In the nine needy districts of Nijni Novgorod Province there were 587,000 persons needing assistance that were excluded from the government loan as being between the ages of fifteen and fifty-five--"therefore able-bodied and able to work." The Nijni governor followed his judgment rather than the instructions of the Minister of the Interior, and seeing that this amount was insufficient and that no provision had been made for cattle and horses, he tried to get permission to begin public works in order to furnish labor and pay to those needing it; but this was not secured until December, when 3,000,000 rubles were appropriated for roads, 420,000 rubles for town improvements, 40,000 for schools and churches. From eight to ten thousand men were given work in the woods at fifty kopeks, 27 cents, per day, and one ruble and fifty kopeks, about 77 cents, per team. To secure a general interest of the people the governor made every public commission (boards of directors, trustees, etc.), take an active part in the relief work. He created commissions among the nobility to superintend relief work, combining the Red Cross, the churches and other individual organizations all into one committee, so that when the Crown Prince's committee was formed on the twenty-eighth of December 341,550 rubles had been received and distributed besides 52,020 poods, 2,080,800 pounds, of bread which had been given to those who had no right to the governmental loan. By contributions three hundred and thirty-one kitchens were established in villages, giving meals for one-half to two kopeks per meal. Nijni, with a living population of sixty thousand, contributed one hundred and ninety thousand rubles. Places were established in Nijni where twenty kitchen meal tickets may be purchased for one ruble. The citizens buy these and give to such as they desire to help. From Nijni we take steamer down the Volga, and through the kindness of Mr. Zeveke, owner of the American Steamboat Line, so called because American names are given to all of his twelve large steamboats, we are allowed time to visit each town on the Volga, as we pass down the river. At each place the grain has been received and being used. At Samara we find Mr. Bezant, one of our consignees, just recovering from the typhus which was contracted in his relief work. And we get direct reports from Count Tolstoi, Junior, whose work is in this province farther to the east, and Prince Dolgoruhow, another consignee in the district of Burulich; these have ten carloads of the "Tynehead's" corn, and are saving the lives of many. At this time the Province of Samara alone had lost five hundred thousand cattle, as many horses and 1,500,000 sheep from the famine.