ernor-General Bobrikoff and his minions. Thus, the famous author of the cry for disarmament and peace now, on the threshold of a new century, stands before the world, a sorry spectacle indeed! The public advocate of the principles of Equity and Right, he stands irretrievably condemned as the deliberate subverter of both; the preacher of the welfare and security of nations, he stands pilloried as the blind and willful destroyer of the hap piness and prosperity of a hitherto contented and loyal people who had never wavered in their allegiance to his house and the house of his forefathers. The Ideologue has fallen to the Iconoclast; the professed liberator has become the branded oppressor; the "Little Father" has withered and shrunken from his potential fatherhood into the loathed estate of the "Assassin of Finland"!

Bobrikoff, a man of low origin and brutal antecedents, the perfect type of the gang-boss and the military bully, proceeded zealously with his programme of Russianization. The Finnish governors of provinces were constantly interfered with through the medium of St. Petersburg, and then turned out of office on one flimsy pretext or another, and their places given to Russian creatures of the Governor-General; those most contemptible of government devices, the twin systems of paid spies and agents provocateurs, were introduced among a people proud of their allegiance to law and order and imbued with a strong sense of personal honor and integrity; the press, an instrument of more general intelligence and weight than in either Germany or France, was effectively gagged by the suppression of fourfifths of the organs, Swedish especially; the right of public meeting was prohibited; even private gatherings were interfered with; the schools were compelled to include Russian in the curriculum, and educators of national reputation forced to resign on the most trivial pretenses to make way for subservient Russian tools. In every method they employed for the furtherance of their boasted "closer unity of the country with the common fatherland," the Russian authorities gave indication of the most absolute unfitness to understand the mental processes of an educated people, to comprehend liberal instincts, or to perceive the incongruous

ness or measure the hopelessness of the methods of the bully with a people imbued with the spirit of constitutional liberty, whose every thought and act was the outgrowth of an instinctive reverence for law and order. The immemorial right of public protest was converted into treasonable utterance; the peaceful gathering of citizens to discuss legal means of voicing the national indignation was magnified into turbulent popular uprisings; the temperate discussion by the press of the national issues at stake was distorted into seditious incitement to popular discontent; in fine, the universal dissatisfaction was interpreted as sedition secretly fostered by a political clique. Threats, arrests, fines, imprisonment-in short, suppression of all public utterance—were the order of the day. Under the stress of unremitting influence, both persuasive and menacing, a bare majority of the Senate was won over to a half-hearted support of the Russian proposals-in other words, the Russification of the land and its institutions. The little men in power went on their brutal and blundering way, fondly imagining that, as in their native Russia, the strong hand must subdue; Bobrikoff and Co. had ecstatic visions of all Finland at their feet, and reports of the "general satisfaction" with which the natives were contemplating the prospective welding of the "bonds of union" were religiously and regularly forwarded to St. Petersburg.

But the people promptly repudiated the chicken-hearted Senate. Popular feeling became more and more bitter, till, in July, 1901, the illegal promulgation by the Czar, without the consent of the Diet, as required by the Constitution of the land, of the new Military Conscription Law (which wholly repealed the law of 1877, signed by Alexander II., parts of which had been invested with the sanctity of fundamental law) roused the national indignation to fever pitch and led to an open breach between the Finnish nation and its Russian rulers, all the more deep and irreconcilable because the proposed enactment absolutely ignored the carefully studied and prepared proposals submitted, after a most thorough threshing out of the whole question, by the specially summoned Diet of 1899. No attempt

s made at forcible resistance, but the

passive opposition that followed was all the more formidable. It opened with a vast popular protest circulated throughout Finland and signed, despite the suppression of the right of public meeting, by no fewer than 475,000 persons, all self-supporting adults able to write. The phrasing of this momentous document, in its dignified firmness of tone, was something entirely new to a Russian autocrat, all written petitions to whom had hitherto been drawn up after the Byzantine model of self-effacement and humility, and it was felt universally throughout Finland that the people were playing a great stake. But after the nation had convinced itself that the Czar himself had become thoroughly imbued with the anti-Finnish spirit of the Chauvinists, it was considered unworthy and unmanly on the part of the Finns to pretend any longer to a belief in the myth of the Czar's personal good will.

