Mustard seed No. 1 was carried over from the United States in the Autumn of 1887 and sown on the good ground of the late Count Tolstoy, and other noble men, whence—­as results show—­it spread abroad with a swiftness suggestive rather of the proverbial weed than of the fair flower its blossoming has shown it to be.

In the Autumn of 1886 Dr. Peter Semyonovitch Alexyeeff of Moscow, accompanied by his wife, sailed for Canada and the United States for the purpose of inspecting the hospitals, prisons, and elementary schools; and they came for the Winter because some parts of Canada during that season possess a climate similar to that of Central Russia, while in other parts the climates are identical.  In fact, Canada is the only country in the world where the climatic conditions are at all analogous.  The construction of new hospitals, the adaptation of already existing buildings for hospital use, the internal arrangement, and the perfection of their internal machinery had long been matters of deep interest to Dr. Alexyeeff.

Germany and France, with climates so different from that of Russia, could not furnish him with the information available in North America, where, in his opinion, the habits and conditions of existence—­such important factors in matters connected with hospitals and invalids—­also differ less from those of Russia than do the general surroundings in the countries of the Continent.  After visiting the principal cities of Canada and the United States from Quebec to Vancouver, and from Boston to Washington, (some of them more than once,) Dr. Alexyeeff arrived at the conclusion that the hospitals of the United States were better built and much better administered than those of London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

Naturally, no one could spend nine months in investigating hospitals and prisons in this country without coming in contact with the liquor problem.  Moreover, Dr. Alexyeeff was a wideawake man, who took an interest not only in all matters connected with his profession, but in very many outside of it.  He was, also, a man of very lofty character.  His wife once wrote me concerning him somewhat as follows:  “He walks, habitually, on such moral heights, in such a rarefied spiritual atmosphere, that I, the daughter of an English clergyman, reared accordingly, and myself (as you know) deeply in sympathy with it, find difficulty in following him.”  Obviously, he was precisely the man to appreciate the temperance movement, and to carry it to its logical conclusion.  In the preface to a volume, “About America,” which he published in Moscow in 1888, he writes: