gitive returned
of his own accord to his former domicile.

Regarding fugitives or passportless wanderers in general, I may here
remark parenthetically that there were two kinds. In the first place,
there was the young, able-bodied peasant, who fled from the oppression
of his master or from the conscription. Such a fugitive almost always
sought out for himself a new domicile--generally in the southern
provinces, where there was a great scarcity of labourers, and where many
proprietors habitually welcomed all peasants who presented themselves,
without making any inquiries as to passports. In the second place, there
were those who chose fugitivism as a permanent mode of life. These
were, for the most part, men or women of a certain age--widowers or
widows--who had no close family ties, and who were too infirm or too
lazy to work. The majority of these assumed the character of pilgrims.
As such they could always find enough to eat, and could generally even
collect a few roubles with which to grease the palm of any zealous
police-officer who should arrest them. For a life of this kind Russia
presented peculiar facilities. There was abundance of monasteries, where
all comers could live for three days without questions being asked, and
where those who were willing to do a little work for the patron saint
might live for a much longer period. Then there were the towns,
where the rich merchants considered almsgiving as very profitable for
salvation. And, lastly, there were the villages, where a professing
pilgrim was sure to be hospitably received and entertained so long as he
refrained from stealing and other acts too grossly inconsistent with his
assumed character. For those who contented themselves with simple fare,
and did not seek to avoid the usual privations of a wanderer's life,
these ordinary means of subsistence were amply sufficient. Those who
were more ambitious and more cunning often employed their talents with
great success in the world of the Old Ritualists and Sectarians.

The last and most desperate means of defense which the serfs possessed
were fire-raising and murder. With regard to the amount of fire-raising
there are no trustworthy statistics. With regard to the number of
agrarian murders I once obtained some interesting statistical data, but
unfortunately lost them. I may say, however, that these cases were
not very numerous. This is to be explained in part by the patient,
long-suffering character of the p