The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-08-28
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REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA.
omciaIs of the Gar "Can Almost
Smell Blood in the Air"

officials of the Gar "Can Almost
Smell Blood in the Air"
From Jerome K. Jerome in p. P.'s
Weekly.
The Russians strike the stranger as
childlike people, but you are pos
sessed with a haunting sense of ugly
traits beneath. The workers-slaves
it would be almost more Just to call
them-allow themselves to be driven
with the accomplishing patience of in
telligent animals. Yet every educated
Russian you talk to on the subject
knows that revolution is coming. But
he talks to you about it with the door
shut, for no man in Russia can be
sure that his own servants are not
police spies. 1 was discussing the
question with a Russian official one
evening in his study when his old
housekeeper entered the room-a soft
eyed, graY-haired woman who had
been in his service over eight years
and whose position in the household
was almost that of a friend. He stop
ped abruptly and changed the CONVEX
sation. So soon as the door was closed
behind her again he explained himself.
1T is better to chat upon such mat
tiers when one is quite alone" he
laughed But surely you can trust
her." l said. 1T is safer to trust no
one" he answered. And then he con-
tinued from the point where he had
been interrupted. cit is gathering"
he said there are time when | al
most smell blood in the air. 1 am an
old man and may escape it, but my
children will have to suffer-suffer as
children must do for the sins of their
fathers. We have made brute beasts
of the people, and as brute beasts
they will come upon us, cruel and I'M
discriminating, right and wrong in
differently going down before them.
But it has to be. 1t is needed.
The future history of Russia will be
the history of the French Revolution
over again, but with this difference:
That the educated classes, the think
ers, who are pushing forward the dumb
masses are doing so with their eyes
open. There will be no Mirabeau, no
Danton to be appalled, at the peoples
lngratitude. The men who to-day are
working for revolution in Russia num-
Der among their ranks statesmen, SOL
diers, delicately nurtured women, rich
land owners, prosperous tradesmen,
students familiar with the lessons of
history. They have no misconceptions
concerning the blind Frankenstein into
which they are breathing life. He will
crush them, they know it, but with
them he will crush the injustice and
stupidity they have grown to hate bet
ter than they love themselves.
The Russian peasant when he rises
Will prove more terrible, more pitiless
than were the men of 1890. He is less
intelligent, more brutal They sing q
wild, sad song, these Russian cattle,
the while they work. They sing it in
chorus on the quays while hauling the
cargo, they sing it in the factory, they
chant it on the weary, endless steppes,
reaptng the corn they may not eat. 1t
Is about the good time their masters
are having, of the feasting and the
merrymaking. But the last line of
every verse is the same. When you
ask a Russian to translate it for you
he shrugs his shoulders. "Oh, it
means" he says, that their time will
come-some day." 1t is a sad, pathet-
ic, haunting refrain. They sing it in
the drawing rooms of Moscow and st.
Petersburg, and somehow the light
talk and laughter die away and a hush
like a chill breath enters by the closed
door and passes through. It is a Gu
rious song, like the wailing of a tired
wind, and one day it will sweep over
the land heralding terror.