The funeral over and the money in their pockets, they return to the lodging-house for an uproarious night spent in drinking _vodka_. When the last drop is gone, they fall over on their planks senseless, and to see them in this condition makes one fancy he is looking on in a morgue. They lie there as if dead, and the stench in the room could not be worse if they were actually in a state of decay. One would think, under such circumstances, there must be a heavy percentage of sickness and mortality among them, but I think this is not true. I saw a number of crippled and deformed beggars, but otherwise they seemed a fairly healthy lot, and never anywhere have I seen such herculean bodies. Many of them looked as if they could lift an ox, and in one of the few squabbles that I witnessed, they knocked one another about in a way that would have done honor to professional pugilists. However, these knock-down fights are not frequent. For a people so degraded they are phenomenally sweet-tempered; in England and America, tramps with their strength would be measuring it on all occasions. In the lodging-houses, as in the peasants' cabins, men and women are mixed up together, and there seems to be no effort at all to keep them separated. They say that they are married, or "belong to the family," and the _Starosta_ (proprietor) allows them to keep together. Their children--and each couple has its full share--are used for begging purposes; indeed, they are the winning card of the Russian tramp. If they are deformed or crippled, so much the better. The food of these tramps is probably the simplest bill of fare known among European vagabonds. On the road they seldom have more than black bread and milk, and even in towns they are satisfied with the addition of a dish of potatoes. Meat they know very little about, and it almost never occurs to them to spend their money for a good steak; they prefer to buy vodka. Of course there are exceptions to this rule; in every country there are beggars who keep up with the latest styles and indulge in a gourmet's dishes, but they are not common in Russia.