sun, with a temperature of 27 degrees F. Could it be possible this was the Arctic sea in latitude S07? In Tow of a Berg. About 2:3 o'clock this morning Capt. Bottelfsen stopped the Jarl, the ice ahead eppearing impassable. He had first seen the pack in latitude 80.30 and had then steered more to the east to avoid it. At length he ran among shore ice, or ice which forms along the coast or in the fiords and drifts out to sea, and this being rather compact and difficult-tc pass through he had concluded to await a more favorable epportunity. We found the Jarl lying sur- rounded by ice about six inches thick, smooth of surface, snow covered aud lying in large floes extending as far as the eye could reach, though broken here and there by irregular leads. A dashing, reckless ice navigator, with as stanch a ship as the Ragnvald Jarl under him, would have press- ed on, but we are learning that. our quiet, taciturn Capt. Bottelfsen is carefulness and conservatism personified. He says he would ™much rather be safe than sorry, and the Officers of the expedition agree that this is just the sort of man we want in the crow’s nest. If any recklessness is needed, we prefer to furnish it ourselves. Notwithstanding the delay the Jarl had made good progress. She was lying a few miles north and east of Moffen Island, in latitude $0.02 and longitude 14.30. The weather was calm and fine, with a light southerly breeze. A few large icebergs were seen ahead, and after a visit to the crow’s nest and consultation with Capt Pedersen (Capt. Bottelfsen had gone to bed after his long night's vigil) it was decided to push in behind ene of the big bergs and tse jt as a roadmaker. With a good deal of trouble this change of position was ef- fected, it being necessary at times to move several acres of ice at once with the prow of the Jarl in order to force an opening. About 1 o'clock in the afternoon we came in behind a big square berg which rose thirty feet above the surface and was grounded in fifteen fathoms. It must have been a niass from the edge of the great polar pack detached by the action of the waves and drifted down to shoal water, for ft bore upon its highest part a ridge of hummocks such as are formed at the mar- gins of floes by collision with onc another. ‘Th hnummocks, the first we have seen of the obstacles over which we expect to struggle through the summer, were fifteen or eighteen feet high and cf conical form. This bis berg did for us exactly the work which we wanted It to do. It cut a path through the floes of winter ice as neatly as a saw cuts through a pine log, and followed in its wake. Of course, the berg was immovable, a great mass that may never be stirred from its moorings, which the suns of a hundred summers be require] to destroy. But the floes were in motion against it, just as the log is Pressed against the saw. What might be. called the sawdust of this great natural ice-cutting process eddied in behind the berg in the form of debris, but not enough to cause us any trouble. In an hour we had fut through a large and apparently im- Jessable floe without moving the ship an THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1894—EIGHTEEN PAGES. rorth shore of Spitz glaciers such as produce ‘There jt has Hp hon Nong SS of this size. are calving glaciers on the eastern Province tone See tn ic e sea wot and not into this region. see x Help From the Wind. When the bergs failed us another agency came forward just in the nick of time to help us out. A strong wind sprang up from the south and blew the ice offshore, opening up the floes with increditle rapidity, and without interruption we continued our way. Soon a swell was perceptible, and we knew there must be plenty of open water ahead. At 4 o'clock the Ragnvald Jarl began to pitch and roll in a heavy fea, and not a Diece of ice was to be seen in any direction excepting streams of smail pieces, which here and there thickly covered the surface of the rol ing sea, forming a curious spec- tacle. The wind now increased to a gale, and out of Hinlopen strait, which separates west Spitzbergen from Northeast Land—a cold, stormy strait, much dreaded by the whalers—the sea rolled with terrific force. For four hours, er as long as we were off the Hinlopen, the Ragnvald Jarl tossed about like a barrel on the waves, greatly to the discomfort of some members of our party. On the right could be seen Ver- legen hook, Welcome point—so called by the early -navigators in gratitude for having passed the stormy Hinlopen—and the high- land which lies back of Hecla cove, where Sir Edward Parry had his ship, the Hecla, in harbor while he was away on his mem erable sledge journey over the pack. With @ glass we could determine the position of Mosel bay, where Baron Nordenskjold passed the winter previous to his attempt to reach the north pole over the pack, an effort which failed, or rather was not se- riously entered upon, on account of the loss of his reindeer and the conaition of the ice to the north