vote for school committees, the question-'Is it expedient that municipal suffrage be granted to women?' It was further provided that the vote of the sexes should be recorded separately. The Bill was opposed by leading suffragists, who seemed to shrink from such a test of public sentiment, and even after it had been passed several of them waited upon the Governor and asked him to veto it. The suffragists, however, made an energetic campaign. They formed local organisations and made a thorough canvass; and several weeks before the election their spirits were so far revived that the Woman's Journal of Boston, the suffrage organ, declared hopefully: 'After next November suffragists will probably have a right to claim that they speak for a majority of the women.' On the other hand, the women represented by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women did not recommend women holding their views to go to the polls, but urged them to use their influence to increase the vote of men against the proposition.

The result of the vote was startling to the suffragists. Of the men who voted, 86,970 expressed themselves in favour of giving the municipal ballot to women, and 186,976 against it-an adverse majority of 100,006. But the vote of the women was more surprising. There were, in round numbers, perhaps 575,000 women of voting age who might have registered and voted if the question had appealed to them; but of these only 22,204 went to the polls and recorded themselves in favour of municipal suffrage, and 864 women voted against the proposition. The total women's vote cast in favour of the proposal was actually smaller than has sometimes been polled at school elections. There were forty-seven towns in which no woman voted 'Yes,' and in 138 other towns the women who voted 'Yes' numbered fifteen or less.

It will be perceived that the situation presented to the American legislator to-day, when he is asked to extend the suffrage to women, is very different from what it was a decade ago. Then the claim for suffrage was put forward in a general way for the women,' and legislators who did not give it respectful consideration were charged with lack of chivalry and generosity. When hearings were given upon proposed suffrage measures, ordinarily only the petitioners appeared, and legislative committees were justified in concluding that they expressed the desire of practically all women. But now legislative hearings upon this question resolve themselves into a kind of joint debate between women who want the ballot and women who do not want it; and the women who appear to remonstrate against the extension of suffrage to their sex are not only as intelligent, as sincere, and as earnest as those who seek the ballot, but they are able to point to evidence, the nature of which has been already indicated, to justify their claim to speak for an overwhelming, though hitherto silent, majority of their sex,

To comply good-humouredly with what was supposed to be the desire of all or nearly all women was one thing; to vote to force the ballot upon 96 per cent. of women who are either indifferent or earnestly opposed to the proposal at the clamour of 4 per cent. who want it is quite another matter. Americans have great respect for majorities, and majorities count in this matter as in others. There are two considerations, either or both of which might warrant the extension of suffrage to women. One is the conviction that the condition of women would be thereby improved; the other is the belief that the State would be benefited by woman's exercise of the suffrage. But these demonstrations of woman's hostility to the ballot strike at both these considerations. It is hard for legislators to believe that, if the ballot were likely to be a benefit to women, less than 4 per cent. of them would ask for it. It is equally hard for them to believe that the ballot, imposed upon a body of voters so reluctant to accept or use it, could be an instrument for the improvement of politics or the regeneration of society. It seems, therefore, not rash to conclude that the check to the woman-suffrage movement in the United States, following closely, as it has, upon the organised opposition of women to it, represents not a coincidence merely, but cause and effect. In this case post hoc is propter hoc.

Boston, Mass.

FRANK FOXCROFT.

3 K

VOL. LVI-No. 33

THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER

ONE of the most pathetic figures of modern times is the Russian soldier. Before he was ordered to present himself at the voinskaja pavinost (the conscription tribunal), whilst he was yet a civilian, he laboured under disabilities which are well-nigh incredible to the dwellers in lands where liberty is the right of all men. But when on the Pelion of civil bondage is piled the Ossa of enforced service under a revoltingly barbarous military system the acme of human misery would seem to be attained. The fireside philanthropist exclaims: 'Hush! Do not tell him that he is wretched and he will not realise it. It is a mistake to suppose that a man who is the heir to centuries of oppression feels the degradation of his position; and, therefore, it is only necessary to keep him in ignorance and bondage and he will be quite contented.' I have seen this argument solemnly advanced within the last few weeks in the columns of a respectable British journal in defence of the Tsar of Russia keeping the vast majority of his subjects in a state of illiteracy and ignorance. But, unfortunately, the Russian soldier and his family, ignorant as they are, lie under no misapprehension as to the miseries which await a man during the term of his service in the army. The voinskaja pavinost is a terror which overshadows the youth for years before he arrives at man's estate. It is not dispelled by the reports which he hears from reservists who have come back to their homes from the active army, nor by the treatment which the old soldiers receive at the hands of the community. It does not fire his breast with martial ardour to see them shunned and despised, or to hear from their lips the simple story of their treatment whilst they were in the ranks. It is not wonderful that he seeks to evade the ordeal through which they have passed by quitting his country for ever, or by maiming himself for life. I have already referred briefly to this subject in 'Russia as It Really Is.' I shall now give some further particulars.

