RUSSIA'S AWAKENING.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 12 October 1901, Page 4

RUSSIA'S AWAKENING.

One phrase of the present awakening of Russian intelligence is vividly pictured by Alexander H. Ford in the August “ Century.”—

I once travelled for more than a thousand miles in Far-Eastern waters on a Russian emigrant transport, where convicts we\e huddled together in the forward hold, Cossacks amidships, and the emigrants aft. When the ship drew up at the wharf at Vladivostock, and the peasants who had settled in the province a year or two previously came to meet the latest arrivals from Little Russia, the contrast between the unkept, sluggish creatures aboard ship and the bright, active men on the wharf was striking, even impressive. The newcomers, practically slaves, the children of slaves, accustomed for centuries to huddle together.by families in a single room, like so many sheep in a pen, and forbidden by law to wander beyond the confines of the village mir, were still dazed: their compressed intellects could not yet take in anything unconnected with the vast stretches about the homes they had left 12,000 miles behind at the command of the Czar.. The entire mir had received word to move on. There was no word or murmur of complaint, and, so far as I could discover, not one ray of hope or spark of curiosity inspired these emigrants on their way to a now home and broader life. But about the men on the wharf? There was nothing of the solid, sleepy Russian muzhik about these far-Eastorn farmers who had learned the use of modem agricultural machinery, and even hired Manchu coolies the year round to bear the burden of the hardest and most menial labor. Eealisingby comparison that they were no longer the lowest beings in the scale of humanity, the restrained mirth and suppressed freedom of centuries seemed bursting forth. Right and left these steedmen plied their whips, letting the lash fall indiscriminately upon the shoulders of the coolies, just as in like manner others had for generations demonstrated their superii ority over them. The muzhik was learning his lesson, that was all, and once the Russian muzhik begins to acquire knowledge his thirst for enlightenment becomes all-consuming.

The peasants who were landing, I was assured, would not long be content to remain more ignorant than the careless Koreans, and this I found, on better acquaintance, to be quite true. Almost every condition of Russian life can be studied side by side in this new reigion, in the regeneration of which American machinery and methods play so prominent a part.

According to the Alice Springs correspondent of the ethnological expedition being conducted in the interior of Australia by Professor Eahvin Spenqer and Mr

F. J. Gillon, have highly satisfactory and much information has been gained relative to the totemic customs and ceremonies of tho natives. The scientists witnessed the highly interesting fire ceremony at Pennant’s Creek, and they visited the Musgrave. Ranges in company with a numb r, of Lading “ °ld m-n ” and examined many sacred places a-so eiated with interesting native traditions.