of the Seven Islands. The Seven Islands, In the early evening we made the land near Low Island, Capt. Bottelfsen having steered to the east in order to keep well away from the pack ice to the north while the gale was still on. We came so suddenly upon. the shore and shoal that but for the alertness of our skipper we might have run aground, and escaped that misfortune only by quickly veering about and backing the propeller. Being now in the lee of the Jand, we had s:aocth water and fine weather, and the prow of the Jarl was turned to the Northeast, the north cape of Northeast ory and the Seven Islands being in plain ew. In a little more than twenty-four hours we have traversed waters noted for ther difficulties with ice, and in which many arctic expeditions have floundered about quite hopelessly. It was in this region that Parry's ship was drifting in the pack ice for a month. How great our iuck has been may be judged by the fact that only three times dn the history of Spitzbergen naviga- tion, so far as is known, covering a period of Ww years, have the Seven Islands been reached in the first half of May. As we go to bed the Seven Islands are looming up on our starbuard bow, and the polar ice pack may also be seen to the th, The temperature is 22 degrees F., and Capt. Bottelfsen says the combination of cold and calm may give him trouble by forming young ice on the surface of the Sea, but we have made a remarkable run along the north coast, and go to sleep with ght hearts. MAMMING THROUGH THE ICE. The Expedition Forces Its Wa: Table Island and Makes a Cache. TABLE ISLAND, SPITZBERGEN, May 12. Tonight we are moored to the heavy ice foot surrounding this far northerly rock in latitude 80.45. We have not had a great deal of trouble in getting to this high lat- itude, barring the last five or six miles, which held us all day. It was early in the morning that Captain Bottelfsen found it necessary to stop the Jarl on account of the young ice. A few hours before we had been sailing through a tempestuous sea, which broke up all ice, while this morn- ing we were amid water so calm that the surface of the sea was quickly covered with a thin, tough film, through which the ship could make no progress. But for this impediment we should jong ago have been at Little Table Island, for which we were steering when we went to bed last night. There we wish to make a cache of 20u or 300 pounds of provisions for use of our boat and sledging parties on their re- turn from the farther north next autumn. It ig a curious coincidence that it was up- on this rock that Sir Edward Parry made his cache in 1827. He was there on the 23d of June, while this is only the 12th of May. Bucking the Ice. At 10 this morning we started again to try to cut our way through the immense fielis of young ice by which we were sur- rounded. Now and then we came to spots in which the heavier ice had overrun the lighter, adding an extra thickness and an incredible amount of toughness. In order to go through this it wag necessary to run astern and then head or with all the force of the engines. Half a dozen such ram- mings usually advanced us a ship's length and made the work very discouraging. Nearly all day we were bucking the ice in this manner, now and then varying the process by running a Mne out ahead, an- choring it to the ice and hauling in with the steam winch. This helped a little. Then we tried to do as the whaler used to do .in such emergencies—drop heavy tim- bers down from the bowsprit, first on one side and then on the other, in an effort to break up the ice. But the congealed mass Wes too soft to break in blocks, and the most we could do was to punch holes through the gelatinous but tough surface witheut helping the snip at all. Our men aiso got out om the ice, which was scarcely strong enough to support their weight, and used axes in cutting channels ahead of thé ship. While engaged in this work Mr. Juell fell through tnto the icy Waters and would have drowned had he not taken the precaution to tie a rope about his bedy before going overteard. We hauled iim in, and in two or three minutes he was vut on the ice again as if nothing had hap- pened. Our four Norwegian gentlemen from Christiania prove to be capital hands in ice work, afraid of nothing, glorying in expos- ure and as strong as young giants. About 1 in the afternoon the Jarl stalled completely, and finding no way to get on we stopped the engines in order to save our precious coal and took to eating and smokirg. In the arctics one can always eat und smoke if he has enough meat and tobacco, and as yet we have a plentiful supply of both. After dinner Capt. Bot- telfsen thought he saw a new opportunity to bresk through and reach the open water which glittered in the sunlight between the ship and Table Island provokingly near us and yet very difficult to reach. So we made steam again and renewed the process of backing and ramming. Here we employed still another device known to the whalers— that of calling