room there was, the porter-the functionary who appears to run every hotel in Russia-remarked, "Passport, please, for the police."

So that absolutely the only trouble I found in entering Russia was in my own groundless anticipation; and afterwards, as I roamed from the Neva to the Black Sea, and into Asia, and back again to the Don, and through Poland, I did not even have the annoyance of borrowing trouble. At every hotel in European Russia the porter wanted my passport and wanted it immediately. In Russia proper it was kept from me a day or two, and once for six days. In Georgia, in Asia, it was not kept an hour. In the journey across the Caucasus Mountains it was not asked for.

Every time it came back to me it had a new visé on it-printed lines made with a rubber stamp and with other lines written in, and the police signature added. In several places police stamps like postagestamps were affixed to these declarations of approval. Whenever a high-priced stamp was put on it was stolen at the next city, evidently because it could be used again as well as not. The highest-priced stamp thus taken was for 80 copecks, or 40 cents. I was allowed to come away with two or three stamps for 10 and 20 copecks.

non-considering, at rest in their cattlelike condition; the comprehension of the vast ness of the gulf between the millions upon millions of them and their few, Socalled, betters; the shabbiness and want of pride of the soldiers, and the dirtiness and filthy quarters of the sailors

these were not comparable with American or European institutions, except at such a disadvantage to Russia as to arouse indignation at the thought that such conditions were the natural outcome of the system of government. How could European comparisons be made in a country where the poems of Heinrich Heine are not admitted, and the possession of a modern gentleman's library is an act of treason punishable with exile to Siberia? With what feelings must one who goes to Russia to compare it with France, for instance, arrive at the knowledge that in the main the mental cultivation possessed by the upper class is a mere surface polish, that a civil engineer knows nothing but his

learning confined to his speciality? Or learn that when a servant-girl goes away on a visit, and fails to announce her safe arrival at her destination, the police, on being applied to for news of her, present a report of every step she has taken since leaving her employer, every person she has spoken to, every shop she has called at, one might almost say every breath she has drawn.

These are a few of the thousand things that a tourist sees or feels or learns in Russia to make him judge it severely, if he considers it as European. The mistake of so considering it is encouraged by as many other things that are copied from those of Europe. St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Sebastopol, are all built like European cities, with European-looking houses, facing European streets, with horse-cars and cabs and shops as full of Berlin-made trash and Viennese rubbish as are the shops of all European capitals, from Christiania to Constantinople. One cannot see in a day that, however they look, these cities are all under martial law. No one can know at a glance that the porters at the doors and gates of the dwellings and hotels form part of the police system. It is not apparent to the new-comer that every Russian he sees is numbered, and carries his passport in his pocket, and is as dependent on it for his safety as if it were a log to which he was clinging in mid- ocean. No, the cities and their scenes and inhabitants and the

THE STATION AT MOORAVIEFF-AMOORSKY, EASTERN SIBERIA.

manners thereof all seem European. One cannot look into the houses of the rich and powerful and know that only the public rooms are ordered tidily, and that the private parts of the houses are neglected, not even the beds being made up, very often, until it is time to get into them again. Nor can a stranger see into the head of the Russian who casually mentions Molière or Thomas Jefferson and perceive that he merely repeats these names, but has not read Molière's plays or studied the declaration of our independence.

But let the visitor to Russia pursue his comparisons until, as nearly every one fails, he concludes that he must be doing Russia an injustice-until he comes to reflect that the basis and root of its civilization are Asiatic, and not European. Then the task of studying the huge, growing, progressive empire becomes easy and more pleasant at once. Let him once say "Russia is Asiatic," and with the change of his view-point he sees everything differently. Then he stops criticising, and begins admiring. He is not in the last and most primitive corner of Europe. He is in the first and most advancing country of Asia.

If any Russian objects to that viewpoint, he will not find fault or contradict if it is said that at least Russia is a land that lies between Europe and Asia.

I considered it Asiatic when its resemblances to what I had seen in other countries of the East forced home the comparison. And from that moment I was able to judge it calmly. In Asia the systems of government are less military, but Russia is forced into militarism by her contact with Europe. The lack of machinelike discipline in the Russian soldiery is truly Asiatic, and so are the stagnation, patience, suffering, and squalor of the people. In Russia they are drunken, instead of being gamblers and opium-smokers as in China. The absence of a middle class and the gulf that takes its place are Asiatic conditions. In Russia no man except a member of the cabinet or a dip lomat dares to discuss politics. In other Asiatic countries the people are not for bidden to discuss them, because they have never shown any inclination to do so. No more do the 119,000,000 muzhiks of Russia. Their intellectual activity never goes beyond the affairs of village, family, farm, or employment. Their most active interest is in religion, but they make of that such a mere tissue of forms and mechanical or automatic practices that it is carried on without any more mental effort than the activity of a victim of St. Vitus's dance. The leaven of progress is not in the muzhik any more than it is in the coolie. If Russia's system of government is to be threatened or altered, it must be by the ten million who reflect the European ideals in their dress and manners, and who present fertile ground for the propagation of European reforms -the seeds of which, in the forms of free speech and free press and free literature, are denied to them. Russia's danger is from the top; the bottom is sodden.

