d are extremely
jealous of all private initiative. How have they acted, for instance,
towards the Zemstvo? The Zemstvo is really a good institution, and might
have done great things if it had been left alone, but as soon as it
began to show a little independent energy the officials at once clipped
its wings and then strangled it. Towards the Press they have acted in
the same way. They are afraid of the Press, because they fear above
all things a healthy public opinion, which the Press alone can create.
Everything that disturbs the habitual routine alarms them. Russia
cannot make any real progress so long as she is ruled by these cursed
tchinovniks."

Scarcely less pernicious than the tchinovnik, in the eyes of our
would-be reformer, is the baritch--that is to say, the pampered,
capricious, spoiled child of mature years, whose life is spent in
elegant indolence and fine talking. Our friend Victor Alexandr'itch
is commonly selected as a representative of this type. "Look at him!"
exclaims Alexander Ivan'itch. "What a useless, contemptible member of
society! In spite of his generous aspirations he never succeeds in doing
anything useful to himself or to others. When the peasant question
was raised and there was work to be done, he went abroad and talked
liberalism in Paris and Baden-Baden. Though he reads, or at least
professes to read, books on agriculture, and is always ready to
discourse on the best means of preventing the exhaustion of the soil,
he knows less of farming than a peasant-boy of twelve, and when he goes
into the fields he can hardly distinguish rye from oats. Instead of
babbling about German and Italian music, he would do well to learn a
little about practical farming, and look after his estate."

Whilst Alexander Ivan'itch thus censures his neighbours, he is himself
not without detractors. Some staid old proprietors regard him as a
dangerous man, and quote expressions of his which seem to indicate
that his notions of property are somewhat loose. Many consider that his
liberalism is of a very violent kind, and that he has strong republican
sympathies. In his decisions as Justice he often leaned, it is said,
to the side of the peasants against the proprietors. Then he was always
trying to induce the peasants of the neighbouring villages to found
schools, and he had wonderful ideas about the best method of teaching
children. These and similar facts make many people believe that he has
very advanced ideas,