The concluding words of this, one of the most notable historical documents ever drawn up, mark to the full the abiding sense of justice and manly dig nity characteristic of the Finnish people, and epitomize so aptly and forcefully the standpoint of the Finns in this momentous question of national liberty and the maintenance of popular institutions, that they deserve transcription in full:

"The Finnish nation cannot cease to be a people by itself. Bound together by the same historic destiny, the same conception of law and justice, the same spiritual mission, our people will remain steadfast in its love of its Finnish fatherland and its constitutional liberty, and will never weaken in its effort worthily to fill the modest place in the ranks of the nations to which Providence has appointed it.

"And firmly as we believe in our rights and reverence the laws that are the foundation of our community, even so firmly are we convinced that the powerful unity of Russia has nothing to suffer from the continued government of Finland in accordance with the fundamental principles determined in 1809, whereby this our country may feel contented and at peace in its union with Russia."

But even this protest, forwarded, after many quakings and qualms, to St. Petersburg by the Senate, as in duty bound,

"

accompanied with various apologetic explanations from that now ultra-cautious body, and opposed by the eager Bobrikoff in person, fell, as was expected, on deaf ears. In fact, Von Plehwe,' the newly appointed Secretary of State for Finland, a man of the most reactionary tendencies and one of the most zealous members of the anti-Finnish party in St. Petersburg, stated publicly that his Majesty the Emperor does not find it fitting at present to comply with the request of the Senate to issue to the Finnish people a new assurance as to the preservation of their local institutions in the future. His Majesty's good intentions in that respect may not be doubted by his faithful subjects. The disturbing fears that are spread by malicious persons among the populace make clear the necessity of the maintenance of order through further administrative measures."

The significance of such words as these was unmistakable. The foolish reference to "malicious persons" made practically the entire nation the object of the "further administrative measures," under which euphemism the Finns clearly read a threat of renewed oppression.

As a matter of fact, the Finnish people had cherished few illusions on the subject of the reception of their gigantic protest. Indeed, they feared (and how justly subsequent events showed) that it might call down upon them the imperial displeasure, and lead to further despotic measures against their liberties and civil rights, but they nevertheless felt it their duty to do as they did, as a people proud of their constitutional prerogative, and born and bred in an atmosphere of reverence for law and order; and declared that they would merit no better fate than that which threatened them if they were afraid to stand before the whole world, and, careless of the consequences, proclaim to all mankind that they would never consent to recognize despotic decree as the law of the land. Such was also the spirit of the Spartans and their allies at Thermopylæ; of the Dutch against the Duke of Alva and Louis XIV.; of the English at Runnymede, against the Invincible Armada, and at Naseby; and of the Americans at Bunker Hill and Yorktown; and

1 Now Russian Minister of the Interior, in succession to M. Sipiaguin, who was assassinated.

the heart of the New World should throb with sympathy for the sturdy little nation in that remote corner of the Far North, and bid it God-speed in its death-struggle with the "Bear that looks like a Man.'

However, the die had been cast, and there was no turning back.

The true destructive intent of the Russian Government in its new military law was now so clearly apparent that the necessity of fighting it tooth and nail, if anything was to be left of Finnish national life, was borne in upon all classes with overwhelming force, and positive action of some kind became imperative.

The common people, who had become more and more discontented with the pusillanimous disingenuousness and timeserving spirit of the majority of the Senate, as we have seen, and of the official class in general, now began to take matters into their own hands. In every community where the pastor, at the close of service, attempted, according to the command of the Russian Government, to read the ukase from his pulpit, the whole congregation would rise from their seats, and, with cries of "It is unlawful! It is unlawful!" or bursting into hymn-singing, would drown the speaker's voice, and then file out of church in a body. With this determined and universal opposition the authorities found themselves powerless to cope. Emigration took on alarm ing proportions; whole districts were ere long denuded of young men, and the fields were in consequence left idle and uncultivated, with the certain prospect of unheard of hardship, famine, and suffering. At this time of writing, the Finlanders are leaving their land at the rate of five hundred to eight hundred a week, the great majority of them embarking for the ports of Quebec and New York. The Russian authorities, who, singularly enough, appear to have overlooked this contingency, are at their wits' end how to grapple successfully with the problem; Bobrikoff, in particular, is reported to be furious beyond measure, and to be contemplating the forbidding of all emigration, though he would in such case be in a position not unlike that of Canute bidding the waves retire. At latest accounts there are even rumors of this much-hated man's impending removal to some other sphere of usefulness, where his utter want of

