712 



RUSSIA. 



stroyed. The Cossacks and police had great 

 difficulty in dispersing the rioters, who threw 

 sand in the eyes of horses and men. Nijni- 

 Novgorod is outside the limits assigned by law 

 for Hebrew habitation, and the thirteen fami- 

 lies plundered and bereaved resided there by 

 special permission. The riot was started by a 

 woman, who saw a Jewess take a child, that 

 had fallen into a ditch, into the meeting-house 

 to warm, and who started the cry that a Chris- 

 tian child had been kidnapped for another 

 sacrificial murder. 



The Czar at Warsaw and Skiernievice, In Sep- 

 tember the Czar made a visit to Poland, wind- 

 ing up with the interview of the three empe- 

 rors at Skiernievice, an imperial hunting-castle 

 south of Warsaw. The visit to Warsaw was 

 the gloomiest festivity known to modern his- 

 tory. The whole line of railroad and the royal 

 train were searched and guarded. Before the 

 entrance into Warsaw, the streets through 

 which the Czar would pass were thoroughly 

 examined and the private houses taken posses- 

 sion of by the police. Every person whose 

 loyalty was not indubitable was removed. The 

 citadel was crowded with political suspects. 

 The Emperor passed between rows of bayo- 

 nets to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. The in- 

 structions to the police were issued by the 

 Okhrana, or special body-guard of the Czar. 

 The city was decked with bunting and other 

 festal adornments, yet all was arranged by 

 police orders, without the slightest popular 

 participation. At the ball, where the Czar 

 and Czarina were ostensibly welcomed by the 

 leading society of Poland, not a single Pole 

 appeared who was not connected with, the 

 civil or military service. The police precau- 

 tions were taken partly upon suggestions from 

 the Berlin police, who are said to have given 

 warning of every important plot that has tran- 

 spired in Russia. At the village of Skiernievice 

 the police measures were as thorough as at 

 Warsaw, though so carefully disguised that 

 wherever the Emperor and his court appeared 

 there was no sign of constraint or of extraor- 

 dinary vigilance. The meeting at Skiernieviee 

 signified the solemn confirmation of friendly 

 relations between Russia and the German 

 powers, the termination of the tension be- 

 tween Russia and Austria, arising from their 

 rival interests in the Balkan Peninsula, and 

 aggravated by political intrigues and a news- 

 paper war. One of the results of the negotia- 

 tions with the allied German powers was the 

 final conclusion of a convention that enables 

 the Russian Government to reach and repress 

 the exiled revolutionists who lay plots and 

 carry on the propaganda in Russia from coun- 

 tries having easy communication with the Mus- 

 covite dominions. Thousands of Russians were 

 driven out of Berlin, and sufficient pressure 

 was brought upon Switzerland to force the 

 Federal authorities to expel the Russian schem- 

 ers of revolution from their former foreign 

 headquarters. 



Russian Tnrkistan. A speciarcommission, pre- 

 sided over by Count Ignatieff, elaborated a plan 

 for the reorganization of the Central Asian 

 province. The strategical points are to be 

 changed, the routes of communication altered, 

 and Gen. Tchernaieif s new route from the 

 Caspian Sea through the Ust Urt Desert to 

 Kungrad opened up, the systems of irrigation 

 improved, railroads constructed, trading-sta- 

 tions established, colonists brought in from 

 central Russia, the land laws reformed, the 

 natives educated in agriculture, and the gen- 

 eral laws of the empire introduced. Russian 

 Turkistan, since the retrocession of Kuldja to 

 China, and the transfer of Semirechensk to the 

 Steppe, comprises only the four provinces of 

 Syr Daria, Amu Daria, Ferghana, and Zaraf- 

 shan. The region is almost rainless for eight 

 months in the year. One half of the surface is 

 desert and the rest nearly all steppe, the fruit- 

 ful cultivated valleys constituting only 2 per 

 cent. of. it. Yet there has been great im- 

 provement in the economic condition of the 

 country since the advent of the Russians about 

 1867. In eleven years the population was in- 

 creased threefold by the annexation of .new 

 districts, and their colonization from Russia 

 and the neighboring khanates. A great num- 

 ber of the Tartar inhabitants have been won 

 from their nomadic habits. In ] 867 the nomads 

 constituted 70 or 80 per cent, of the population, 

 and in 1877 only 53 per cent. The number of 

 inhabitants in the towns is 373,000, the settled 

 population outside the towns 1,247,000, the 

 nomadic population 1,417,000. There are 60,- 

 000 Christians and 3,000 Jews settled in the 

 country. The European quarter of Tashkend 

 resembles a Russian city. It is in contempla- 

 tion to change the capital to Samarcand. Rus- 

 sian trade with Central Asia has not thriven 

 as well as was expected. In 1872 Russian 

 goods of the value of $7,000,000 were im- 

 ported into Turkistan, which sent to Russia 

 its products to the value of $3,250,000; in 

 1881 the imports from Russia amounted to 

 $6,500,000, and the exports to Russia were 

 $15,500,000 in value. English goods compete 

 successfully with Russian in Bokhara, Fer- 

 ghana, and Samarcand. In June Gen. Rosen- 

 bach succeeded Gen. Tchernaieff as Governor- 

 General of Turkistan. In the autumn Kungrad, 

 on the Oxus, in the northern part of Khiva, the 

 seaport of the khanate on the Sea of Aral and 

 the terminus of the proposed new route across 

 the Ust Urt plateau, was occupied by Russian 

 troops on the ground of violations by the Khan 

 of the treaty of 1873 and of his general misrule. 

 The Khan Seid Mohammed, since his defeat by 

 Gen. Kaufmann in 1873, has often begged his 

 conquerors to relieve him of the responsibilities 

 of government. The Russians not only com- 

 pelled him to abandon the warlike and pred- 

 atory practices that were the source of his 

 greatness, but dictated his internal policy and 

 required him to carry out difficult reforms in 

 preparation for the final absorption of the 



