The Kussian peasants are extremely attached to one another
in their families, and it rarely happens that there is much
difficulty in persuading a young man to devote himself for a
relation. On the contiury, they often persist in doing so, for
the sake of an elder brother, or an uncle, against the advice
of all around them. The other day, a lad under twenty, whose
married brother was nominated as a conscript, insisted upon
coming here with him, in order, as he said, to see his fate.
The man was accepted as a recruit, and the father, coming out,
said to his yoimger son, who was waiting in the street, " They
have taken your brother, Gabriel." Gabriel, without answering,
rushed into the house, pressed through the crowd in attend-
ance, and hurried, breathless, into the board-room, fearful of
being too late to offer himself as a substitute for his married
brother. He appeared, however, in ample time, and, being a
fine young man, was readily enlisted in the place of the other.
The recruits, after being sworn in, receive at once a great-
coat and cap, a pair of boots, and some other necessaries ; and
they are then quartered in barracks, detachments being occa-
sionally draughted off to the neighbouring towns. Their
beards are immediately removed, the moustaches alone being
left ; and in this severe weather it is quite pitiable to see the
raw chins of these poor fellows, who have just been shaved
for the first time in their lives.*

♦ It will be observed that, in 1837, the average annual drain on the
population of Russia, liable to the conscription, was only two and a half
per thousand males.
130 THE RUSSIAN STOVE. [Let. XV.
LETTEE XV.