tact and his brutal procedure and violent manners will be more in keeping with the class of people with whom he will be called on to deal. The enrollment has had to be abandoned for this year, and the whole question of the Finnish military service would therefore, it would seem, have to be left over until the next Diet can settle it in orderly and constitutional fashion, inasmuch as a tentative proposal to fill the ranks through inducements to volunteer recruits has likewise, naturally enough under the circumstances, fallen through. Should the Diet, after all, then, have the task of the ultimate solution of this much agitated and vital question, it will be a great victory for Finnish determination and orderly resistance.

So the matter rests at present, but persecution in other directions goes on apace, and popular feeling is fast nearing the danger point. The next governmental move is awaited with bated breath.

Meanwhile, every steamer leaving Finland's shores is crowded to the taffrail with the flower of the Finnish young manhood escaping from the doomed land, with its fields growing more and more deserted, its factories closing one by one, all business conditions unsettled, all enterprise checked, and, finally, the native officials feeling themselves liable to dismissal at any moment at the mere caprice of an irresponsible despot, whose blinded and fatuous creatures continue to fill his credulous ear with assurances of the grateful affection with which the mass of his Finnish subjects accept his well-intentioned "reforms" for "the further unity of the common Fatherland!" Finland, but four years ago a comparatively happy and prosperous little nation, is going headlong to ruin. It is a spectacle to make angels weep.

Not only has the coarse brutality of the Russian procedure in Finland shocked civilized opinion, but with each successive development its extreme unwisdom has become so manifest that people are compelled to ask in amazement how such astonishingly fatuous policy can ever have been allowed to become dominant. Every consideration of statesmanship-nay, even of ordinary prudence-would, one would think, have shown the wisdom of maintaining in a state of prosperity and content an orderly, enlightened, and thor

oughly loyal people at the very gates of the Empire. What strange aberration of mind could have determined the rulers of that Empire to reverse the time-honored and success-crowned policy of their predecessors?

Rus

The answer is not far to seek. sia's ruling passion is the love of dominion, and with that is indissolubly bound up, in her case, the idea of one-man power. We have before alluded to the constitutional incapacity of the Russian privileged class. to grasp the fundamentals of democratic doctrine. It would perhaps have been more strictly in accordance with facts to have laid the persecution of Finland to a positive hatred on the part of all Russians in authority, of whatever degree, against every institution savoring of democracy, as directly inimical to the principle of autocratic rule, in which the all-powerful Panslavist party sees the surest means of realizing its dream of Muscovite unity. To keep the supreme power in the hands of one man, and then, through cajolery and intrigue, through fair means or foul, to secure the ascendency of their own influence over that one man, was the only method, they argued, to insure the triumph of the great doctrine of Panslavism. Consequently, all that, within the Russian dominions, deviated from Russian ideals and practice, must be swept out of the way as an obstacle to the prompt and uniform exercise of unlimited power.

Undoubtedly the sudden rise of the German Empire, through Bismarck and the French war, had excited the Panslavists' envy and apprehension. Their activity. Their activity could thenceforth no longer be confined to religious propaganda, but must be made to subserve political ends: the develop ment of Russian might abroad was thenceforth to be pushed vigorously. The policy of "expansion" was begun straightway in the Baltic provinces, where the lack of social solidarity between the German nobility and the native Esthonian and Lithuanian element rendered dissension and subsequent annihilation easy.

Finland's turn was, of course, to come next; the procedure was deliberate. Russian bitterness was even greater in this case on account of the independent form of Finland's government. Would Bismarck have tolerated such? Then why should Russia? An independent little

State by the side of Russia was an insult, a scandal, in a land conquered by might of Russian arms, at the cost of Russian blood! What insolent swagger, permitted by Russian magnanimity alone! By such arguments, bandied back and forth with well-feigned indignation at the headquarters of the "Slavic Charity Association in St. Petersburg, and echoed zealously by such agencies as "Moskovskia Viedomosti," "Golos," and "Novoye Vremya," was Russian opinion inflamed. Why, they asked, should Swedish be the official tongue in Finland? Why should it even be a national tongue? Why not Russian? The mere fact that such questions could be seriously asked, and the substitution of Russian be planned as the official and national language of Finland, when both the Swedish and Finnish idioms were firmly intrenched as the expression of the national thought, tradition, and culture from ages back, was alone enough to prove the grotesque incompetency of the Muscovite authorities to understand the meaning, far less to measure the importance, of ethnological problems. "What do you mean by 'national culture'?" was once asked by Bobrikoff of the Finnish Senate!

