Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-06-07

1)l1~e-0JNo kyter4eo-tee #esee fefvsF'
fron tine immsmorial Russian-po.
Itce ssofc1|ss have been made By night
&oeds q thIs sort loving darkness rather
n&n light. But u would be wrong g
MIR thervftom, writes = correspond
Gnf Of ne San Francisco Chronicle,
ohs1 Russian families snjoy absolute
nnan1ty nom these unwslccms vista
tiosa during The day. The police often
make searches IN the daytime. when
dizzy are least expected, when people
ere tbs least prepared to receive, and,
pseaibly. 10 deceive them. They like
% take their victims by surprise, aud
they know that 1 man whom they want
reneYAliy leaves his friends house
towards midnight and repairs to some
updsscoverAbls hiding-plaee. A secret
meeting will adjourn rather than con.
tinue is deliberations until late and
therefore dangerous hour. So the po-
lice. BY appearing unexpectedly, may
make rich prizes. and they cnot restrict
their visits 70 any particular time. On
he other hand, there are good reasons
Why they make them mostly At night.
h the first place, nocturnal searches
cause less scandal than daylight visits.
All that the ncighbors know next
morning il that somebody has disap-
reared. At l or 2 A. NJ, moreover,
he police are sure 10 find people at
homs and to take them more or less BY
surprise. Hence tho watches Of the
nieht, when. in other countries, the
sanctity Of the home enjoys the special
protection Of the law, is, Of oil others,
the time when the subjects Of the Gar
enjoy the least security and are ex-
posed to the graysst perils.
During the periods Of 60 white ter
ros, - which generally follow attempts
made against tho authorities or detected
plots, when searches by the hundred are
made right and left, there is hardly a
family belonging to the educated classes
who, on retiring to rest, do not tremb'e
ct the thought that before morning
they may be reused from their sleep
by the despot's emissaries. At one Of
these periods latter the Solovieff af-
fair, the ordinary jail being so crowded
With prisoners seriously compromised
that there was no room for the many
persons who were merely suspected,
without shadow OF evidence, the lat
ter had to be confined in the common
room Of Litovsky castle. They lived
together and were rather gay, as is al
ways the case when prisoners meet, and
they can talk openly and freely. Before
going TO bed, as one who was there has
told me, they would say to each other,
" All, we shall sleep soundly tonight,
for here we are in safety" A grim
pleasantly, ofwhich none but those who
have lived under the czars can under
stand the full significance. Deceiving
people by falsehood or stratagem in
order to make them open a door with
out mistrust is common proceeding OF
the Russian police. When they wanted
to arrest Donluovkin, an officer quar-
tered in suburb Of st. Petersburg,
they caused the chief of his battalion
TO say that he had an important COM
municstionto make to him on the BUSH
ness Of the regiment. The police OF
Odessa, desiring on one occasion TO
make an arrest, raised cry of " Fire !"
ut the door of their victim, who, rush
ing out in all haste, only half-clad, fell
into their hands and was carried off
without ceremony.
But when searches are so frequent
that everybody expects them, the po-
lice, us rule, reserve their articles
for special cases. For as an engineer
may be hoist with his own petard, SO
may an article be turned against its
contrivers. That Of telegram brought
by q dvornik in the dead Of night is
becoming somewhat stale, and when an
alarm Of fire or Of any other calamity is
given youscent astillgrester danger, and
straightwsy burnyo papers and other
wise prepare yourself for an imminent
police visitation. Your arrangements
completed, you open the door and play
the part Of an ingenious innocent. The
police cannot well punish you for not
making haste to receive an apocryphal
dispatch or escape from an imaginary
FIRE. Knowing this, they mostly prefer
to knock loud enough to awaken the
dead, crying at the same time % The
police the police Open the door, or
we will break it in I" Nor is the threat
Q vain one. The Russian police make
no scruple about house-breaking,
m art in which they are as
accomplished as professional burg
lars. They sometimes begin in
this way when they can do SO with
out making . noise. At the seizure of
the clandestine printing-ofiice Of the
Tehsrney Perdid the gendarmes, either
by lifting the doors from their hinges,
~ The official report said, or by using
skeleton keys, as ran the rumor, took
the inmates by surprise and arrested
all as they lay in bed. Violence and
brutality were always in Russia the
concomitants Of domiciliary searches
and arrests, and with the increase Of
severity in the treatment of political
criminals generally the violence has be-
come greater and the brutality more
ruthless.
What causes, it may be asked. are
held sufficient to justify the defenders
Of order in making these nocturnal
visitations and troubling so cruelty the
yepoto OF peaceful citizenss The ques-
tion j. one that occurs naturally to an
American, but IL put to Russian he
would merely shrug his shoulders and
smile at the simplicity Of the observa-
ton. "Could anything be more alb
susd," he would probably exclaim,
for in Russia it is question
Of the zeal Of the police, never
Of the rights Of the subject. Rus
sia h in 4 condition Of internal war
fare, and the police being the right arm
Of one Of the bslligcrcnt parties, does
net protect; II fights. Wherever the
enemy IL they must be ready to attack
him any place where he is supposed
10 be they must beset. An officer o.
the police who hesitates TO make q
search without formal authority, oil
make an arrest without . warrant
would be looked upen a. not worth hi.