Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1877 — The Russian Peasants. [ARTICLE]

The Russian Peasants.

The Russian Commune, or Mir, is the most prominent among Russian institutions. It constitutes a sort of democratic government. The “Assembly,” which is composed of the heads of families, makes all the laws, directs all during the harvest, manages the labor, punishes those who do not pay their taxes, etc. It elects the Elder (a sort of Mayor), the Collector, the watchmen of the night, the Burgher of the village. At certain periods the Central Administration reviews all the male peasants of the Commune, from the latestborn to the centenarian, and each Commune pays to the Government an annual sum proportionate to this enumeration. All families are collectively and individually responsible for the payment of this sum. It is important, therefore, that every one should work, as idleness does not prevent the payment of individual taxes, and they must be borne by others. The system of corporal punishment still remains in use against those who do not pay their dues. The Commune distributes land between its members as it judges proper, according tc the resources of the applicants, or, rather, their ability to work; beside which, every family owns a house and garden, which is its hereditary property, and is never disturbed by the otner periodical redistributions. Many peasants go to work in cities, and remain there a large portion of the year, and some permanently ; but this does not prevent their title to their rural nomes, or exempt them from the tax. The women and children remain In the villages. When work fails, or old age or sickness arrives, the Russian peasant retires to his conntry-home, and the law preserves his cabin, his agricultural tools, his horse and household furniture when lie becomes helpless and insolvent. There is a wonderful aptitude in these peasants to support heat and cold. You see coachmen quietly seated on their boxes, at the doors of theaters or grand establishments, in the most excessive cold; you see the same men as placidly supporting the excessive heat of vapor-baths, in most of tho villages there is a public bath of this description, but instances are common where peasants take their vaporbath in the bake-house where the family bread is baked. The operation is always pushed to the most extreme limit that man can endure; and often in winter the peasant leaves .this excessives heat, and rolls in snow. Capable of resisting all temperatures, habituated to live on little, workers, and disciplined, ike Russian peasants possess all the qualities to make good soldiers. — Translated, from a French Journal for the Chicago 'lribune. ■ ■ t -■ " i —The Married Woman's Association proposes to erect a statue in honor of the husband who empties the water out of the basin after he washes his hands But the association has not found him yet.