The cleavage between Finland and Russia is thus seen to be complete. It remains to estimate the weaker country's chances of successful resistance in this unequal struggle, the utter futility and folly of an appeal to arms being conceded in advance. The case, I cannot but think, is perhaps not so hopeless for Finland as it looks to an outsider. The Finns are eminently peace-loving and law-abiding, but a rock-like immovability of purpose, which their foes call mulish obstinacy, is a marked trait of the national character, and now, intensified as it is by a deepseated sense of injustice, it is likely to present an unbreakable and unscalable barrier to all Muscovite projects of assimilation or annihilation. The little nation is ready for a conciliatory policy, but never on condition of losing its identity. Unalterable opposition must be theirs as long as Bobrikoff or any of his stamp remains the Czar's representative, and as long as there continues to be denial of Finnish rights save such as the Czar may condescend to admit. Russian autocratic rule and Finnish constitutional ideals are absolutely irrecon

cilable, and so long as the present policy of misrepresentation and oppression lasts, passive resistance, unflinching and untir ing, will meet Russia's every move, no matter at what sacrifice of mental peace and material welfare; until at last, whether in our generation or a later, the great awakening, of which there is ample present indication in the masses of the Russian people, shall have led, within the Musco

D

vite Empire itself, to the triumph, whether pacific or cataclysmal, of saner and broader views of statesmanship and of national obligations; to the full recognition of a future historical mission, if you will, that shall see in the fostering of Finnish autonomy and Finnish ideals of national freedom and growth the surest guarantee of Russian development, morally, intellectually, and materially.

URING the years that I have lived in New York, moving here and there in quest of the knowledge of it, and reading the daily papers more or less diligently, I had seen an occasional reference to the Tombs Angel. It was always a very incidental reference, usually a brief statement that some woman or young girl, picked up by the police, had been given into her charge. I would not now recall these references were it not for subsequent events. They made no conscious impression upon me at the time, but now I know that I had formed a vague conception of her.

The Tombs Angel was, in my mind, a large, good-natured woman, perfunctorily sympathetic, without any culture and perhaps with no education, performing her ostensibly benevolent duties because she was paid to, performing them pleasantly because she was large and amiable, accustomed to crime and degradation, and not too deeply touched by it.

The

When the fire occurred in the Park Avenue Hotel last winter, I learned that the Tombs Angel was Mrs. Rebecca Salome Foster; that she had lived there for a number of years, and was killed in the disaster. This was in itself a surprise, but the tone of the newspapers in recording her death was a greater one. usual newspaper obituary is, at best, perfunctory. However great or good the deceased may have been, the records of his deeds, the eulogy of his character, are usually gleaned from books and files and put into form by some one assigned to the work. It is to him a part of the day's demand. He writes it as he would an

account of a Board meeting. There were no "obituaries" given to Mrs. Foster. The hotel fire was made little of. Her death was the tragedy. Every account was a lament-sincere, almost pathetic. There was a note of sorrow, simple and genuine, seldom found in the columns, of the newspapers. Such a note is struck when the President is murdered, for then the whole country, by horror of the deed and by the magnitude of the event, is shocked out of its indifference. It is a simultaneous feeling by a whole people that stirs in the blood of the scribe.

The day before Mrs. Foster was killed she was unknown to hundreds of thousands of even the people in New York. You could have cried her name in vain up crowded Broadway and through the shopping district, on a bright day, when all the multitudes were out. But even the stranger reading the accounts of her that day must have been moved by them, and felt, without knowing, that they were justified.

Her death was not treated as a sensation, a good story thrown by fate in the reporter's way to-day, to be forgotten tomorrow. It was the singular tone of respect, bordering on veneration, that stirred my interest. I wanted to know the woman we had lost.

The police reporters seldom call at the offices of the newspapers they represent. There are two or three old buildings on Mulberry Street, across the way from Police Headquarters, where they have their desks and offices. They make the daily rounds of courts and officials, looking up certain captains, detec or roundsmen, in quest