If the traveler be unusually lucky, he may make acquaintance on a
steamer with a Russian who can talk English, and who can and will give
him authentic information. These three conditions are not always united
in one person. Moreover, a stranger cannot judge whether his Russian is
a representative man or not, what is his position in the social
hierarchy, and what are his opportunities for knowing whereof he speaks.
"Do you suppose that God, who knows all things, does not know our table
of ranks?" asks an arrogant General in one of the old Russian comedies.
I have no doubt that the Lord does know that remarkable Jacob's ladder
which conducts to the heaven of high public place and the good things of
life, and whose every rung is labeled with some appetizing title and
privilege. But a newly arrived foreigner cannot know it, or the
traditions of the three greater, distinct classes into which the people
are divided.

Russians have become so used to hearing and reading remarkable
statements about themselves that they only smile indulgently at each
fresh specimen of ill-will or ignorance. They keep themselves posted on
what is said of them, and frequently quote choice passages for the
amusement of foreigners who know better, but never when they would be
forced to condescend to explanation. Alexander Dumas, Senior, once wrote
a book on Russia, which is a fruitful source of hilarity in that country
yet, and a fair sample of such performances. To quote but one
illustration,--he described halting to rest under the shade of a great
_kliukva_ tree. The _kliukva_ is the tiny Russian cranberry,
and grows accordingly. Another French author quite recently contributed
an item of information which Russians have adopted as a characteristic
bit of ignorance and erected into a standard jest. He asserted that
every village in Russia has its own gallows, on which it hangs its own
criminals off-hand. As the death penalty is practically abolished in