When we come to consider the treatment of criminals in Russia, and the laws which determine what is criminal, I make bold to say that they have incurred sensational exposure and attack, and have aroused Western indignation largely by exaggeration, and because of that very wholesome Western egotism which condemus everything not fashioned in its own moulds. In her treatment of criminals, more than in anything else, Russia di lutes Asiatic practice with European selfrestraint. In this she treats her own Asiatic traditions with a violence as marked as the consideration she shows for the lives and feelings of those who defy her laws. I am not Asiatic or a champion of

Asia, yet I can see that there are two sides to this question, however much I may sorrow over the harder side. The side we do not all think of is that in this solitary system among those that are Asiatic or of Asiatic stock there is very little capital punishment; that treasonous offences are punished mercifully from the Russian point of view; that, taking the whole not very great annual exodus of prisoners to Siberia, the majority have no right to arouse the indignation and sympathy that we expend upon the few intellectual prisoners whose lot seems to us so painful; that these very sufferers are of Russian blood and training, and, being intelligent, are certain to have perfectly understood and accepted the chances when opposing the laws of their country; and finally, that in Russia and out of it there is plenty of foreign, free, and unpurchased testimony to show that the condition of the prisoners and the exiles is not nearly so bad as those who play upon the exceptional sensitiveness of American republicans have caused us to imagine.

I remember that the first time I spoke of Siberia, when in Russia, was to my waiter in a St. Petersburg hotel. "I'm afraid I should go to Siberia if I gave you my opinion," said I.

"That would not be so bad," said he. Most people are better off than ever, when they are sent to Siberia."

The next time the subject was broached was in conversation with a Russian professional man in Moscow. "Exile to Siberia is very hard on men of education and gentlemen without means, but to the majority it means an improved condition," said he.

The third mention of the matter was to a German traveller. "It struck me." said he, "that the colonists in Siberia thought themselves worse off than any one else. They complained of the criminals who had served their time in prison and had to remain in Siberia, and who took work and money that the colonists thought ought to be exclusively their own."

Finally, I have just read the opinion of Lieutenant-Colonel Waters, the British military attaché who was the last man of note to make the trip across Siberia, and is of a nationality the most remote from any tendency to gloss over Russian faults. "I can deny with absolute authority," he says, "the oft-repeated stories of Siberian

A SUMMER CAB, ST. PETERSBURG.

horrors and Russian cruelty. During my journey in midwinter, when, according to the statements of some, the traveller might expect to come across chained gangs of prisoners on their way to the mines, many dying unheeded on the roadside, I saw nothing of the kind. There was no question of preparation for my approach. I caught up hundreds of convicts on the road, and conversed with them in their own language. In the depth of a Russian winter, with 90° of frost, I found these exiles travelling in comfort, smoking and singing. In every case they were well clothed and well fed, and, so far from dying on the road - side, any prisoner falling lame or becoming ill was placed in a carriage and driven to the nearest hospital. As a matter of fact, in a majority of cases the Siberian exile is far better off than if he were at home. Take the children, for instance, who accompany their parents into exile; instead of having to subsist on black bread, as they would in the ordinary way, they are given white bread and milk until they are five years of age, and are clothed and fed well. Only mur

derers and dangerous criminals are chained, and their fetters are carefully padded so as not to injure the legs. I have not only not seen any case of ill treatment, but, what is more, I have not even heard of one. Even the Poles who were exiled for insurrection are now in many cases free to return to Russia, and several are employed as government officials. Political prisoners, unless they have committed some serious non-political crime, are not imprisoned, their heads are not shaved, and they are not fettered. Criminals, on the other hand, are kept in prison for only a short time if on good behavior. They are then released, having plenty of time to work on their own account and to make money. I can only add that I know-that I am perfectly satisfied-that the treatment of all classes of prisoners is remarkably kind, and that the sensational stories current in some quarters are absolutely untrue."

"Remarkably kind "-I know nothing personally of the merits of the question, whether or no the horrors of Siberia commonly painted in such high colors really exist, but that word "kind "suggests to

A WINTER CAB, ST. PETERSBURG.