this lack did not to some extent explain the disorganization of the country and the tragic condition of the Revolution. We reached Poltava in the morning. The city looked cheerful in the bright sunlight, the streets lined with trees, with little garden patches between them. Vegetables in great variety were growing on them, and it was refreshing to note that no fences were about and still the vegetables were safe, which would surely not have been the case in Petrograd or Moscow. Apparently there was not so much hunger in this city as in the north. Together with the Expedition Secretary I visited the government headquarters. Instead of the usual _Ispolkom_ [Executive Committee of the Soviet] Poltava was ruled by a revolutionary committee known as the _Revkom_. This indicated that the Bolsheviki had not yet had time to organize a Soviet in the city. We succeeded in getting the chairman of the _Revkom_ interested in the purpose of our journey and he promised to coöperate and to issue an order to the various departments that material be collected and prepared for us. Our gracious reception augured good returns. In the Bureau for the Care of Mothers and Infants I met two very interesting women--one the daughter of the great Russian writer, Korolenko, the other the former chairman of the Save-the-Children Society. Learning of the purpose of my presence in Poltava the women offered their aid and invited me to visit their school and the near-by home of Korolenko. The school was located in a small house set deep in a beautiful garden, the place hardly visible from the street. The reception room contained a rich collection of dolls of every variety. There were handsome Ukrainian lassies, competing in colourful dress and headgear with their beautiful sisters from the Caucasus; dashing Cossacks from the Don looked proudly at their less graceful brothers from the Volga. There were dolls of every description, representing local costumes of almost every part of Russia. The collection also contained various toys, the handwork of the villages, and beautiful designs of the _kustarny_ manufacture, representing groups of children in Russian and Siberian peasant attire.