&quot;ALL CONDITIONS OF MEN&quot; -1892-1894 53 



discovered, Russia s strong point is not adherence to her 

 treaty promises. 



In this respect there is a great difference between Rus 

 sia and Germany. With the latter we have made careful 

 treaties, the laws are well known, and the American rep 

 resentative feels solid ground beneath his feet; but in 

 Eussia there is practically nothing of the kind, and the 

 representative must rely on the main principles of inter 

 national law, common sense, and his own powers of per 

 suasion. 



A peculiar duty during my last stay in St. Petersburg 

 was to watch the approach of cholera, especially on the 

 Persian frontier. Admirable precautions had been taken 

 for securing telegraphic information; and every day I 

 received notices from the Foreign Office as a result, 

 which I communicated to Washington. For ages Russia 

 had relied on fetishes of various kinds to preserve her 

 from great epidemics ; but at last her leading officials had 

 come to realize the necessity of applying modern science 

 to the problem, and they did this well. In the city &quot;sani 

 tary columns&quot; were established, made up of small squads 

 of officials representing the medical and engineering pro 

 fessions and the police; these visited every nook and 

 corner of the town, and, having extraordinary powers for 

 the emergency, compelled even the most dirty people to 

 keep their premises clean. Excellent hospitals and labo 

 ratories were established, and of these I learned much 

 from a former Cornell student who held an important 

 position in one of them. Coming to town three or four 

 times a week from my summer cottage in Finland, I was 

 struck by the precautions on the Finnish and other rail 

 ways : notices of what was to be done to prevent cholera 

 and to meet it were posted, in six different languages; 

 disinfectants were made easily accessible; the seats and 

 hangings in the railway-cars were covered with leather 

 cloth frequently washed with disinfectants; and to the 

 main trains a hospital-car was attached, while a tempo 

 rary hospital, well equipped, was established at each main 