ail hands on deck and cr- dering them to run to and fro from gun- wale to gunwale, thus giving the vessel a slight rocking motion and greatly helping it to worm its way through the ice, on the same principle that a man twists himself about when trying to squeeze through an opening much too smali for him. After four hours of hard work we were pleased to feel the Jarl give a quick start and run away at full speed in open water, with Table Island dead ahead. Curtosities of Young Ice. While in the young ice we were inter- ested in observing some of the curious ef- fects produced by nature. All over the surface of this ice were crystalline forma- tins of pure white, resembling rosettes, caused by snow being caught in the water during the proc of freezing. For the most part these crystals were Irreguiarly ‘aligned, but here and there the wind had | played curious pranks, now forming an- characters greatly resembling Eng- apital letters and again producing very like Turkish or Armenian In many places the rosettes were figare script. aligned in good Imitation of the names of persons, and one was seen which formed almos: perfectly the letters of the name: of the writer's little daughter, Rita. All over the surface cf the sea the sheets of young ice were coming into collision Ordinarily when two sheets of ice meet the stronger conquers the weaker and com- pels it to take the under side. But in these instances there was no strenger. Both were formed at the same instant, were of the same thickness and toughness. They had therefore apparently concluded to split even—to give and take. The result Was that for a space CP marae twenty feet floe No. 1 ran under No. 2 Then for what appeared to be precisely the same distance the latter courteously ducked un- der the first, and after literally taking water its allotted distance rose to the top again. This was continued in some places for a mile or more, or as far as the eye could reach. No carpenter in Christendom could do more perfect joiner work, with more accurate measurements, than these mortisings and tenons matched together by the hand of Dame Nature. A few minutes before 10 this evening we arrived at Table Island, one of the Seven Isiands group, and ran the prow of the Jarl into the most beautiful pressed up ice, full of ultramarine tints and the most rugged and fantastic shapes. Here the pack, in grinding by with terrific force, had pressed its own debris high on shore, pro- ducing a mass of indescribable confusion, hopeless as a road, but attractive as a spectacle. Here we decided to make our cache instead of upon Little Table Island, four miles to the northwest, as was originally intended. The advantage of Table Island over Little Table Island as a site for a de- pot is that the former is larger, and stand- ing very near to Phipps’ Island also. If a beat party were to come from the north in thick or svormy weather, it would have a better chance to pick up the larger land, and also have a larger lee shore to run under, Caching Food and Supplics. We immediately sent a boat containing several boxes of tinned meats, a case of biscuits and two cases of armebis, the lat- ter a concentrated food comprising both flour and meat, or enough for a party of fifteen men for ten or twelve days. The cache was made on a ledge at the northern point of the island, about 100 feet above the water’s edge. A hole in the rocks was cleared of snow, the provisions, all well boxed, put in, and then a sort of roof of boards built over them. Upon the boards a large number of heavy stones were placed in hopes of keeping the meat away from the noses of the bears which here abound. In a bottle placed upon the food boxes was Placed a paper containing the following notice in Norwegian: “These provisions were placed here by the Walter Wellman north polar expedition for the use of parties returning by boat and sledge from the north. Please do not dis- turb, as they may save our lives, “WALTER WELLMAN.” We have much more fear of the bear than of human pilfering. Few hunting Vessels visit these shores, and a Norwegian who would rifle a cache of this sort would be a disgrace to his country. For the sportsman the Seven Islands must be ex- tremely attractive if he could get here be- fore the season ‘of almost constant fogs sets in. Wild fowl are seen in abundance abcut the ship, bear tracks are plentiful on laad, and seal, walrus and foxes abound. Our progress up to this time has been almost phenomenal. In two days we have made the passage from Dane's Island to the Seven Islands, which is unprecedented at any season of the year. In eleven days we have come from civilization to’a lati- tude beyond which only half a dozen arctic expeditions in all history have penetrated, and only two or three have succeeded in going more than a few miles nearer to the Pole than we are at this moment. The record of the farthest north is only 160 miles beyond our anchorage. Rare good fortune have we had to reach such a point of tage on the 