The Banner-Democrat., 1892-12-10

cd men were put upon the royal train
to be carried to place where they
could be better cared for, said to my
wife: "Just like her" When saw
few days ago in the papers that the
emperor and empress had walked
through the wards of the most virulent
cholera, talking with the patients,
shaking hands with them and cheering
them up, it was no surprise to me; for
1 said to myself. "That is just like
them.s Anyone who has ever seen
the royal family will believe anything
in the way of kindness ascribed to
them. and will join me in the
execration of that too prevalent
opinion that a tyrant is on the
throne of Russia. If God spares my
life, will yet show by facts beyond
dispute that the most slandered and
systematically lied about nation on
earth is Russia, and that no ruler ever
lived more for the elevation of his peo-
pie in education and morals and re-
ligion than Alexander Ill So put all
the three prayers together: God save
the president of the United States!
God save the queen Of England! God
save the emperor and empress OF Rus
sia! / will, whether in sermons or
lectures / have not yet decided, show
that nineteen-twentietha of all the
things written and published against
Russia are furnished by men who have
been hired by other countries to
write up," or rather write down,
Russia, SO as to divert commerce
from that empire, or because of
international jealousies. Russia being
larger than all the rest of Europe put
together, you can see how natural
would be the jealousies. know of two
prominent European newspapers that
keep men on salaries to catch up every
thing unfavorable to Russia, md
magnify the incident And the
stcreotyped stories of Siberian cruelty
in one case out of q hundred are true,
but in ninety-nine out of hundred
cases they are fabrication. And in
the one case, rs soon as it is reported,
the official is discharged. They who
have been sent ito write up"
Russia and Siberia have done
as that man would do who,
sent to "write up" New York, shorsd
write up slums as specimen of what
New York is, or sent to write up the
American congress should write up
some depraved politicians as a speci-
men Of American craftsmanship, or
sent to write up the sanitary condition
of this country, should send a kodac
picture of all the warts and carbuncles
he could find as specimen of American
health. I believe / can reverse the
opinion of any man antagonistic to
Russia who will give me an honest
hearing. as my own opinions have been
reversed by what recently saw and
heard.
Before passing to the other field Of
my summer observation. give you one
little specimen of the falsehoods about
Russia. I stood in London with my
ticket for st. Petersburg, Russia, in my
pocket. It was two o'clock in the after
noon, and at three o'clock was TO take
the train. An American physician
came in and said: s'You certainly are
not going to Russia l said: "Why
not?" Then morning paper was shown
me, saying that in St Petersburg there
were two thousand cases of virulent
cholera; the city had been divided into
hospital districts, and the doctors were
at their wits end what to do with the
number of patients; the population
was flying in terror. It was al
most as bad in Moscow. While re-
fecting on these accounts, two mes
sages arrived from other friends pro-
testing against the foolhardiness of my
rushing into the presence of two thou
sand cases of cholera in one city. OF
course halt~d. halted for four days.
Meanwhile a telegram from St. Peters
burg encouraged me to GO went.
There was not single case of cholera
either in st. Petersburg or Moscow.
and there was not a single case in
either city until four weeks after left
those cities. But the Continental false
hood had done it's commercial errxod.
Tens of thousands of Americana and
Englishmen who proposed to summer
in Russia turned in other directions.
At the large hotel in st. Petersburg at
which stopped, though capable of
holding 1--WE hundred guests, and
months before every room and every
hallway and every mattress and every
pillow had been engaged by telegraph
by sight-seers, all the orders were can
celed, and, instead of five hundred
guests, shonld think about thirty,
and that included our party. And SO
it was in all the hotels in Northern
Russia. and the substraction of that
amount of commercial profit from those
cities you may imagine. But that
whole subject of systematic fabrication
adjourn to some other hour.
Yet, must tell you of picture of
pathos and moral power impressed
upon my mind SO that neither time nor
eternity can efface it. The ship Leo
swung TO the docks few miles below
St Petersburg, loaded with flour from
America The sailors on board huz-
zaed as they came to the wharf From
a yacht, on which we had descended
the river to the sea, the prominent citi-
zens of st. Petersburg disembarked.
The bank was crowded by prosperous
citizens, who stood on the wharf,
and back of them by poor
laborers who had come down to
offer their services free of charge for
the removal of the breadstuffs from the
ship to the imperial freight train that