The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-18
Copyright, 1911. by curtis brown.

on. PETERSBURG, January 17.-tSpo-
cial,)-Russia' s BLACK Cabinet las
~ brought ON a minor International
crisis. The Black Cabinet is a vas
secret organization subject to the min
lister of the interior, which spies on pri-
vate correspondence; and now Great
Britain, Japan and Italy are complain
ing that the cabinet, in its thirst for
surreptitious knowledge is ignoring the
postal convention which declares private
correspondence to be inviolable. When
the mail bags via Siberia frcm England
to Japan, the mail bags back fror.
Japan. arrive at their destination, they
are often a week late; and many of the
letters bear signs of having been tam
pered with. Sometimes no concealmeit
Is made. Newspapers are opened, arti-
cles censored and blacked oct with the
sticky mixture which Russians call
print cavaire.' One Japanese mail Dag
which arrived via Siberia in Moscow on
august was not dispatched to London
Until August 8, though by schedule it
ought to have been dispatched on the
day of arrival And several letters Were
lost
is that the 'Black Cabinet" NEEDLES not
only with Russo-ltalian correspondence,
hut that it even maintains a. Rome, un-
der the nose of the Italian police q
BLACK Cabinet manned by Russians
and by Italians, which intercepts tho
letters of Russian residents in 1taly;
opens them and sometimes out of too
much professional zeal even steals let
ters from Italians to Italians The
BLACK Cabinet is so bold at~tmes that
after reading private letters, 1t does not
take the trouble to forward them to
their destination, but destroys them. Thu
fate overtakes even letters which have
1nt 10, Il ,r-,sl, ef.,.
vitations to dinner and amor.us scented
epistles making appointments to mect
in the Forum are sacrificed 10 Russia's
spy system.
Russia is now the only Eu, opean state
that maintains a department. with home
end foreign sections for the purpose of
what is called ''perlustration. The French
Cabinet Noir,' which was founded ln-
der Louis XIV, and lasted with an in
terruption during the revolution) until
late in the restoration, is declared un-
lawful by the 1Sfth article cf the penal
code. England in 1887, forbade the OPEN
ing of letters; and Germany extended
the prohibition to the whole empire bv
the imperial post law of 1871. In civilized
Europe letters may be opened only by
court order, in case of criminal pros
cutlons, or under martial law
In Russia a law against ''perlustra-
ton" which would have done away with
the BLACK Cabinet was one of the pro-
jected reforms of 1905, but it has gone
the way of all other reform projects.
When the question comes up in the Duma
the answer of the minister of the interior
is that postoffce officials never open
letters. This is a gamble with words
The letters are oyened by the "Black
Cabinet which is mostly manned by
gendarmery officers. The postoffice can
mot protest. because Russia has no special
nf nd all fnff iTa.,
subject to the ministry of the Interior
that is, to the department which controls
and 1nstructs the BLACK Cabinet and
which, alone of Russian ministries, car
ries on espionage. This explains the
anomaly of there being nc ministry of
posts. An independant minister might
refuse to hand up letters to the BLACK
Cabinet" and would be able to justify his
action in law.
/; is estimated that at least 1000 officials
are engaged in these cobinets, but this
number does not include the most of
auxiliary workers AMI letter. -stealers.
Vassili Desyatinsky, an e5S-gendarme who
Is now making revelations. says that the
number Is only 4200, but that the auxiliary
workers number at least G0O0 The BLACK
Cabinets are governed by the following
rules: Firstly, that they must open all
letters addressed to suspected persons;
OF to persons who have been convicted
OF pOntlcal Of1enceS. THIS rule is so
we'll known that suspected men, as far
as it depends upon themselves, do not
have letters sent to them through the
pest They make an exception to this
rule when they want the police put off
the scent. They write letters to them
selves giving appointments to meet; false
addresses, etc.
They do this in the conviction that the
letters will be opened, and the police
and spies thus baffled Desyatinsky says
that there are 1900 persons in Russia
whose letters are always opened, and
he estimates that at least e,000,O00 such
letters are opened every year
This system accounts for the long de-
lays in the delivery or letters. for in
dependent "Back Cabinets exist only
at the postoffices of Moscow, st. Peters,
burg, Warsaw, Odessa, Kharkoff. Sara
toff, Tomsk and Irkutsk. Subordinate
BLACK Cabinets" which act only on
instructions, are attached To the post
offices of IA European provinces: to all
the 10 Polish provincial postoffices, and
to certain postoffices in Siberia. There
is also BLACK Cabinet at Tashkent,
in Central Asia. Where no Black Cab
met exists local correspondence which
does not pass through the "Black Cabi-
net postoffice is often opened on spe-
cial instructions from st. Petei sburg. The
gendarmes simply cali at the postoflico