THE DESTITUTION IN THE BALTIC PROVINCES. [To THE EDITOR OP
THE "SPECTATOR.1 an Englishwoman living in the Baltic Provinces, I venture to appeal to the generosity of your readers in behalf of these terribly devastated provinces. In the uprising against their landlords and against all law and order on the part of the peasants of Livonia and Esthonia. over two hundred estates have been completely burnt to the ground or plundered. In Esthonia alone during the ten days preceding Christmh.a over one hundred estates were destroyed, and the owners driven away, in some cases imprisoned or murdered. The havoc and misery thus wrought are terrible; hundreds of people are house- less, penniless, and without more possessions in the world than the clothes they fled in. The destruction of valuable portraitss archives, documents, treasures, many dating from the fourteenth century, is indeed irremediable, but at least the destitute and suffering can be helped through opportune gifts. In Germany large sums are being collected in all parts for their suffering brethren, the Russian-Germans of the Baltic Provinces, and much relief has been given, in no stinted manner, to those who fled from here over the frontier. We, too, here are doing all we can in organising relief committees, and money, food, and clothes are being collected and distributed among the hundreds of sufferers and their families of young children. Doctors, pastors, bailiffs, estate managers, brewers, dairymen, all, in fact, who constitute the working personnel of these large estates, also many good old servants, may be counted among these sufferers, and all are destitute. The relief will in many cases have to be continued for some time till these persons are able to start afresh, and during the present calamitous state of Russia, where revolution is on all sides rampant, the chances of a "fresh start" are small indeed. England is always charitable, always ready to help the suffering in any and every part of the globe; will not your readers help us here P They would earn a rich
return of gratitude. As it is impossible to send parcels to Russia owing to prohibitive duties, I would entreat them to send us money as quickly as they can and will, for the need is pressing; every little will help us and be gratefully received here. Postal orders or cheques should be sent to the English Vice-Consul, Herr William Girard, Revel, Esthonia, Russia, marked "Baltic Relief Fund."—I am, Sir, Szc., AN ENGLISHWOMAN OF ESTHONLL
[We trust that the Englishwoman who thus appeals for the unhappy victims of the revolution in the Baltic Provinces will receive the support she asks for. Whatever may be the view we take of the causes of the rising against the nobility and landowners in Esthonia, there can be nothing but pity for the unfortunate victims of castle-burning and estate-harrying.- ED. Spectator.]
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