[84] This is the industry which is protected, through prohibitive tariffs and export premiums, from foreign competition. [85] Twelve communities were found by the statisticians in which a considerable part of the membership consisted of regular beggars. As an example may be quoted the village Bratovka, bailiwick Naryshkinskaya, Ranenburg: “A good many go a-begging even when crops are good; in years of failure over half the village takes to begging.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 283.) Professional beggary has been of late very comprehensively described by some of the observers of peasant life. Late in the fall the huts are nailed up, and caravans of peasants--man, wife and child--start on a journey “for crumbs.” We read in the _Statistical Reports for the Gubernia of Tamboff_: “Everywhere the peasants report a great number of beggars; generally they are peasants from a strange district. It is only in a case of extreme necessity that a man able to work would force himself to ask alms in his own village. Usually, the needy families are supported through loans of bread from their neighbors, who divide with them their last provisions. The peasants of the district of Morshansk report, moreover, that they are haunted by a good many beggars from the district of Shatzk, as well as from the _gubernias_ of Vladimir and Ryazañ.” (Vol. III., p. 277.) Does it not exactly remind one of the historical picture drawn by Vauban, who reported that “one-tenth of the French peasants are beggars, and the remaining nine-tenths have nothing to give them?” [86] The question of the degree to which they are successful in starting as farmers, is one that does not come within the scope of this essay. I have discussed this question in my previous publication, _Peasant Emigration to Siberia_, Moscow, 1888. [87] The wandering population of the district of Voronezh was divided as follows, between the several branches of employment: _Workers._ _Per cent._ Agriculture 1283 62 Handicraft 469 23} Personal service 89 4} 38 City and railroad labourers 219 11} ---- --- Total 2060 100 [88] The general statements made to this effect by the peasants, and reproduced in the _Reports for the Gubernia of Ryazañ_, could obviously not be presented in figures, for this would require at least two censuses. [89] The co-relation existing between outside work and the decay of farming may be inferred from the following table for the districts Ranenburg and Dankoff: _Kind of employment._ _Communities._ _Households._ _Horseless, per cent._ Local only, no outside workers 90 1124 27 Throughout the region 653 36126 35 [90] _Cf. loc. cit._, part II., p. 233, No. 14.