of the peasants who hated the superintendents, pitied or despised the liberal owners, as the case might be, and gloomily compared their own poverty and labor with the ease and wealth of their employers. The more thrifty and less liberal owners, who remained the greater part of the year on their estates, were perhaps more respected but still less liked. Any attempt at careful management of the estate was invariably considered to be a sign of stinginess or of hardheartedness. The idea of property is not clearly defined in the mind of the average peasant who considers plants that are not planted but grow wild to be a gift of God. In disputes involving such cases the line between rightful possession and theft is difficult to draw, and men who took the controversy to court were invariably hated. A glaring example of this kind was an otherwise liberal minded landowner, a well known professor of sociology, who spent three-quarters of a year in lecturing at a foreign university of which he was a member and who was finally murdered on his own estate. The home life of even liberal intellectuals was another barrier between them and the masses. Not only was coarse food considered to be good enough for domestics, but they seldom, if ever, had a decent corner for themselves in the house and their miserable wages were out of all proportion with the long hours of service required. Many families had guests almost daily, the company sitting around a samovar, discussing and conversing until one or two in the morning, while the sleepy domestics were stealing a nap in the anteroom, ready to appear at the call of the mistress. The table had to be cleared after the guests and the family retired for the night and the breakfast had to be prepared, boots polished, stoves heated, rooms cleaned in the early morning. For the master might rest until ten or eleven, but the children have to be at school by eight and the servants must be ready to serve them. And though many families kept professional servants, the country homes depended almost entirely in winter as well as in summer on local help.