In this matter of sheltering the people, as in others of like importance, Miss Clara Barton, president of the Red Cross Association, was most helpful. At a time when there was a doubt if the Flood Commission could furnish houses of suitable character and with the requisite promptness, she offered to assume charge, and she erected with the funds of the association three large apartment houses which afforded comfortable lodgings for many houseless people. She was among the first to arrive on the scene of calamity, bringing with her Dr. Hubbell, the field officer of the Red Cross Association, and a staff of skilled assistants. She made her own organization for relief work in every form, disposing of the large resources under her control with such wisdom and tenderness that the charity of the Red Cross had no sting, and its recipients are not Miss Barton’s dependents, but her friends. She was also the last of the ministering spirits to leave the scene of her labors, and she left her apartment houses for use during the winter, and turned over her warehouse, with its store of furniture, bedding and clothing and a well-equipped infirmary, to the Union Benevolent Association of the Conemaugh Valley, the organization of which she advised and helped to form; and its lady visitors have so well performed their work that the dreaded winter has no terrors, mendicancy has been repressed, and not a single case of unrelieved suffering is known to have occurred in all the flooded district. THE RUSSIAN FAMINE OF 1891-92 To understand properly the Russian Famine of 1891-92, and the relief work of the Red Cross connected therewith, one needs to keep in mind the ordinary moral and economic condition of the Russian peasantry. They were, many of them, not long ago serfs attached to the land in a condition but little better than American slaves. Though the liberation of the serfs made their legal condition better, it left them in condition scarcely less discouraging than before. They were subject to all the disabilities of hard bargains on every side, from the exactions of taxes levied in one way or another, and payable in services or goods, all of which called for an ever-increasing sacrifice. They were subject to onerous military service, and penal exactions for violations of the law. These conditions surrounded them with an atmosphere of depressing poverty, fear, and hopeless endurance, if not of despair. They have not felt the stimulating habitual influence of hope, of courage, of enterprise. They are not educated to surmount discouragements by overcoming them. Difficulties do not down easily before them; they go down before difficulties and disasters in something like apathetic despondency, or live in an amazing light-hearted, careless recklessness that easily turns to drink, to idleness, weakness, disease, and early death. Fear is with them always, as if fate was over and against them.