The most easily distinguished type is what is called the religious lay mendicant. He is always standing around the churches in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and everybody who has visited these cities will recall him. He is generally an old peasant, begging for some village church, and the police or church authorities give him the necessary passes and stamped documents. He stands at a church door or near some shrine, bareheaded and with a little plate in his hand, covered with cloth on which is embroidered the cross. This is a _passe-partout_ wherever he goes, and serves as an excuse for entering restaurants, railway-stations, and other public places. As a Russian gentleman said to me: "You can't drive a man out with the cross in his hand," and he is consequently allowed to go pretty much where he pleases. Unfortunately, however, it is not very difficult to imitate him, and there are a number of Goriouns in Russia, posing as religious lay mendicants. They counterfeit the necessary papers, buy the plate and cross, and then beg with all their might. Occasionally they are discovered and severely punished, but the winnings from this kind of begging are so tempting--sometimes as much as ten rubles, or five dollars a day--that they are willing to run the risk. There are also monk beggars who proceed in the same way as those of the lay order, except that they wear monk costumes. It is consequently not easy for the common tramp to imitate them, but it has been done. Authorized and permitted though these monks are, there is but little need for them to beg, for their convents are almost without exception rich. The more they have, however, the more they want, and so the monks are sent out to beg of poor and rich alike. An amusing story is told of how one of these convents was relieved of some of its superfluous wealth. During the Crimean War Nicholas I borrowed ten million rubles from the Laura monastery at Kieff, and gave in exchange his note like any other mortal. Alexander II, after coming to the throne, made a tour of the provinces and visited Kieff, where, according to custom, the first thing he did was to call at the Laura. He was received by the metropolitan and clergy in great array, and during the ceremony the note of Nicholas was presented to him, of course for payment, on a beautiful plate. He took the bit of paper, read it carefully, and then, holding it high in the air, said in a very solemn voice: "Behold the most touching proof of the patriotism of Russia's clergy when she has need of them! I cannot better thank you than by giving you, as a glorious memento, this autograph of my august father." And that ended the matter for all time.