The effects of the war are being severely felt by
the poorer classes in Russia. Factory after factory has been shut clown,, and so great is the disturbance of the railway system that vans and trucks containing in all 1,050,000 tons of grain are " blocked," and will in great part remain blocked till the spring, during which delay the cultivators do not receive the price of their produce. Even this, however, is a trifle com- pared with the misery of the Reservists who are called out all over the Empire to fight in an unpopular war, and for whose families there is no provision. The Socialists tell them that every summons is equivalent to a sentence of death—which is rather an exaggeration than a falsehood—and the resistance in the more disaffected districts, such as those of Poland, has been of the most violent description. The.trouble is intensified by the Reservists' habit of getting drunk just before de- parture, in which condition they quarrel with the Jewish spirit- sellers, and then plunder the Jewish quarters of the towns. We do not notice, however, that in any instance the officers fail to get them into the trains, or that the Regular troops anywhere refuse to coerce the recusants.
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