In the presence of this national disaster the Russian government has not been passive. Without reviewing the administrative system, it must be said that it has sought to grapple in liberal measures with the tremendous problem. Before the first of March, 1892, it had appropriated one hundred and fifty million rubles or seventy-five million dollars for this purpose, and the direct outlay by June can hardly be less than two hundred million rubles. Besides this, taxes have been remitted, and work has been furnished where practicable. Vast quantities of grain have been bought and brought from the rich fields of the Caucasus, though, with the limited means of communication and the loss of horses, it has been difficult to convey it to the regions remote from the railroads. Large public works, employing hundreds of thousands of men, have been undertaken. The forests of the imperial domain have been opened to the peasants for fuel. The proprietary class have, as a rule, in this emergency, proved worthy of their positions and responsibilities. There are single families taking care of as many as twenty thousand people. The women, especially, have come forward with a consecration and self-sacrifice which commands admiration. If it were not invidious or indelicate many cases might be cited of ladies of gentle birth who have left their homes, braved the dangers of disease, faced the hardships of an unaccustomed and trying life, and given up weeks and months to the feeding of the hungry and ministering to the sick. One thing ought in fairness to be said. The Emperor has been published abroad as indifferent. It is only just to remark that this peculiar kind of indifference has been manifested not merely in a vigorous direction of the later governmental operations of relief, even to the summary dismissal of inefficient agents; but in gifts from his private purse, which, if the belief of St. Petersburg can be accepted, amount to fifteen or twenty times all the contributions of all the world outside of Russia. Ambassador Smith estimates that the American donations supported more than seven hundred thousand people for a month. This may be accepted as the result of their practical work for humanity. From the above report it will be seen that the distress was so excessive and widespread that even the available resources of so great an empire as Russia were sorely taxed in the endeavor to succor its famishing people; and that its people of all classes rose nobly to the work of the occasion. APPRECIATION OF AMERICAN SYMPATHY. That the substantial sympathy of the American people was fully appreciated by the Russian people may be gathered from what follows. The mayor of St. Petersburg, in an address on behalf of that city to American donors, declared: