Show aha ing the heard in r I 1 u asela s sla peter the great thought to c civilize his ilia savages es by malting making them shave and imposed a ux of rubles on the wealthy and middle classes and a copeck on peasants and laborers now it was a superstition among atlie the poorer people that no beardless son of adam could ever enter heaven and being obliged to part with their beards the great majority treasured tip up their hairs to be buried with their bodies in dealing with his soldiers the great peter enlisted the aid of the priests who cunningly pointed out the fact that they were going to fight tho the bearded turk and that their patron st nicholas holas would be unable to distinguish them from their enemies unless they sacrificed their bear beards lq tills this was all right and the beards of the beloved russians went down before tho the razor in deference to st nicholes Nic hohs but unluckily for the priests the next little war happened to be with the avedes swedes jv edes who wore no beards and thus it t was that uie the russian soldiers demanded ign tided to bo be allowed to abjure the so that tho the holy nicholas might li hive ave no difficulty in ili arranging for their protection english illustrated maga i zine |