NBWTA Report 1903-055
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104 105 there are marble basins in which all who choose may wash their hands—they are supplied with soap, water and towels gratis. They are open from early morning until late at night, for the workers resort there for their breakfast, which consists, as a rule, of a cauldron of weak tea. and a hunch of bread ; they resort there also for their supper—tea and snack of fish, or anything else they can afford. During the dinner hour the restaurants are always crowded, and with a motley company, strictly teetotal institutions though they be. The restaurants, however, are but the nucleus of the work, which extends itself in all directions. In one of the Narodny Doms there is a labour bureau, where what can be done is done, that men may not stand idle in the market place because no man hireth them, while work is waiting to be done. In the other eleven there are reading rooms where all comers may pass the whole day if they choose. These are charming resorts, prettily painted and decorated, with quite the air of a gentle- man’s study ; for Madame Sabaschnikoff, the member of the Council under whose special care they are, is keenly alive to the civilising influence which clean, well-ordered surroundings may have on even the dullest of Mujiks, The reading rooms are well supplied with news- papers and have lending libraries attached, for the committee is just as bent on providing its clients with food for their minds as for their bodies, holding that one of its most important duties is to educate. The energy with which it throws itself into educational work of all kinds indeed, is perhaps its most distinctive feature. It arranges lectures not only on temperance but on all subjects of general interest ; it arranges lime- light demonstrations too, debates and concerts. Then it uses the drama as on educational force. “Equally suggestive is the information respecting the work of the Temperance Committee in St. Petersburg, which began its work three and a half years before the Moscow Committee was formed. The Temperance Committee there hold that it is not love of vodka, as a rule, that leads a man to drink, but the dull, leaden food, of course, the while. ae monotony of his life. He drinks, especially on Sundays and holidays when he has no work, because he feels that he must have a change of some sort, and the only change he can procure for himself is to get drunk. The special work to which they have from the first devoted themselves, therefore, is that of bringing some sort of recreation within the reach of even the most poverty- stricken, providing them with cheap For English people special interest is attached to the Dom Nicholas II., for it is exactly what our People’s Palace was intended to be, and is not. It is a pleasure resort for the poor ; a place where they may betake themselves whenever on enjoyment bent. The Dom itself—it is the old Nijni-Novgorod exhibition building renovated—is a huge place, painted blue, white, and gold. It stands close to the Neva in the midst of a beautiful park, with great trees all around it, and flower-beds, aglow with bright flowers in summer, dotted about here and “there. Among the trees there are prettily-arranged little grottoes for those who wish to avoid the throng. parts—a great entrance hall which The building is divided into five serves as a general promenade, a restaurant, a concert hall, a theatre, and a reading-room. The charge for admission is 24d., and the only extra charge made is for a seat in the theatre. The St. Petersburg Committee has opened twelve reading- rooms, as well as two libraries, and it intends before long to open many more ; and during the winter months it organizes classes and arranges for lectures to be given.” The Russian Minister of Finance 1899, the following report :— addressed to the Emperor, in ‘‘ Now that four years have passed since the monopoly was put in force in the Eastern provinces, and two and a-half years since it came into operation in the vast regions of the South and South- West, it is permissible to express a judgment on its moral and economic effects. If the Minister of Finance felt it necessary to ask that the retail sale of spirituous liquors should be taken from individuals and monopolized by the State, it was, above all, that he might bring to an end the abuses inherent in the old organization. . The spirituous liquors offered for sale by the retail dealers contain ingredients which are harmful, if not dangerous to health. The very conditions of the trade in strong drink—a very lucrative trade for people who are not over-scrupulous —favoured the perpetuation of manifold abuses which were ruining the lower classes. It was impossible to end these deplorable evils except by placing the trade in the hands of the State. The trial that has just been made, short as has been its duration, has proved that the monopoly attains this end. The better quality of the brandy, the considerable reduction in the number of places of sale. . . . the impossibility of procuring alcoholic drinks except for ready money—all these advantages . . . have already practically demonstrated their happy influence. Drunken- ness has perceptibly diminished, offences and crimes provoked by drunkenness have become rarer. Nor has the useful- ness of the reform been limited to the preservation of health and good morals; it exercises a salutary effect upon the material resources of the people.” _ The report goes on to say that the fiscal receipts are greater, the inflow of deposits to the savings banks are greater, the peasants are pay- ing off their debts, and the revenue from the liquor trade to the State, which was thirty-seven million roubles in the three years’ preceding the reform, became in the three years’ after the reform fifty-six million roubles. The income in three years exceeded by eighteen million roubles the income which had been obtained under the old system in three years. Mr. Henry Norman, who has travelled recently in Russia, S2ys that he considers that the taking over of the sale of alcoholic drinks by the Government is a magnificent reform. |