12th day of May. Sir Edward Parry was here six weeks later in 1827, and even Baron Nordenskjold, who wintered in Spitzbergen in order to get an early start for the north pole, was here no earlier than we are. Whatever may be the outcome of our effort this record justifies all the confi- dence which we have e expressed in the desirability of the Spitzbergen route to- ward the inner polar area, end with the fine start we now have we shall be pretty certain, unless prevented by some acci- dent which cannot be foreseen, to make a high northing before the summer is over. In our plans the Seven Islands was the farthest point we had ever dared hope to reach with the ship, and we had little ex- pectation of dcing so much or if at all not before the end of May or early part of June. We are therefore from three to four weeks ahead of what might be termed our schedule, and having done so well with the ship we are naturaliy eager to do still better. Though the pack lics strong and forbidding to the north we are rot without hopes of being able to pene- trate some distance farther to the north before leaving the Ragnvald Jarl for our Journey over the denert te ice. ae any Fate, the chance is worth waiting a day or two for. WALTER WELLMAN. patina sara A Laundryman Gave Up B From the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I took my laundry to a newly opened place on the West Side of Chicago,” raid G. L. Cramer. “It wi nice-looking place and the proprietor, a very young man, con- fidently informed me that he had only opened a week before, and it was his first business venture. When I returned for my clothes I found an excited crowd. ‘the laundry was closed, and the proprietor could not be found. We broke in the door finally, as they said he had been gone for two days. There was an immense pile of laundred clothes, but not a mark of any kind to identify them. The proprietor had forgotten this important feature, and when he viewed the great pile without any pos- sibility of separating them, he had fied. After an hour’s search 1 found my own linen, but I have never seen the laundry- man since.” ———————— The Incomes of Physicians. Fiom the Forum. The incomes of professional men can be discussed only In an approximate way, As the amount of money cerned is considered by the public as a measure of appreciation of services rendered, there Is a strong ten- dency to stretch the imagination in the di- rection of what should be rather than what actually is. Physicians form no exception to this rule. The average annual income of a physician in full practice in a large city may be stated as $2,000, and in smaller towns and in strictly rural districts $1,200. Two or three physicians in New York make over $100,000 each year; five or six range from $50,000 to $60,000; fifty from $25,000 to $30,000; 150 from $10,000 to $12,000; about 300 from $5,000 to $6,000; 1,500 from $2,000 to $3,000, and the remainder from $800 to $1,000 RUSSIAN ‘PEASANTS The Innumerable ', Restrictions on the Army of'Farmers. GREATER INDIVIDUAL, LIBERTY NEEDED George Kennan’s::Views on Con- ditions in, the Empire. TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT Written for The Evening Star. V ARIOUS REASONS have been assigned by Russian writers for the unsatisfac- tory economic condi- tion of the Russian peasant farmer. One party maintains that it is mainly due to the primitive system of communal land tenure which pre- vails in Russia, an that the first thing to be done is to abolish that system end transform the peasants into ind2pendent farmers owning their lands in severalty. Another party asserts that the form of land tenure has nothing to do with the peasant’s impoverishment, that the root of the evil is to be found in a Primitive method of cultivating the land, rather than in a primitive method of hold- ing or distributing it, and that the best way to improve the moujik’s economic condition ig to furnish him with modern agricultural implements and better seed and show him how to increase the product of his land by means of fertilization and greater intensity of culture. A third party contends that neither individual ownership nor better methods of cultivation will give prosperity to the peasant unless he can be freed from the oppression of local usurers and specu- lators (‘‘fists” and ‘commune eaters") who have reduced him to State of economic slavery and who now ‘squeeze” him in his time of need, and unjustly appropriate a large part of his earnings. Fundamental Defects. Each of these explanations is supported by facts, and each of them, doubtless, con- tains an element of ‘truth, but it does not seem to’be worth while to subject them to critical examination, for the reason that, from my point. of view, they are not fun- damental. Under them and back of them Me causes of much greater efticlency and explanations that are far more reasonable and convincing. If the peasant were free to plan and regulate his own life, he would thrive and prosper, even under