The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-11

He Finds Them in St. Petersburg and
 as He Had Expected Them to be-
 Frankness of the People in Discuss-
 ing the Government.
 Russia is as civilized, prosperous and free as any nation need wish to be- That is the verdict of many foreigner who visits St. Petersburg or Moscow for the first time with letters of intro- duction to some of the well-to-do na- tives. He is agreeably surprised at their hospitality, which, Il truth, is gen. erous and spontaneous; with their knowledge of foreign tongues which is often marvelously thorough; with their prodigality in spending money, and with their frankness in criticising their government.
 So he smiles at the absurd legend of vampire e-bureaucracy, down-trodden people, a reign of terror and an atmos- phere of suspicion. It is tissue of in- ventions, thinks the visitor as he en- joys the good fare set before him, and drinks to the petpetuation of things as they are But the simple e-minded for eigner resembles a Belgian whom a Russian once conducted over the Neva in winter, and who fancied he was walking over snow-covered fields Looking at the improvised streets, di- vided from each other by lines of spruce trees, at the lamps, the watchmen's booths, the workingmen with pickaxes and sledgehammers, and the electric tramway cars plying to and fro every few minutes, he could not realize that, beneath the white, hard crust which bore the weight of all these persons and things, the broad river was swiftly flowing to the Finnish Gulf. And it is even more difficult for the foreigner who cannot speak the language to dis cern at first any signs of unrest among the people, and still more any reason able causes for it in the government. But, none the less, both exist, and are as real and tangible as the rush of the cold current beneath the Neva's icy crust
 Nowadays it is much easier than it used to be to discern signs of the times
 
 people are more outspoken than they were, although, of course, even now they dare not carry their hearts on their sleeves for daws to peck at. But those who fear to censure, damn with faint praise" What do you Russians want with more liberty than you have?' inquired an American senator, who rushed through the empire two years ago, and then published a thick volume on the people and the country. We want breathing space and elbow room,'' was the reply he received from nobleman, ''and we have neither. AL though no longer babies, we are still kept in swaddling clothes, and, pining for meat and bread, we are sustained on milk from an infants feeding bottle. I went yesterday to a meeting of off, cials, who almost all think as do. And what do you suppose was the theme of our conversation? Anecdotes of Nich- olas I. before and during the Crimean war. We dared not speak or comment on current topics. I took up Russian newspaper this morning; it had been read and censored by our rulers before it reached me, and had it contained a line of which any minister seriously disapproved it would have been sent back to be altered. My books, foreign and Russian, are read revised and bowdlerized in like manner. The jour nals and reviews which we receive from abroad have whole pages cut out, whole columns blackened, before we are allowed to get them. I go to church to oy,d t1ot wor the priest utters has been subdmit ted to the censor before he was allowed to preach it. I read advertisements about flats and cooks and coachmen; they, too, have been perused by the Catos of the police. I retire to my study in disgust and take up the let ters which the postman has brought me from Germany, Spain and the United States, and I am aware that they, too have been read-perhaps copied as well by the cabinet roir. And those are but a few examples of what we have to put up with
 Thus Russians who know exactly where the shoe pinches have a most dismal tale to tell of spies who cross their path in Protean shapes, of caves
  letter reading by the detective depart ment, of secret denunciations and of sudden imprisonment and exile. One of them lately said to me: 'As our na tional satirist constantly used to re- mark, there is but one way of escaping from the meshes of this irksome net; acquire taste for dissipation and ra kishness, for gambling or for drinking and you are promoted like a convicted felon for good conduct in prison. At the present moment the system of espi- onage has become so perfect and ex-. tended that if you read aloud in your own room play of Shakespeares in which passages occur lacking in respect towards the government of his time, it is known to the police department next day, but what will not be known, of course, is that you were merely de- claiming the work of a World-poet. l have a lackey here who has been with me ten months. A good, honest, willing fellow, I have had no complaint against him. He does not drink nor quarrel, nor. gossip-a treasure, in 8 word Now and again he asked leave to absent himself at night and several times in the forenoon, and, of course, willingly consented. Well, last week I discover ed that he is a member of the secret police. and that his absences were caused hv the obligation he is under to