griefs and sorrows, and buried his genius in
the shades of its eternal oblivion."

The Englishwoman was present once when
a bargain was struck for a dressmaker. A
gentleman had dropped in to dine; the host
mentioned that his wife wanted a good
dressing-maid. The guest recommended
one, skilful in dressmaking, with whom he
thought his wife would part. "Well," the
other said, "her price?" "Two hundred
and fifty silver roubles." That was more
than could be given; but the bargain finally
was struck for a hundred roubles and an old
piano.

Such a servant must be content to submit
to much oppression. The mistress who parts
from you in the drawing-room with a smile,
may be met ten minutes afterwards in the
garden, her face inflamed with rage, beating
a man before her, one of the serfs employed
upon the grounds. A lady who lost much
money at the gambling-table, being pressed
to pay a debt of honour, remembered that
she had not a few female servants who
possessed beautiful hair. She ordered them
all to be cropped and their hair sold for her
benefit, regardless of the fact that together
with their hair she robbed them of their
reputations; cropped hair being one of the
marks set on a criminal.

The boxing of the ears of maids is not
below the dignity of any lady; but when the
maid is not a Russian, there may be some
danger in the practice. A princess whose
hair was being dressed by a French waiting-maid,
receiving some accidental scratch,
turned round and slapped the face of her
attendant. The Frenchwoman had the lady's
back hair in her hands at the time, and
grasping it firmly, held her head fast, while
she administered a sound correction on the
cheeks and ears of her highness with the
back of her hairbrush. It was an insult that
could not be resented publicly. A lady of
her highness's blood could not let it be said
that a servant had given her a beating, and
she therefore bribed the Frenchwoman by
money and kind treatment to hold her
tongue.

Yet blows do not count for much in
Russia; from the highest to the lowest, all
are liable to suffer them. A lady of the
highest rank, using the lady's privilege of
chattering in the ear of the Emperor at a
masked ball, let fall some indiscreet suggestions.
She was followed home by a spy;
summoned next day to Count Orloff's office;
pointed to a chair; amicably interrogated;
presently let quietly down into a cellar,
where she was birched by some person unseen.
This lady, whose story we have heard
before, the Englishwoman often met; her
sister she knew well; and she had the
anecdote from an intimate friend of the
family.

The knout, the emblem of Russian barbarism,
falls not only on the slave or the
criminal. A poor student of more than
ordinary talents had, by great perseverance,
twice merited a prize; but he was regarded
with jealous hostility by a certain professor,
whom he was too poor to bribe.
Twice cheated, the poor fellow made a
third effort, though barely able to sustain
himself in his humble lodging until the
period of examination came. His future
hung upon the result; for, upon his passing
the ordeal with credit, depended his access
to employment that would get him bread.
He strained every nerve, and succeeded well.
All the professors testified their approbation
except one, whose voice was necessary to
complete the votes. He rose, and withheld
his suffrage upon false grounds, that cast dishonour
on the young man's character. It
was his old enemy; and the poor boy- a
widow's son- with starvation before him, and
his hopes all cast to the winds, rushed
forward by a sudden impulse of despair, and
struck his persecutor. He was arrested,
tried, and condemned, by the Emperor himself,
to receive a thousand lashes with the
knout. All the students and professors were
ordered to be present at the execution of the
sentence. Long before it was complete, of
course, the youth was dead; but the full
number was completed. Many students who
were made spectators of the scene lay on the
ground in swoon. From another eye-witness,
the Englishwoman heard of the presence of a
line of carriages, filled with Russian ladies, at
a similar scene, the victims being slaves who
had rebelled because a master introduced
upon his ground a box in which to thrash
them by machinery, and had seized him and
given him a taste of his own instrument of
torture. Need we say more to prove that
the true Russian civilisation is a thing to
come?

Our countrywoman, visiting a monastery,
was invited to eat ices in the garden. She
saw how the spoons were cleaned behind the
bushes- licked and wiped. Such ice-eating,
with the spoon-licking in the back-ground, is
typical of the sort of elegance and polish
Russia has.

One day the Englishwoman saw an officer
boldly pocket some of his neighbour's money
while playing at cards. Another slipped up
his sleeve some concert tickets belonging to
her friend. She and her friend both saw him
do it. One day a young officer called while
they were at dinner; was shown into one of
the drawing-rooms, and departed with a
lady's watch. Nothing was said to the
police, out of respect to his uncle, who is of
rank. Ladies. going to a party will sometimes
steal the papers of kid gloves and the
hair-pins left on the toilet tables to supply
those who happen to come unprovided. Our
countrywoman went to visit an old lady; and,
as all the drawing-rooms were thrown open
for the reception of visitors, thought it no
sin to walk from one room to another for the