settlers, and leave their so-called "brothers." Cases are on
record of women acting in this way, and subsequently becoming mothers,
but any such event caused tremendous agitation among the "brothers" and
"sisters," similar to that provoked in ancient Rome by the spectacle of
a vestal virgin failing in her duty of chastity.

Platonic unions between the self-mutilators and the Siberian
peasant-women were fairly frequent, so deeply-rooted in the heart of
man does the desire for a common life appear to be.

The _skoptzi_ loved money for money's sake, and were considered the
enemies of the working-classes. Although drawn for the most part from
the Russian provinces, where ideas of communal property prevailed, they
developed into rigid individualists, and would exploit even their own
"brothers." Indeed they preyed upon one another to such an extent that
in the village of Spasskoie there were, among a hundred and fifty-two
_skoptzi_, thirty-five without land, their portions having been seized
from them by the "capitalists" of the village.

Their ranks were swelled chiefly by illiterate peasants. As to their
religion, it consisted almost exclusively in the practice of a ceremony
similar to that of the Valerians, the celebrated early Christian sect
who had recourse to self-mutilation in order to protect themselves from
the temptations of the flesh.[1]

The lot of the _skoptzi_ was not a happy one, but they were upheld and
consoled by their belief in the imperial origin of their faith.
According to them, Selivanoff, the prophet and founder of the sect, was
no other than the Tsar Peter the Third himself (1728-1762). They did
not believe in his assassination by the Empress Catherine, but declared
that she, discovering to what initiation he had submitted, was seized
by so violent a passion of rage that she caused him to be incarcerated
in the fortress of Petropavlovsk. From there they believed that he had
escaped, with the help of his gaoler, Selivanoff, and had assumed the
latter's name. What strengthened them in this belief was the marked
favour shown by the Tsar Alexander I for Selivanoff. Alexander being
naturally inclined to mysticism, was impressed by this strange
character, and requested him to foretell the issue of the war with
Napoleon. He was equally well disposed to the sect of Madame
Tartarinoff, which closely resembled that of the self-mutilators, and,
influenced by his attitude, all the Russian high officia