a com munal form of lan® tenure. If he were properly educated and informed he would see for himself the detects in his present system of agriculture, and take suitable steps to remedy them. Finally, if he were both free and educated, he would not be long in emancipating himself from the control of usurers and speculators. Every one, therefore, of the reasons above assigned for popular impoverisnment presupposes either @ lack of freedom or a lack of knowledge, and it is to these de- ficiencies, rather tan to their proximate results, that I desire to call attention. The unsatisfactory economit condition of the Russian people is ‘mainly attributable, it seems to me, to two causes, namely (1), over-regulation, restraint and interféFence on the part of the government, and (2) ig- norance, discouragement and a sort of apa- praeery hopelessness on the part of the gov- erned. Too Many | Bosses, The Russian people in general, and the peasants in particular, have always becn treated by the government as if they were ignorant, Irresponsible and rather feeble- minded children, who were {ncapable of independent action and rational self-control, and who must, therefore, be subjected to a rigid system of administrative protection and guardianship. The theory upon which the government proceeds, or seems to pro- ceed, is that the citizen not only ts in- competent to take part in the management of the affairs of his country, his province or his district, but is incompetent even to manage the affairs of his own household, and that from the time when he leaves his cradle and begins the struggle of life down to the time when his weary gray head is finally laid under the sod, he must be guided, -directed, instructed, restrained, regulated, repressed, fenced in, fenced 01 braced up, kept down and made to do get erally.what somebody else thinks is best for him. The natural outcome of this paternal theory of government is, of course, stag- Nation, apathy and the complete paralysis of individual enterprise. It is a well set- tled principle of intellectual growth and development that faculties improve in pro- portion as they are exercised, and that the more and more successful adaptation of means to ends, which is the very essence of progress, depends largely, if not wholly, vpon the power of making ‘a free and in- telligent_choice between alternative courses of action. If ycu control and regulate every act of a man’s life and repress every attempt that he makes to adapt means to ends in accordance with his own obser- vation and judgment, you not only check the growth of his intellectual faculties, but you virtually kill the spirit of enter- prise upon which his progress depends and turn him into a mere working machine. You may, by your system of rigid control, prevent him from making mistakes that he would perhaps make it let alone, but, on the other hand, you compel him to bear the burden of all the blunders that you yourself make in this fleid, owing to your unfamiliarity with it, and you deprive him of the advantages that he might derive from successful experiments of his own. The case of the Kussian peusant is even harder than that here assumed, for the reason that he has twenty or thirty guar- dians instead of ofe. The directions of a single guardian may be corsistent, one with another, and may have a certain definite unity of plan; but orders issued by twenty or thirty different authorities are likely to be so heterogeneous and conflicting as to make obedience to them all disastrous, if not absolutely impossible. That obedience to the orders of his multi- farious “bosses” has deen disastrous to the Russian peasant appears with sufficient cleartces from the fact that ever since he ceased to be a serf and became nom- inally a citizen his history has been a recore. of increasing subjection to admin- istrative authority on the one hand and of constartly decreasing seif-reliance, enter- prise ard prosperity on the other, until, at last. he has become a livény illustration of his own proverb that, [‘a child with seven nurses always grow up crooked.” Burdensome Restrictions. There are at the present time no fewer than twenty-five different local officials who have something to say in regard to the manner in which the Russian peasart shall live, conduct himself and manage his busi- ness, and without permission from one or more of them he can hardly take any im- portant step to improve his own condition or promote the welfare of his neighbors. If, tor example, he wishes to go to the near- est provincial town in search of modern ag- ricuitural implements,..or of a better market for his products, he must apply to the po- lice authorities for permission and must wait patiently until they are ready to grant f he goes mo-e thah twenty miles from his home without the permission of the po- lice duly indorsed upon his passport, he is Hable to be arrested and sent back like an escaped criminal by etape. If he wishes to migrate to another part of the empire