Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1886-01-06


Let US, then. try to realize for q moment
what life in ST. Petersburg is, not to the easy
minded traveller, whose home is far away and
who may leave Russia at any moment, but to
the native resident, whose family ties and gem
eral interests-to say nothing Of patriotism
bind him to the country even more firmly than
he may chance to be attached to it by the arbi-
under circumstances like these, wears an aspect
strtklngly suggestive of the Jail. Exigenoies OF
state turn the communal dwellfng-place and
It's picturesque survivals into an aggregation
OF cells, watched over by a house porter in the
pay of the police. This fuhctionary is a very
Heimdal in sharpness of senses; he hears the
falntest sounds, and sees without any light
whatever; while his omnipresence when not
wanted fs far more complete than any magic
parsonage it is who mounts guard at the
porte cOchele to watch entries and exits; it is
he who sees that all new dodgers are promptly
numbered and pigeon-holed at police head
quarters; he who keeps record OF the personal
haolts, companions and resorts of every man,
woman and child under his charge: he, too
who reports regularly to the authorities any
suspicious circumstances which may come
under his notice. If a christening, wedding, or
funeral Is to bring together few friends, it
is the house porter who facilitates the intrusion
OF police spies, ready to snatch at any scrap of
colioquial "sedition" capable of CONVEX
sion INTO troubles or advancement. If q
students Literary evening" or social gather
Ing Is to be swelled into an assembly Of con-
sp1rators seeking to undermine the foundations
of law and order, it is again the horsepower
who, hguratively speaking, supplies the
gendarmes with their magnifying-glasess
Ana If some unfortunate youth is to pay the
penalty of his liberalism by being dragged
from his bed at midnight to the fortress of
Peter and Paul, nobody is more eager to lead
the way to the sleeping suspect than this treach-
erous Janltoi OF many households, nightly con-
summat' ng In the garb of the Watchdog his un-
molly compact with the wolves.
10 go In constant fear of the paid deHuncia-
tor; never to talk politics. save with relatives
or lntlmates incapable of treachery; TO have
t,,,~,, n l,xfl into
mere record OF foreign events, and your foreign
Journal sub,edited for you by a policeman, who
carefully clips from it or grasses everything of
dangerous" tendency: not to know the mo
ment wnen an enemy may thrust some sed1Ous
puDllcatlon into your letter-bOX, and so time
MS disclosure to the police rs to have you sur
prlsed with the forbidden matter in your pos
session; to be kept by a slenced press in a state
OF complete ignorance as to serious events Oc-
curing around you; and to feel in regard to
your own personal safety, and that OF your
family and friends, uncertainty truly
OIlental-all this is no more than mere sug-
gestion Of what life is to thousands of persons
born to Russian citizenship in st. Petersburg,
And when to the elements Of the general discon-
tent to the bitter emptiness OF existence, to the
longing for a life OF noble activities, you add
the pangs OF poverty and the sense of personal
wrong, 1T cannot seem strange that in many Of
these lodging houses sensitive humanity should
find its last and only safeguard against vOlun-
tary extinction in the hopes the idealism and
the self-sacrifice OF a political religion.