Year: 1878

AAAANANU HIN NOS61As

 A Nation of Peculators--A Slight ConsoIa-

 tiOn for being Robbed.

 Thieves and policemen are the great pests of Russian towns, but especially policemen. Russians are not thieves by nature, judging by their honesty in country districts, where there gre no police; but once they get into towns the evil example set them by official persons and the venal connivance they can obtain from the police prove too tempting. A man who has resided some time in Russia even grows to doubt whether the notions of naeatna and tuatna are comprehended there as they are in other countries. If you pay visit and leave a cloak on the seat of your carriage, that cloak is gone when you come out. If you walk out with dog unclaimed, the dog vanishes round street corner. Shopkeepers are afraid to place articles of value in their windows. Householders are liable to have their horses and carriages stolen if they do not keep sufficient number of stable servants, and take care to see be- fore going to bed that one at least of these menials is sober. A man who goes out for a night-stroll unarmed may be set upon within sight of droschky stand and stripped of every article he wears, including shirt and small clothes. The droschky drivers will rather start off altogether in panic lest they should be summoned to give evidence; as for the police, they hurry up afterwards, and make the despoiled man pay twice the value of the things he has lost in fees for investigation. -.s.

 It need scarcely be said that person influential enough to make himself un- pleasant to the police gets back his lost property in no time the police will even restore him the equivalent if they can notrecover the actual articles. A French man of rank who had left an opera glass in box at the Odessa opera missed it, as matter of course, and mentioned bis loss to the Civil Governor, who took up the matter forthwith. It appeared, however, that the article had been purloined by Q free-laEoe having no connection with the police; so an official waited upon the Frenchman with 8 glass three times as good as the one he had lost, saying that the authorities would consider themselves disgraced if a stranger lost anything in their country "a speech which must have given the Frenchman rosy idea of Russian hon. esty.

 Merchants and tradesmen often pay thief-insurance money to the police but as the thieves can generally afford to pay still more for the privilege of being let alone, the insurance is only accepted 0d VGlorea1o, so to say. For instance, 8 man may insure his watch, great-coat and dog, but not his safe if burglars can manage to rifle it. Besides, the police do not play fair, and continually shield themselves pretending there are too many independent rogues about who meanly work on their own sole account. One comfort is that the Russian who waylays and strips you seldom does you bodily injury. He is gentle thief, who pulls off your furred boots as consider ately as if they were his own which you had put on by mistake. It takes time to accustom ones self to Russian char acter; but you end by learning that the Russian appears in his sottest light when he is bettering himself in some way at your expense.

 Improbable as it may sound, governors of gaols often let their prisoners out that they may thieve. Last year the Moscow papers reported the case of a celebrated burglar, who, having been lodged in the penitentiary, was one night caught ''cracking the crib" of wealthy merchant. This led to inquiries, and the burglar confessed that, having planned the robbery before entering gaol, he had spoken about it to one of the turnkeys, who had let him out on condition of going with him and sharing the proceeds. The turnkey did not deny this, but said he had acted under in structions from the governor, who had bargained to have the lions share. The governor in his turn tried to throw the blame on the police, alleging that they had gwen him orders to let out the pris- oner for some purpose not stated but the story was disbeleved, and the gov ernor was dismissed. Soon afterward the burglar was tried by a jury and ac- quilted, but the turnkey was not even indicted