he must get the permission of the commune to which he belongs, of the local police, of the governor of the province and of the minis- try of finance. If he desires to erect a bath house on his premises he must have per- mission. If his house happens to burn down he must camp out in the streets until he gets permissic 0 rebuild. If he desires to put a roof of thatched straw upon his ust have permission to do a to smear the straw with a mixture of clay and water so that it will not readily take fire from sparks. If he wishes, cn a spzing or summer holiday, to decorate his house or the village church with young birch trees he must have per- mission to go into the forest and cut them. If he desires to thresh out his grain in the evening by candle light he must ask per- missicn, If he absents himself from the church and neglects for a ceriain stated time to partake of the holy communion, he is “admonished” by the police. If the gov- ernment neglects to provide hin with edu- cational facilities and he unde-takes to open in his native village a small primary school, where his own and his neighbors’ children can learn to read and write, he is at once ‘stopped by his bureaucratic guardians and severely reprimanded for daring to act in such a matter without authority. If he desires to counteract the evil in- fluence of the kabak, or village drinkin; saloon, by establishing a small village li- brary, he must first get special permission and must then confine himself aimost wholly in his selection of books to literature of a moral and religious character which has been approved by the ecclesiastical as well as the civil censorship, and which is about as stimulating and nourishing to the mind es an infusion of bran in holy water would be to the body. If an educated young Peasant returns from the university to his native village and wishes to furnish his less forturate friends and acquaintances with rational amusement and instruction by giv- ing free public readings from popular au- thors with magic iantern illustrations he must first get a certificate of “political trustworthiness” from the curator of the educational district, then obtain the permis- sion of the local ecclesiastical authorities and the governor of the province, and final- ly give his entertainment under the super- vision of the police. In short, there is hard- ly a field of human activity in which the Russian peasant can escape from the con- trol of his bureaucratic nurses, and do as he would like to do. He is not supposed to havé ability enough to plan anything for himself, and is officially given credit for even less intelligence than that shown bya Squirrel, The latter, without instruction or compulsion, stores up food in time of plenty to meet his wants in time of need, but the peasant, in the opinion of the gov- ernment, has not sense enough to imitate the squirrel or the bee, and must, therefore, be compelled every summer to put a certain quantity of grain into a public storehouse under the supervision of officials, in order that he may not starve to death as a result of his own improvidence and imbecility. Prohibited From Sel = Hay. In a recent number of a well-known st. Petersburg journal there is published a cir- cular letter from the governor of a Russian Province to the police of the rural districts, directing them to take such steps as may be necessary to prevent the peasant farmers from selling their hay, The peasants, the governor says, are apt to dispose of their hay in the fall at a low price in order to buy with the proceeds certain “useless arti- cles of luxury and display,” and unless they are prevented from so doing they are likely to part with fodder which they will after- ward need for the subsistence of their cat- tle. The governor further suggests that in localities where hay !s already scarce the peasants be directed to pile what they have of it with straw, in alternate layers, “so that the straw may acquire by contact the aroma, and to some extent the taste, of the hay,” and so that the cattle may be in- duced to eat it. “Experience “has shown,” the governor says in concluston,“that the peasant farmer needs careful guardianship, as well as pro- tection from his weakness for drink and his' thoughtless prodigality, All officials, there- fore, who have direct authority over him must constantly remind him that he has been given an allotment of land solely in orde> that he may live and pay his taxes, and that the product of such land must be devoted to these purposes exclusively.”” Serf* of the Crown. It would be hard to find a more apt fllus- tration of the attitude of the government toward the governed than that furnished by this typical letter of instruction. The peas- ant, in the view of the official, is not an enfranchised citizen, born with right to “life, liberty and the prrsuit of happiness.” He is merely a serf of the crewn who has been given an allotment of iand in order “that he may live and pay taxes,” and who must be prevented, by