Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1877 — The Russian Peasant. [ARTICLE]

The Russian Peasant.

Tn* Russian peasant is not a bad fellow, but he is not picturesque, chiefly because he is a trifle too well off to be sentimental himself, or to be the subject of sentimentality in others. The law makes him at birth a member of the rural commune, nr village community, and secures to him as long as he lives the means of earning a living. He is his own master, or as much so as anv man not a hermit can be; that is to say, he has as much weight as any of his fellows in the councils of the commune, and the commune is to him the source of all law. His land, in many parts of the Empire, is apt/o be sterile, but it belongs, as he does, to the commune, and cannot be taken away. His homestead is exempt from execution, and so are his horse and his farming-im-plements, And his tools, if he is a mechanic. fie must work hard all his life, and his taxes are heavy; but the obligation to pay them rests upon the commune, not upon him individually, except as the commune requires him to pay. He eats black bread, and drinks bad liquor, but he has enough of both. His condition is not quite so good in some respects as it was when he was a serf; but the difference is largely the result of bis own choice. It arises chiefly out of the desire cf each married peasant to set up an establishment for himself, a practice which has increased the cost of living witnout adding anything to the working-power of the community. The practice works its own cure, in part, and peasant families are still large, as a rule, the family being in all cases a sort of co-operative society for purposes of work. The family may consist of any number of persons, and embraces commonly the representatives of two or three generations. There is one recognized head in each family, who may be either a man or a woman, and may or may not be the oldest member of the' family. The qualification requisite for this domestic headship is executive ability, and its possession secures authority by common consent; but in grave matters this family president acts only by and with tiieconsentof the family senate. .He directs the working, sells the products of the work, and buys supplies, but at every step advice is offered and heeded. The family usually includes the married sons and their wives, but not the married daughters, who belong to their husbands’ families. All the earnings are held in common, and this rule prevails even when some of the male members, whose labor is not needed at home, go away to St. Petersburg or elsewhere to work at handicrafts. There are some such workers in newly every family, and in winter, when the farm-work is done, other members go away in like manner in search of employment, each sending his earnings home to be placed with the common fund. If a married son secedes from the family, and sets up one of his own, he is entitled to take nothing away with him, but must begin over again, working upon his part of the common land For this he is fully equipped, and, like his brethren, he can eke out the scanty livelihood thus earned, by working occasionally for hire, under the steward of the neighboring great estate. His farm-work is simple. His land is divided by communal authority into three parts, one for summer grain, one for winter grain, and one to lie fallow, and even his days ol beginning particular operations are fixed for him, so that he has no need of judgment as part of his equipment for independent farming. He has need only of three things, namely, himself, his wife and his horse, and these he has. These three constitute the laborunit, as Mr. Wallace phrases it; that is to say, all the work is done by precisely this combination of forces, anil, no matter Tiow large a family may be, its members work in groups of two, one man and one woman, each group using one horse.— Appletons' Journal.