I was interested in the attitude of the peasants toward their priest in a large village that we were about to evacuate. The Bolsheviki would be there shortly after we should leave, and as they were reputed frequently to shoot priests the military had arranged to take him with us. He had received for his worldly needs a house to live in, the use of some land which he and his wife had cultivated as peasants do, a certain amount of money, and certain ecclesiastical emoluments. When the committee of peasants came to settle with him they said: "You are favored above the rest of us. You are taken to a place of safety while we are left to the cruelty of the Bolsheviki. The first thing they will do will be to demand much food from us. After that they may kill us. So you must help with the food. You may take with you only eight bags of flour. You may not sell your hay. You may sell your cow, but not the yearling." There was no appeal, as this had all been decided upon by vote, in a meeting. They took no money from him, nor gold, as they are told the Bolsheviki do not consider gold has any particular value. They were careful to see that he left everything pertaining to the church. Talking with the priest afterward, having helped him build a fence around "his" haystack, I asked him what he should do in the future. He said he supposed he would be assigned to another church, but he wished he could get a permanent job with the Y.M.C.A. The sense of private property is very strong among these people. They are jealous of what they own, and normally acquisitive. These easy expropriations and confiscations arise not from an absence of interest in private property but from the presence of a strong sense of common right and communal responsibility. Private property is not so "sacred" as with us but the acknowledgment of common responsibility is more general. I had occasion at one time to sell quickly about three hundred thousand roubles’ worth of supplies. I took a hurried trip through a string of villages sending messengers to others, calling upon the president of the co-operative society in each, and within a week I had sold out to the co-operatives of twenty-two villages. My chief concern had been that these goods should reach the peasants at cost, and they did. Each co-operative gave me a statement showing the number of houses and of people in the village, and showed me a statement giving the amount of money that had been collected from each family as purchasing capital. The staples, such as flour, sugar, and soap, were mostly distributed among the houses within twenty-four hours. Every family was given the privilege of buying its quota whether it had put up any purchasing capital or not. These were their regular practices.