Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/577

Rh of Jewish and christian students." The result of this was that the classes in many classical and technical high schools remained half empty, for in the cities where the Jews constituted from 50 to 75 per cent, of the population only 10 per cent, of the high-school students could he of Jewish faith. Hundreds of Russian Jews go to Germany and adjacent countries to attend the higher schools, many making great sacrifices to do so. Jews became converted to Mohammedanism, thus obtaining full admission to higher educational establishments. Thereupon the senate declared that although Jews might be converted to Mohammedanism they did not thereby escape the disabilities of Jews. As Jews who become christians do escape these disabilities, the determination seems to be to drive them to be baptized.

Since 1889 no Jew in Russia can be admitted to the bar except by a special permit of the minister of justice in each case. Russia employs an enormous number of government servants, but except in rare cases Jews are debarred from such employment. Five per cent, of government physicians and surgeons may be Jews. Private practise of law or medicine is almost the only professional work open to Jews, and as a result these occupations are so crowded that a living income can scarcely be made.

To work "as a farm laborer is not forbidden, but it is not attractive. Agricultural laborers receive from 25.8 cents per day in sowing time to 77 cents in harvest in southern Russia, and from 12.9 cents to 25.8 cents in northwestern Russia. Board is not furnished by the employer The standard of living can be judged from the fact that the cost of subsistence is officially estimated at from $23.18 to $25.75 per year—somewhat more than 6 cents per day—and that "the regular daily ration of an agricultural laborer consists of about four pounds of bread, which is sometimes supplemented with a cucumber or a few onions." In Russia, especially outside the pale, the greatest poverty is found in the rural districts and the small villages rather than in the cities as in the United States. This is probably due to the general extreme poverty of the peasantry and to the exorbitant taxation. A typical case is that of a man who paid $40 taxes on twelve acres.

Legal restrictions make the Russian Jews swarm in cities, and so overcrowd all occupations open to them that a high standard of living is often wholly impossible in Russia.

Greece furnished the United States with 19,489 immigrants during the year ending June 30, 1906, and with 36,580 during the succeeding year. Greeks in the United States send to their home country about $7,720,000 annually.

Rural life is of pastoral simplicity and manufacturing is largely of the home variety, although some mills exist. The cotton mills at Piræus, the port of Athens, run eleven hours per day and the wages