OFFICIAL LIFE IN ST. PETERSBURG -1892-1894 103 



and one of them says : &quot;How badly the Emperor looked at 

 court last night.&quot; Another says: &quot;Yes; his liver is evi 

 dently out of order; he ought to go to Carlsbad. &quot; An 

 other says: &quot;I think that special pains ought to be taken 

 with his food,&quot; etc., etc. People then scatter from this 

 tea-table, and in a day or two one hears that sufficient 

 precaution is not taken with the Emperor s food; that it 

 would not be strange if some nihilist should seek to poison 

 him. A day or two afterward one hears that a nihilist 

 has endeavored to poison the Emperor. The legend 

 grows, details appear here and there, and finally there 

 come in the newspapers of Western Europe full and care 

 ful particulars of a thwarted plot to poison his Majesty. 



Not the least of the embarrassments which beset an 

 American minister in Russia is one which arose at vari 

 ous times during my stay, its source being the generous 

 promptness of our people to take as gospel any story re 

 garding Russian infringement of human rights. One or 

 two cases will illustrate this. 



During my second winter, despatches by mail and wire 

 came to me thick and fast regarding the alleged banish 

 ment of an American citizen to Siberia for political rea 

 sons; and with these came petitions and remonstrances 

 signed by hundreds of Americans of light and leading; 

 also newspaper articles, many and bitter. 



On making inquiries through the Eussian departments 

 of foreign affairs and of justice, I found the fact to be that 

 this injured American had been, twenty years before, a 

 Russian police agent in Poland ; that he had stolen funds 

 intrusted to him and had taken refuge in America; that, 

 relying on the amnesty proclaimed at the accession of the 

 late Emperor, he had returned to his old haunts ; that he 

 had been seized, because the amnesty did not apply to the 

 category of criminals to which he belonged; that he had 

 not been sent to Siberia; that there was no thought of 

 sending him there; but that the authorities proposed to 

 recover the money he had stolen if they could. 



Another case was typical : One day an excellent English 



