The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-13

that the sussian Dear Is grlzziy o1 LAe
most ferocious quality. The horrible bar
barity of Russia's domestic administration
robs her Of all the sympathy and respect
Of the civilized world that 50 great
nation ought to obtain. Russia's am
bition to rule the Black sea. open the OAR
danelles and hold ConstantinopIe an
American can understand and justify,
but the horrible inhumanity of her
domestic administration is so revolt
ing that unless 1t changes for the better
Russia will meet the fate of Poland, for
she Is worse, far worse. than 1.-The I'M
speakable Turk" Gladstone was wont to
denounee for the Bulgarian massacres of
1877. Europe may not soon become all
republican. but she will never become all
Cossack unless the Cossack ceases to be
barbarian.
Poland did not deserve partition. but
Russia does, for her government in its
cruel, corrupt and rapacious absolutism
is an anomaly in Europe. The Jew, the
Christian OF any sect can live unmolested
in Turkey, but in Russia not only the Jew
is frightfully prosecuted, robbed, expatri-
ated and murdered without restraint, but
any other form of faith save the Greek
church has a hard life in Russia. No
nation can continue to play barbarian in
Europe as Russia does much longer. The
first serious war that Russia engages in
will be her ruin, for she is getting to be
considered by the humane nations of the
earth as "a very scourge Of God," as hate
full and dangerous to humanity as Attila,
or Napoleon in his last days. The stars of
civilization and liberty in the sky of the
century fight in their courses against her.
Russia Is the conspicuous enemy Of free
dom in Southeastern Europe today.
Alexander the Second set Bulgaria free,
but Alexander the Third has grudged that
people the freedom his father gave. so that
today Bulgaria prefers her ancient enemies,
the Purk and the Austrian, to the Rus
sian, because they are not as dangerous to
Bulgarian freedom as the son of her lib
orator. Russia's stamping out of the an
cient spirit of Finland is another recent
illustration of her barbarous policy.
What is the matter with Russia? The
matter with Russia Is explained by
single pregnant sentence uttered by Napo-
leon Bonaparte eighty years ago. when he
said: Scratch Russian and you find
Tartar" The Russian is today more an
Asiatic than European; he has the ORR
entail vices of insensate cruelty, insen-
safe RIGHTEOUSNESS and insensate religious
bigotry and superstition: he is an Oriental
in his mendacity and corruption. 1t is
two centuries since gigantic Tartar of
genius, Peter the Great, began the work of
civilizing Russia, and yet relatively Russia
is as far behind the civilization of Western
Europe today as she was then. The So
called Christianity of Russia is so filled
with superstition and fanaticism that it is
more repulsive and less conducive to
morality than the faith of the wild Arabs
of the Soudan. Not only is the Jew hor.
ribly prosecuted, but prosecutions of
similar character, though of less intensity,
are enacted against Protestants, Catholics,
and especially Uniates. or Catholics who
use the Slav liturgy. Ifthese Inmates refuse
to have their children baptized by ortho-
dox popes they are unsparingly deported
and 10000 Inmates alone have been de-
ported from the western provinces to
Szaratow. Those who remain have Cos
sacks quartered upon them, and all sorts
of compulsory means are resorted to in or
der to stamp out this Catholic sect. Per-
sons suspected of belonging to the sect of
the Stundists are declared ineligible for
any post or employment connected with
village administration,
The domestic morals of Russia, from the
top to the bottom of society, have no
parallel in Europe more modern than the
horrible degradation of Rome under Nero.
The Russian peasantry are grossly intem-
perate and licentious. Offenses against
conjugal rights or family purity are
almost invariably settled by the pri-
vate payment of money by the
offender to the injured party.
A Russian peasant girl who undertakes do
mestic service does it with the distinct
understanding that she is expected, if
called upon, to be the concubine of her
employer. Among the lower classes Illicit
intercourse and ilIegitimate births are
frlghtfuily common. Theft and lying are
universal. Among the higher classes the
same frightful contempt for domestic
purity is found. Men high in public office
purchase preferment by allowing their
wives to become the mistresses of their
court patron and unhesitatingly welcome
them back when they are permitted to re-
turn TO the husband. Venality, treachery,
bribery. yindictiveness, hbertinage and
mendacity saturate Russian life in its
highest and most cultivated circles, as
any reader of the great writer's of Russian
fiction knows. The English or,American
sojourner in Russia is shocked by the
utter absence of virtue among women of
the highest classes, and of truth speaking
among the men. The young girls from
the seminaries and youths from the
schools mIngle in concert saloons, drink
to intoxication and indulge in all kinds of
debauchery.
Nothing but the incapacity for political
organization, characteristic of the Slavic
peoples, keeps the one hundred millions
of Russia from wasting Europe as
once il was wasted by the Huns.
the Goths and the Turks. These
barbarian races did not conquer as did the
Romans. who spread their dominion in
proportion as they rose above their neigh
bors in civilization; they vanquished by
superior physical force nations more
highly civilized than themselves. The
forces OF Attila, Tamerlane and Gengh,s
Khan moved like an Eruption of Norway
IL