volume at the public expense which
no one will ever read.

The cost entailed by this procedure is not known, but we may form some
idea of the amount of time required for the whole operation. It is a
simple rule-of-three sum. If it took three years for the preparatory
investigation of a district and a half, how many years will be required
for eleven districts? More than twenty years! During that period it
would seem that the roads are to remain as they are, and when the moment
comes for improving them it will be found that, unless the province is
condemned to economic stagnation, the "valuable statistical material"
collected at such an expenditure of time and money is in great part
antiquated and useless. The statistical department will be compelled,
therefore, like another unfortunate Sisyphus, to begin the work anew,
and it is difficult to see how the Zemstvo, unless it becomes a little
more practical, is ever to get out of the vicious circle.

In this case the evil result of pedantry was simply unnecessary delay,
and in the meantime the capital was accumulating, unless the interest
was entirely swallowed up by the statistical researches; but there
are cases in which the consequences are more serious. Let me take an
illustration from the enlightened province of Moscow. It was observed
that certain villages were particularly unhealthy, and it was pointed
out by a local doctor that the inhabitants were in the habit of
using for domestic purposes the water of ponds which were in a filthy
condition. What was evidently wanted was good wells, and a practical man
would at once have taken measures to have them dug. Not so the District
Zemstvo. It at once transformed the simple fact into a "question"
requiring scientific investigation. A commission was appointed to
study the problem, and after much deliberation it was decided to make
a geological survey in order to ascertain the depth of good water
throughout the district as a preparatory step towards preparing a
project which will some day be discussed in the District Assembly, and
perhaps in the Assembly of the province. Whilst all this is being
done according to the strict principles of bureaucratic procedure, the
unfortunate peasants for whose benefit the investigation was undertaken
continue to drink the muddy water of the dirty ponds.

Incidents of that kind, which I might multiply almost to any extent,
remind one of the proverbial formalism of the Chinese; but between