careful guardianship, fiom pursuing happiness in an would tend to impair his tax-paying power or his value &s a domestic animal. “careful” the “guardianship” of the local officials is we may infer from the fact that it extends even to the disposal of the peas- ants surplus product and to such matters of domestic economy as the best means of giving to dry straw the aroma and the taste of hay. It is vain, of course, to expect that peasant farmers who are subjected to this Vexatious system of bureaucratic control will ever become either enterprising or pros- perous, A man quickly loses interest in his work if he is not allowed to plan it, end the work itself soon becomes unproduc- live if directed by inexperienced and in- competent overseers. Russian officials as a class are not trained economists—they are not even well-educated men. In the prov- ince of Samara only 5 per cent of the offi- cials appointed by the ministry of the in- terior (1 out of 595) have had a liberal education, ard in the province of Vilna only 21-2 per cent of the police have had even a common school training. To suppose that such men are more capable of manag- ing the peasant’s business than the peasant is of managing his own business is, to say the least, unreasonable, and to intrust such men with discretionary controlling power over the lives and the activities of 80,009,- 00 of people jis to discourage individual enterprise, hamper individual effort and de- prive the empire of half its productive force. Greater Individual Liberty Needed. From the facts above set forth with re- gard to the economic condition of the Rus- sian peasant and the vexatious and crip- pling restraint to which he is subjected by his bureaucratic guardians it must, I think, be evident that one of the first and most urgent of the reforms needed in Russia is a reform in the direction of greater indi- vidual liberty. If the government will abolish its oppressive and humiliating pass- port system, abandon its policy of bureau- cratic guardianship and control, make the village communes free in fact, as they are in theory, leave the management of local affairs to the provincial and cantonal as- semblies, and encourage individual enter- prise and local public spirit instead of sys- tematically discouraging and repressing them, It will remove one of the causes of national impoverishment and carry forward the great work which the czar-liberator began of transforming a horde of ignorant, helpless and dependent serfs into a nation of capable, energetic, self-respecting and self-reliant citizens. AN, GEORGE KE? Baldeck, Nova Scotia. Platform, From the Lincoln State Journal. It's 4 heap of consolation, tm this general stazna- tion, when we find a ‘fellow mortal, an official or a state, t get a ghot at, curse, rand —we can stand ‘so much the better the unhappy frowns of fate. How it fosters resignation if the tide of emigra- tion strands cur barque upon a sand bar, where it seldom rains or snows, To attribute lack of rations to the banks and cor- porations—how the fireside faces brighten! What Intelligence It shows! ‘What we wants's a clap of thunder that wil burst the banks asunder—a division of the plunder is the thing for which we sigh, But to talk of thrift or labor, that may help to feed my neighbor, but for'me, I must confess, it's a little bit too dry. T’m a true-born politician, and it plainly ts my mission to secure a seat in Congress when my g country calls, ‘That fs why T am engaging in the war the pops are waging, though the ee Winds are raging in wy summes overalls. — ™ ~MART HOWE. Sibsolutely Pure Acream of tartar bakinz pow- der. Highest of all in leavening strength,—Lates! Unitet States Goternmen Food Report. Royal Baking Powder Oo.. 106 Wall 3t.. ¥.Y. | DOING A GREAT WORK. Paine’s Celery Compound Brightening of Homes. Thousands Tow hard it is to sce the dear oncs gradually Joring their hold on life and fading away. No home, however guarded, but has some dear ‘one for whom anxiety never ceases, . Father and mother breaking Jown under beavy cares, or a sister or a brother growing thip, pale and weaker day by day. to be some near relative or friend who cwes re- covery from some debilitating sickness to Paine’s celery compound. The family physician, no matter of what school, recommends it and tells of others who became vigorous by its use. This ts the usual siory of the entrance of this temarkable blood purifier and nerve strengthener into so many Lomes in every city and village to the United States. It restores healthy, nervous action of the heart; sends purer, richer blood through the intricate ventricles and chambers of this vital organ and cqualizes its action by regulating the 1:vous system, Paine's celery compouml cures speolily umd per. manently all disorders due to impure b'ood end badly nourished nerves and nerve centers, Mr. Claud Clary, a picture of whose wife appears above, writing from bis home in North Topeka, Kan., says: “I have been a sufferer from mervousnent