Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-11-23
Russ1A's CUSTOMS SERVICE.
All Baggage Of Every Passenger
Gone Through systematically.

Gone Through Systematically.
From the London Standard.
The ordeal Of the Russian customs can
only be described as fearful and wonder
ful-from any point Of view. A score OF
officials and twice as many special porters
went systematically through every piece
of luggage. large or small. of every pas
senger. Three officials and two porters
were the average composition of the small
parties that proceeded solemnly all around
the great hall on the other side Of the
counter on which all our luggage was
displayed, with US expectant or anxious
passengers before 1t.
Have you anything!" mo. nothing"
Then another official puts it another way:
Have you anything new" To which the
natural reply was: well. what do you
think? We come straight from London"
From every passengers luggage some
thing or other was chosen at random
and borne off in triumph to the asses
sor's table. So far as could be seen, ev-
erything was carefully weighed and
handed back to the owner on production
Of passports. without charge BUT tne
ever it might be, If only by the exquisite
acting of their ungrateful parts.
Getting the passports was another les
son in Russian off1cialdom. AS the train
entered the station all doors were locke
and no one was permitted to descend
until a gendarme with couple of satel-
lites had proceeded through all the COM
partments and extracted a passport from
each person. These were being dealt
with in a separate room while we under
went the ordeal Of the customs inspec-
ton.
After about an hour a little ticket win
dow opened and we rushed tumultuously
around it shouting out our names. try
ing thing for an Englishman to do in a
public place. AS bad luck would have it.
quite three-fourths of the passengers
were non-Russian. Half dozen British
ers. the same number OF Frenchmen, and.
perhaps, a dozen Russians, the rest. quite
half hundred. had names which were
either German or Jewish, and often both.
Passports were handed out with extraor-
binary freedom, and many a man re-
turned the paper he received with Mot
nine in various languages. For the
distributor was a half-lite:ate and not
wholly sober gendarme. ruby nosed and
truculent. whose struggles with the babel
Of names-all written one way and pro-
nounced quite another-necessitated the
intervention Of an officer, who made a
better hand Of it. but not much. Finally
hand to hand till they found the right
owner.
Among the few Russian names called
out was the magic one of Count Tolstoy.
and in its recipient I recognized the gen.
tleman who. half an hour before, had
helped couple of English girls out OF
trouble with the customs. They were evil
IDENTIFY Song and dance" professionals on
their way to Moscow for the first time.
and had all their stage wardrobe with
them. AS most Of it was silk. and they
could not speak a word of anything but
English, the customs people were dis
posed to make haul. under the impress
sion. apparently. that they had to do with
French milliners smuggling trade goods.
Count Tolstoy. happening to notice the
dilemma, went to the aid of the girls. and
couple of words to the chief soon set
them free from all trouble.