Referring back to Riga. After the last car had been sealed and the way-bills sent, we were speaking of the harmony and unity that existed in all the different branches of this relief work, and it incidentally came out that the count and his family were carrying on an extensive system of relief among the peasants in the famine district, supplying some thirty villages with rye and corn bread, obtaining their corn from southern Russia, with soup, broth and tea for the sick and Nestle's food for the babies--the latter an experiment of his own. It was suggested that in such an extensive work as this he should have had some of the American corn, but he replied they could get on very well without it; that his family had taken that work upon themselves to do at the beginning, and would continue to do it until next August and did not need other help. I expressed a desire to see this work, which I later found was a fair sample of what is being so quietly done all over Russia that its extent is unknown until one comes upon it. And it was at Michailoviski that we had the pleasure of seeing some of this work. Everywhere we found people of all classes giving their time to the work of relief to supplement the governmental help; and this does not mean simply directing, superintending, or planning work for others to execute, but I found men giving up their own business, the attention of their estates, to see personally to the detail as well as the general work. I found cultivated, intelligent, refined women making their homes in the huts of the peasants, where they could be nearer their work. I found countesses working in the huts of the typhus hospitals, or taking the sick into their own homes, giving up social enjoyments and personal comforts, their own plans, in order to make their work of relief more effective. If the official side of Russia is subject to criticism, as sometimes claimed, surely the quiet, personal work and self-sacrifice of its people in this calamity is an example for any Christian land. Sitting at the hotel table Count George told how his conscience would protest against a good dinner after he had returned from his investigating tours in the famine district to learn the situation, as a member of the Grand Duke's Committee, for, "the ruble spent for wine and coffee would keep a peasant child or mother a whole month." But he says when he got back to St. Petersburg a few days away from the distressing scenes, his mind occupied with other business, it did not trouble him at all to eat a good full meal just as he had done before. On another hand to show how suffering continues in any place from lack of competent oversight this incident will show.