town, which might be several hundred miles distant; but now this
species of occupation has been greatly diminished by the extension of
railways.

Another winter occupation which was formerly practised, and has now
almost fallen into disuse, was that of stealing wood in the forest. This
was, according to peasant morality, no sin, or at most a very venial
offence, for God plants and waters the trees, and therefore forests
belong properly to no one. So thought the peasantry, but the landed
proprietors and the Administration of the Domains held a different
theory of property, and consequently precautions had to be taken to
avoid detection. In order to ensure success it was necessary to choose
a night when there was a violent snowstorm, which would immediately
obliterate all traces of the expedition; and when such a night was
found, the operation was commonly performed with success. During the
hours of darkness a tree would be felled, stripped of its branches,
dragged into the village, and cut up into firewood, and at sunrise the
actors would be tranquilly sleeping on the stove as if they had spent
the night at home. In recent years the judicial authorities have done
much towards putting down this practice and eradicating the loose
conceptions of property with which it was connected.

For the female part of the population the winter used to be a busy
time, for it was during these four or five months that the spinning
and weaving had to be done, but now the big factories, with their cheap
methods of production, are rapidly killing the home industries, and the
young girls are not learning to work at the jenny and the loom as their
mothers and grandmothers did.

In many of the northern villages, where ancient usages happen to
be preserved, the tedium of the long winter evenings is relieved by
so-called Besedy, a word which signifies literally conversazioni. A
Beseda, however, is not exactly a conversazione as we understand the
term, but resembles rather what is by some ladies called a Dorcas
meeting, with this essential difference, that those present work for
themselves and not for any benevolent purposes. In some villages as many
as three Besedy regularly assemble about sunset; one for the children,
the second for the young people, and the third for the matrons. Each of
the three has its peculiar character. In the first, the children work
and amuse themselves under the superintendence of an old woman, who
trims the torch* a