for years, avd have used several remedies, nome of which did me any good. This season I tind @ severe attack, and tried Paine'’s sclery compound, One bottle gave me immediate viel, I used two Dottles and am as well today as I ever wos. “My wife also used the medicine with mu@ relief. I have recommended it to veveral ‘of my friends and aw sure that they ure satisfied with at" Try it once and be convinced fom personal experience. On What a Crowd ! But it’s a natural consequence — people can't afford to shut their eyes to the fact that our credit prices are as low as other people's cash prices — neither can they afford to forget that we make and lay all carpets FREE OF COST. EVERYBODY BUYS ON CREDIT. YOUR CREDIT IS GOOD. Get whatever you need to make the house comfortable — much of little. Tell us how much you cam pay once a week or once a month — no notes —no interest. Five floors full of new furniture and carpets. Here's Just a glimpse of prices: PLUSH OR EAIRCLOTH PARLOR SUITES— CHOICE, $22.50. SOLID OAK BED ROOM SUITE. $12.» SPLENDID BRUSSELS CARPET.3c, PER YARD. RELIABLE INGRAIN CARPET, 35¢. PER YARD. MADE AND LAID FREZ OF CusT. SOLID OAK EXTENSION TABLE, $2.50. 40-POUND HAIR MATTRESS, $7. WOVEN WIRE SPRINGS, $1.75. YOURS POR 4 PROMISE To PAY. GROGAN’S MAMMOTH GREDIT HOUSE, 619-821-823 Tth Street Northwest, Between H and I Streets. BABY Contest. ‘The prize voting contest for the most pop- ular taby in Washington inaugurated yy us in the early part of the summer OCLUSES OCTOBER 1. ‘The 4 prizes are $35, $25 AND $10 LN G and a pair of shoes to the baby and its mother, for the four bables receiving the highest number of votes by October 1. Bach SOc. worth purchase entitles you to one vote. NOW Is the time to work for your favorite baby—it will be too late after the Ist. WILSON’S, “Shoemaker for tender fect,” 929 F Street. GRATEFUL—COMFORTING Epps’s Cocoa. a BEBAREAST_SUPPER. “By a thoroug! Wwiedge cf the natural laws Shick govern the operations of tion, and by a careful application erties of well-selected Cocoa, vided FOR OUR BREAKFAST AND’ SU Seicatety “Srseneed renee srhich many heavy doctors’ I, y the judicious vse of such articles of diet thet a constitution may be gradually bullt op until strong to resist every tendency to disease. lund: ot subtle maladies are floating around us ready to attack wherever there Is a weak polut. We may ourselves, ‘pro- PEK a may save us escape many a faial shaft by keeping well forti ith pure Mved und a properly wour ished frame.""—Civil Service Gazette. Made simply with boiling water or milk. Sold @2«.m,tuly ENNESS VE OTHE LIQUOR HARIT Post tively cured by administering Dr. Maines’ Gei- den specific. st can be given in a cup of coffee or tex, oF in food, without the knowledze of the patient bsolutely haridess, and will abent ami speedy care, whether iy a moderate drinker of an alco- . At bas been given in thousands of . and in every inst a pesfect cure bas owed. It never fatis. The system once tn- ated With tie it becomes an utter u appetite to cxist. GOLDEN SPECIFIC © ps... ati, Ohio, Particulars free. ‘To be’ had of F W and F sts. nw; SF. WARE & GO, y Ebpitt” Louse Washinzton, my 12-ta.th:s6m At Ramszy’s Your watch cleaned for $1; watch matnspring. 1. All our ‘york warranted for ome year. , 1221 F sc. ow, CET THIN, DRINK OBESITY FRUIT SALT. In 4 recent articie published tn Dr. Wim. H. Holmes, Massac pital, ‘writes: Dr. Bi and like the several physicians presetiving the Feat sh several physicians ving the Fruit Salt as Sesh reducer sda delightfal hot weather for old and yg using apt And lowers the temperature of the bods. 1 ies using the Fruit Salt as a drink. 1 wish introduced it sooner. Our goods mas be obtained trom G. G. C. SIriris, Cor, New York ave. and isth st. MERTZ’S MODEKN PHARMACY, Cor. 1th and F sts, Keep © full line Obesity Bands, Pills ang Fruff Sait in stock. Sent mafl_on receipt of The Bands x. $2.50 up; the it Pat gy X Pilis $1.50 per bottle, or 3 bottles Address 4. Boston. 2 ‘ect Sem ain stores are advertising and asserting that they are without the name being inlay” Hate, on Derbies at $1.50 that the same stores sell for $1.90, ‘Willett & Ruoff, | 905 Pa. Ave. mad eecemiscrne eT ANNE MA Downey’s Hotel For Horses, 1622-1628 L St. N. W., is open for ins; ion 4 all lovers of the horse. ire- proofthroughout. Perfect ventilation and drainage. No Ammonia. No Rats. No [iice. CPersons having private stables fe more satisfactory ond - end to board their E. Call or write for terms and particulars, a eS ee = “ i Physical Culture rset Company Ofirs its advice about MERALTH WAISTS and CORSETS. We make aud sell the latest eud most ap- proved styles. Special attevtion to children and ——— growing girls ‘Mrs.Wheian,Mgr. ad ~— New Goods, New Store, New Prices Wim be the attractions here. stock is constant fresh and attract Our stock will be conglete Deautiful ne of Carpets bh them. — Special prices ou bo The Houghton Co., 1214 F Street N. W. 20 1107 G ST. NO BRANCH. betary here mow. b