Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1889-04-11
THE RUSSIAN POLICE.

THE RUSSIAN POLICE.
According to 1If. Kennen Its Chief ChaE.
acterissie l. Dishonesty.
In a recent lecture in Boston, Mr..
George Kennen referred as follows to
the Russian police: THE police Of
Russia control, by means of passports,
the movements of all the inhabitants
of the Empire, keep thousands of tsus-
poets constantly under control, and
certify to the courts the liabilities Of
bankrupts. They conduct pawnbrok-
er's sales of unredeemed pledges, SUI
perintend the repairs of roads and
bridges, collect statistics aud enforce
sanitary regulations, make searches in
private houses, read the correspond
ence of suspects give certificates to
identify pensioners, admonish church
members who neglect too long
to partake of the holy COM
munion, and enforce obedience to
thousands of multifarious orders and
regulations. It is hardly an exagger-
alton to say that in the peasant viii
lagos of Siberia, away from the CEN
tiers of enlightenment and education.
the police are the omnipresent and ON
nipotent regulators of every thing-a
sort of bureaucratic substitute for Di-
vine Providence. The police of Rus
STA are divided into four classes: The
rural police. the common metropolitan
police of the cities, the detective and
secret police, and the gendarnaes. The
strongest class numerically Is that of
the rural police, who enforce the or
ders of the Government in the peasant
villages. According to recently-pub-
lished statement, there are in the
forty-seven provinces of European
Russia 269,LO0 towns and villages
where intoxicating liquors are sold at
retail. If we suppose that for every
such village there are two police OFF,
GERS, which, perhaps, is not an over
estimate, we have an army OF over
500, 900 men in this one class, without
including Siberia or any part of Asiatic
Russia. The rural police are divided
into STAINS, or stations. They wear a
uniform, and are armed with saber
and revolver. Their salaries are from
SIS to 800 per year tor private and
$500 for the chief of a district. The
natural result is that the rural police
represent the worst elements of the
whole population. A large proportion
of them are ignorant and stupid. Those
who have brains are generally dishon-
est. and use the orders of the Minister
of the Interior in innumerable in
stances to extort money from the peas
ants"
The lecturer asserted that bribery
was almost universal among the Off
Gals. An instance of this was as fol-
lows: In every village there was gen.
orally one Jewish capitalist. At q
time when the peasants were about to
float their wheat to market on barges,
one of these capitalists proposed to the
official that when the peasants applied
to him for their passports to enable
them to travel to the market, he should
tell them that they had been sent to
the department for renewal, or invent
some other excuse to prevent the
peasants from travelling. Then he (the
capitalist) would buy their wheat at
home for about half its value, and
divide up the profits with him. To this
the official agreed, and the scheme was
carried out, with the result that the
peasants became discouraged, and
agriculture declined.
Next to the rural police in numer-
ical strength, and far above them in
intellect and power. said the lecturer,
"are the secret police of Russia. who
are to be found everywhere through
out the immense Empire, and who are
most numerous in the large cities. A
great part of their work consists in
maintaining supervision over persons
who are suspected of sympathizing
with the revolutionary movement.
The number OF persons under super
vision when the last Gar came to the
throne was officially reported to be
1887 in European Russia, besides about
1000 in Siberia, all of the latter polit-
ical exiles. The number is probably
much greater now. All these are I'm.
der open surveillance; they know the
police are watching them, and that
their correspondence is under con-
trol."-Frank Leslie's Weekly.
Honesty Finds Its Reward