masses constitute a proletariat that on various occasions has been the victim of cruel massacres. Among these Russian Jews there is the greatest devotion to the Jewish religion and the greatest racial brotherhood. The Government admits only a limited number of them to the establishments of higher education; nevertheless, in the large cities, there is a great number of Jews who exercise the liberal professions, and especially that of medicine. The number of those who devote themselves to industrial pursuits increases each year.
The Finns inhabit the regions of the Baltic Sea, the Volga, and the Ural Mountains. The Finns, properly so-called, who inhabit Finland are 2,500,000 in number. For several centuries they were under the domination of Sweden, by which country they were barred from western civilization. They are famous for their honesty, love of their country and traditions (they are Lutherans), their high intellectual level (there are scarcely any illiterate among them), the status of their women (the University of Helsingfors has six hundred women students, and the Parliament of Helsingfors has twenty-two women members), and their tenacity of character, by which they have transformed the poor soil of Finland. The progress of the Finns during the last fifty years has been considerable, but in 1910 the Government suppressed the liberty and autonomy of Finland, and possibly thereby has placed a barrier to the development of Finnish culture. The Korely, who live to the north of Lakes Ladoga and Onega, and of whom there are 210,000, are Baltic Finns; there are also small groups of them between Lake Ilmen and the Volga. They have been more amenable to russianization, and have embraced the Orthodox faith. The Esthonians occupy the southern part of the plain of the Baltic. There are 1,300,000 of them, who constitute a class of poor peasants, among whom remain many traditions and customs of paganism. They are mostly Lutherans.
The Finns of the Volga comprise the Tcheremisy, the Mordva, and the Tchuvashi. The first, to the number of 400,000, live on the banks of the Volga, in the Governments of Kazan and of Vyatka. They were converted to Christianity by the Russian missionaries, but they remain pagans at heart, and in their customs. They devote themselves to agriculture, the chase, lumber commerce, and fishing. Their villages are small, having each not more than thirty houses. They are poor but honest, theft being regarded among them as a grave offense. The Tchuvashi are 800,000 in number; they live on the right bank of the Volga, and their chief centers of population are in the Governments of Kazan, Orenburg, Simbirsk, and Saratoff. Although they are Finns, they have adopted Russian customs, and tend more and more to become russianized. From the eighteenth century the Russian missionaries have attempted to convert them to orthodoxy, and have baptized a great number of them; but the Tchuvashi preserve a basis of paganism that is revealed in their rite and in their creed. Agriculture is their favorite pursuit, but they devote themselves also to the culture of bees, and they supply the markets of St. Petersburg with poultry and eggs.
Other less important races are mentioned by Russian geographers. The total number of the various nationalities that constitute the Russian Empire is about one hundred. Their multiplicity, which transforms Russia into a true ethnographical museum, is an obstacle in the way of civilization, to the dissemination of instruction, and to the stability of the representative system.
ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS.—For the purposes of administration Russia is divided into six great territorial regions: (I) European Russia, properly so-called; (2) the Governments of the Vistula (Privislanskiia gubernii); (3) the Grand duchy of Finland; (4) the Caucasus; (5) Siberia; (6) Central Asia. These territories are divided into governments (gubernii) and provinces (oblasti). The governments are ruled with laws that are called "Statutes of the Governments" (Polozhenie o guberniiazh); the provinces, besides the general laws, have special laws that are made necessary by the great number of non-Russians and of the non-Orthodox who inhabit those regions. The governments are divided into districts called uiezdy, and the provinces into districts called okrugi. The number of these districts, both in the governments and provinces, varies from four to fifteen. The districts are divided into volosti, selskiia obshestva, etc. The okrugi are divided into military, judicial, scholastic, postal, etc. In European Russia there are seven gradonatchalstva, i.e., cities that have administrations independent of the governments and provinces in which they are situated: these are St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Rostoffon-the-Don, Sebastopol, Kertch-Yenikale, and Nikolaieff. Kronstadt constitutes a separate military government.
European Russia contains fifty-nine governments and two provinces. The governments of the Vistula, consisting of the territory of the former Kingdom of Poland that was annexed to Russia (carstvo polskoe), belong to European Russia. They enjoyed a certain autonomy until the revolution of 1863 led the Russian Government to suppress all their privileges and to employ every means for their russianization. After the liberal edicts of 1905 it was hoped that autonomy would be restored to the Russian Poles; but these hopes are far from being realized. The Grand duchy of Finland, which was united to Russia in 1809 as an integral part of the empire, enjoyed a special autonomy that gave an admirable development to the culture and prosperity of that land. The Finns had a code of special laws, a diet, senate, bank, coinage, and postal service. After 1905 there was universal suffrage, and the new chamber of deputies admitted women also to its membership. In 1910, however, the Duma approved a bill relating to Finland, which, if carried into effect, would bring Finnish autonomy to an end. Finland is divided into eight governments. In the Caucasus, where the Russian population is in a minority, besides the various governments, there are provinces where special laws are in force. Siberia is divided into governments and provinces. Among the latter the Island of Sakhalin, with an area of 14,836 sq. miles, has a population of 17,900. The southern portion of this island, however, was ceded to Japan by the treaty of Portsmouth, 16-August 29, 1905. The governments and provinces of Siberia are eight in number. Asiatic Russia has provinces (oblasti) only, because the Russians constitute only a small minority of the population.
AGRICULTURE, AND CONDITION OF THE PEASANTS.—Russia is a great agricultural nation; three-quarters of its population derive their support from the soil, which furnishes the most important resources of the country. The statistics concerning agriculture date from 1877-78, and were collected by the Central Committee of Statistics. More precise information was gathered by the same committee in 1886-88, and in 1905. According to the latest of these statistics, there were in European Russia, exclusive of the Kingdom of Poland, 1,067,019,596 acres of cultivated land, besides 17,609,124 acres in the Kalmuck steppes, and 19,133,296 in the steppes of the Kirghiz. The cultivated lands are divided into three classes: (I) private property (274)685,426 acres); (2) lands granted by the government to the peasants or nadiel' nyja zemli (374,672,484 acres); (3) lands belonging to the treasury, the churches, monasteries, cities, and institutions (417,661,685). A comparison of these statistics with those of 1877 shows that in
