village is something very different from a village in our sense of the
term, and that the villagers are bound together by ties quite unknown to
the English rural population. A family living in an English village has
little reason to take an interest in the affairs of its neighbours. The
isolation of the individual families is never quite perfect, for man,
being a social animal, takes necessarily a certain interest in the
affairs of those around him, and this social duty is sometimes fulfilled
by the weaker sex with more zeal than is absolutely indispensable for
the public welfare; but families may live for many years in the same
village without ever becoming conscious of common interests. So long as
the Jones family do not commit any culpable breach of public order, such
as putting obstructions on the highway or habitually setting their
house on fire, their neighbour Brown takes probably no interest in their
affairs, and has no ground for interfering with their perfect liberty of
action. Amongst the families composing a Russian village, such a state
of isolation is impossible. The Heads of Households must often meet
together and consult in the Village Assembly, and their daily occupation
must be influenced by the Communal decrees. They cannot begin to mow the
hay or plough the fallow field until the Village Assembly has passed
a resolution on the subject. If a peasant becomes a drunkard, or takes
some equally efficient means to become insolvent, every family in the
village has a right to complain, not merely in the interests of public
morality, but from selfish motives, because all the families are
collectively responsible for his taxes.* For the same reason no peasant
can permanently leave the village without the consent of the Commune,
and this consent will not be granted until the applicant gives
satisfactory security for the fulfilment of his actual and future
liabilities. If a peasant wishes to go away for a short time, in order
to work elsewhere, he must obtain a written permission, which serves him
as a passport during his absence; and he may be recalled at any moment