IV
Something remains to be said about the causes of vagabondage in Russia and what is being done to suppress it. The religious mendicants must be left out of the discussion, for they are not supposed to be a part of the problem. It is the Gorioun class that the Russians are particularly anxious to be rid of, and it is they who correspond to the tramp class in more Western countries.
The love of liquor is the main cause of their degradation. Two thirds could be made respectable men and women if they were free of their passion for drink, and until they are, I see no hope of bettering them. They will even steal from the churches, religious as they are, if impelled by thirst for vodka, and it is simply impossible for an employer to have anything to do with them. In St. Petersburg a large number of them are discharged mechanics and day-laborers, who know perfectly well how to earn their living, but have lost position after position on account of their loose habits. The minute they get a week's wage, they go off and spend it for drink, and then there is no place for them.
Besides this strictly individual cause, there are certain economic facts which help to explain the situation. The lowering of railroad fares has started a regular hegira of peasants toward the towns, where they imagine that they are to make their fortunes. We think in America that a great deal might be done to change the lot of outcasts if they could be led back to the country and settled on farms, but Russia teaches us plainly enough that this alone will not suffice. There must be something besides country air and surroundings to offset the attractions and temptations of city life. In Russia it has been found that after the peasant has once experienced these attractions he is never happy on the farm.
Over seven thousand peasant tramps are sent away from St. Petersburg every year, but a still larger number find their way back. There is a case on record where a man was sent away one hundred and seven times and returned after each expulsion. When one takes into consideration that the majority of all those thus sent away receive new clothes before leaving, it is easy to see what an expense they are to the town, and the most of them sell their new clothes at the first opportunity. This is one of the weakest points in all the Russian methods with tramps. The police return vagabonds to their villages, expecting them thus to be kept away from city temptations, but the trouble is that they cannot hold them there. They run back to the towns the first chance they get, and then there has to be another expensive expulsion. Lately some of the governors of inland districts have petitioned the police to stop doing this, explaining that tramps thus returned corrupt their village companions.
Besides returning a beggar to his village, there are also light punishments. If he is arrested for the first time in St. Petersburg, he is brought before a commission, by which he is questioned and then handed over to a more special committee, before which he must submit to another cross-questioning. If he can prove that he has been driven to beg by poverty alone, he is recommended to the care of the poor authorities of his district. If he has been arrested several times before, he is taken immediately to a justice, by whom he is condemned to a punishment, varying, according to circumstances, from a month's to three months' hard labor in prison. These are only such beggars as have been caught in the act, so to speak, and have papers certifying to their identity. Those who are found without passports are taken in hand by the police alone. If nothing very bad is found against them, they are allowed to go free, if some one will stand sponsor for them; in this case they must send to their home authorities for a passport, and if it is received they can remain in the town for a period of three months. It is possible with good conduct to have this term of probation prolonged to nine months, but after that, unless very good reasons are given, the man must return to his village.
There are also reformatory and charitable institutions which seek a regeneration of the tramp on philanthropic grounds. Recently a number of workhouses have been put up in the largest towns, and great hopes are placed in these very praiseworthy undertakings. The present empress has taken them all under her personal protection, and there is every likelihood that they will be well supported. The effort is thus made to offer every tramp a chance to work; they are to serve as a test-house where the Gorioun can show what he really is. He is not compelled to make use of them, but if it should be discovered that he knew about them and still begged, he would be punished very severely.
Both men and women are received, and they can earn their daily bread by working for it. Lodging must be found elsewhere, but children can be left during the day in a crèche belonging to the institution. Father John of Kronstadt is credited with having founded the first of these workhouses, but it is only lately that they have become popular. If well managed they ought to do good, for the great question in Russia, as well as everywhere else, is to find out who the really deserving are, and the workhouses can be of great assistance in developing the facts. How much they will aid in lessening the professional vagabondage of the country remains to be seen. If the police—and everybody knows what powers the Russian police have—are unable to accomplish this, it is hardly likely that the workhouses can do much more. Indeed, I fear that nothing can root out entirely this class in Russia. It is too old and settled to give up the struggle without a long resistance, and there are traditions dear to all Russians which will forever aid the Gorioun in his business. A Russian prince with whom I talked about the possibility of getting rid of the tramp class said to me: "It is simply out of the question. We are all beggars, every mother's son of us. The aristocrat begs a smile of the czar, and others ask for honors, positions, decorations, subsidies, and pensions, and it is these beggars who are the most persistent of all. Russia is the land of na tchai ["for tea," like pour boire in French, and Trinkgeld in German], and no laws or imperial ukase will ever make it any different."