name of a peasants' insurrection, he was only able to succeed in doing what he did by first going to St. Petersburg with a petition from the peasants of the district to the Czar, and then issuing on his return a false proclamation in the Czar's name, commanding the people to rise against the nobility, who were declared to be persistently obstructing and defeating his Majesty's good and just intentions for his loyal people's welfare. If an imperial proclamation were issued to the contrary effect--a proclamation condemning or repudiating the operations of the peasants--the latter would refuse to believe it to be genuine. That occurs again and again about this very idea of the black division, which has obtained possession of the brains of the rural population. It often happens that in a season of excitement, like the time of the Russo-Turkish war, or of famine, like the winter of 1880-81, the rumours and expectations of the black division become especially definite and lively, and lead to meetings and discussions and disturbances which the Government think it prudent to stop. In 1879 the Minister of the Interior, with this object in view, issued a circular contradicting the rumours that were spread abroad, which was read in all the villages and affixed to the public buildings. It stated, as plainly as it was possible to state anything, that there would be no redistribution, and that the landlords would retain their property; but it produced no effect. Professor Engelhardt wrote one of his published "Letters from a Village" at that very moment, and states that the _moujiks_ would not understand the circular to mean anything more than a request that they would for a time abstain from gossiping at random about the coming redistribution. One of their reasons for making this odd misinterpretation is curious. The circular warned the people against "evil-intentioned" persons who disseminated false reports, and gave instructions to the authorities to apprehend them. These evil-intentioned persons were, of course, the nihilist agitators, who were making use of these reports to foment an agrarian insurrection; but the peasants took these enemies of the Government to be the landlords and others who had, they believed, set themselves against the redistribution movement and prevented the benevolence and righteous purposes of the Czar from descending upon his people. In some parts of Russia there has sprung up since 1870 a group of peasantry known as "the medalmen," who have persuaded themselves that the Czar not only wants to give them more land, but has long since decreed their exemption from all taxation except the poll tax. They say, moreover, that he struck a medal to commemorate this gracious design of his, which has been, as usual, so wickedly frustrated by his subordinates; and that even, as things are, one has but to get hold of one of these medals and show it to the collector, and the collector is bound to give the holder the exemption he wants.