In Smolensk I was slightly acquainted with a young fellow who was the son of a leather and iron merchant in the town. He was just over twenty years of age when he called to see me one day in April, and began to ask me questions about his health. Could I tell

him what he could do to reduce his chest measurement, he asked at length. I was surprised at the question, and replied light-heartedly : 'Dissipation and starvation, riotous nights and hungry days.'

My answer did not seem to satisfy him.

Is there no drug I could take to disable me for a few years, so that I should be rejected as medically unfit at the voinskaja pavinost ?'

I became serious in a moment when I understood the drift of his questioning, and cautioned him severely to dismiss all such notions from his mind. I knew that there were doctors in Smolensk who could give him what he wanted, and who would do so if he went to them for advice; and in telling him this I warned him that he would almost certainly ruin his constitution for life.

The poor lad looked the picture of misery. If I could not help him in the way he suggested there was another way out of the difficulty, which I had no hesitation in recommending to his notice.

Why employ such dangerous means to avoid service?' I asked. 'Why not leave Russia altogether and be a healthy man in some other country? You have a good physique and bodily strength. You would have no difficulty in earning a living.'

'I know that well enough,' he answered, with tears in his eyes; 'but my home is here, and my father, and mother, and friends. If I went to another country I should never see them again. I cannot do it!'

He rose to go, with an expression of utter dejection on his face. As he was passing the window he paused and looked out at the green

fields.

'I would rather live on black bread and water, and sleep out there,' he said, pointing to the fields, ' than be a rich man in a country which is not my home.'

At the voinskaja pavinost in the following autumn he was rejected by the doctor as medically unfit, and told that he need not report himself again, as he was in the second stage of consumption.

Another instance of the same kind I came across in Orel about four years ago. Two weeks before the voinskaja pavinost a young man had his right eye removed. Another, in the same government, chopped the toes off his right foot, performing the operation himself on a butcher's block. When the military authorities found out what he had done he was arrested and packed off to Siberia. On an occasion when I was invited by the medical officer to accompany him to the voinskaja pavinost in Simbersk a young man who was being examined suddenly fell to the ground and died within a quarter of an hour. On examination it was found that he had taken poison. The most usual form of mutilation is the amputation of three fingers of the right hand, which effectually prevents the man from using a rifle.

I think I have given enough examples to convince the impartial reader that mutilation and kindred acts are frequently resorted to by young men in Russia to enable them to escape the ordeal of military service. Horrors of such a kind clearly indicate the dread which exists throughout Russia of the service of the Tsar. Unless this terror of the voinskaja pavinost were founded on the most convincing evidence is it likely that young men would resort to such horrible extremes to avoid their obligations? The fact is that the official brutality which exists in all departments of the Government service culminates in an orgie of wanton cruelty in the army. The official attitude is one of uncompromising severity: it recognises no reason; it is relentless in operation; it is bound down with the most imbecile restrictions; but it is always amenable to corruption. In civil life this state of things is bad enough, but in the army, where the unfortunate private soldier is the slave of many masters, from the colonel to the corporal, it is positively unendurable to any man with a spark of real manhood in him. I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. I am well aware that strict discipline is an absolute necessity in every army worthy of the name. I recognise the fact that injustices are inevitable under any system of military administration, where the welfare of the whole body must be placed before the interest of the individual; but I maintain that the treatment meted out to the Russian conscript is a scandal and disgrace to humanity, and has no parallel in the annals of civilisation.

Denunciation unsupported carries no weight; but if we follow the Russian conscript through his career in the army we shall get a clearer view on the subject of his treatment than is to be obtained by generalisations. He has presented himself at the voinskaja pavinost, drawn from the ballot box a fatal number, and the doctor has pronounced him godin (fit). He is then taken into a room where the tcheroolnik (hair-cutter) awaits him, scissors in hand, and his matted hair is shorn off close to the scalp, at the Tsar's expense. Thereafter he is sworn in and becomes the property of the Tsar and his officers.

The recruit has no say in which branch of the service he is to serve, neither has he any choice of locality. It is rarely that he serves in his own government; as a rule he is transferred to a distant part of the Empire. The recruit from Courland may be sent to Poltava, or from Saratov to Esthonia, or from Bessarabia to Kovno. If he has a trade he is regarded as a prize, and his talents are turned to account in the regimental workshops. If he has none he is quickly converted into a machine to do the bidding of his officers. He must have no individuality, and no ideas of his own, but he is allowed to retain his name to distinguish him from his comrades.

As to the educational status of the Russian soldier, various figures have been advanced lately as to the percentage of illiterates in the army. From my own observations I maintain that not 10 per cent.