Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



381 



RUSSIAN MOUSE-TRAPS. 



Their Comic Side. 



In the Century for March Mr. George Kennan tells 



some amusinfr stories of the method of the Russian 



police, which was imported from France, and given its 



name by Alexandre Dumas, who thus describes it :— 



When, in a hou^e of any kind, a person suspected of crime is 

 atrcitcd, the arrest is kept secret ; lour or five men are placed 

 in ambuscade in the first apartment, the door is opened to all 

 who knock, it is ilicn closed after tliem, and they are arrested ; 

 so that, at the end uf two or three days, the police have in their 

 power all the persons who are accustomed to visit the place. 

 And that is a mousetrap. 



TWO ENGLISH JOLRNALISTS TRAPPED. 



.Mr. Kennan tells a story of how Mr. Baddeley, the 

 St. Petersburg correspondent of the London Standard, 

 going to get particulars of the apartments where 

 certain Nihilists had been arrested, went in and was 

 promptly himself arrested. Resigning himself to the 

 inevitable, he sat at the window smoking his cigarette, 

 and saw Dobson, the St. Petersburg correspondent of 

 the London Times, looking up at the house. He 

 hailed Dobson, and Dobson said that he was seeking 

 the Nihilist apartment. " It's up here," replied 

 Baddeley. Up came Dobson, entered the room, was 

 shown all round, and on seeking to depart was also 

 arrested, with much fume on his part : — 



The two correspondents were held in the Nihilist apartment 

 for an hour or more, and were then sent under guard to the 

 precinct station-house. There they established their identity 

 and proved their good character hy summoning one of the 

 (.ecretarics of the liriiish Embassy, and after receiving a politely 

 worded caution, tempered with expressions of official sympathy 

 and regret, they were released. 



A GRAND duchess's SCHOOL FfcTE SPOILED. 



Another story is told in which Russian officials 

 themselves suffered : — 



On a certain niglit in March the police, in one of their raids 

 on the politically untrustworthy class, arrested in St. Peters- 

 burg a physician named Dr. Kadyan. A mouse-trap was set in 

 his house about twj o'clock in the morning, and his family, of 

 course, was prevented from communicating in any way with the 

 outside world, lli^ sister, Miss Kadyan, happened to be one 

 of the principal tcichers in a well-known school for young 

 women, patronised and in part supported by the Grand Duchess 

 Kkaterina Michael. vna. 



On the day lullowing the arrest the school was to 

 hold its annual exhibition, and the Government 

 Inspector of S( hools was present in full-dress uni- 

 form. Miss Kadyan riot arriving, the lady principal 

 sent a pupil U> In r house, who however was arrested. 

 The audience waited. 'l"hen the principal sent a 

 second pupil, win) also was arrested. 



\ GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR " SNAPPED." 



I lien the principal herself went to the house, and 

 she, too, was tr.ipped. Finally, after long waiting, 

 the Government Inspector of Schools " called his 

 tlroshky, drove lustily to the Kadyan house, burst 

 in at the front diHir without knocking, and was arrested 

 so promptly that it took his breath away." The 



Grand Duchess immediately sent one of her couriers 

 to the house to find out what had happened. The 

 mouse-trap snapped on the fifth victim. In due 

 course of time all the prisoners were released, and 

 regrets expressed for the lamentable misunderstanding. 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF RUSSIA. 



By THE Hon. Edward Cadogan. 



In the Cornhill the Hon. Edward Cadogan gives 

 us some of the first impressions of one of the English 

 visitors who were recently so hospitably entertained 

 by the Russian nation : — 



Members of the English Deputation will remember, so long as 

 life lasts, with feelings of the sincerest gratitude, the memorable 

 days spent as the guests of the Russian people, and they carry 

 back with them to England a message of peace and goodwill. 

 THE RELIGION OF RUSSIA. 



Perhaps to the newcomer the most noticeable feature in the 

 daily lives of the Russian people is the potent influence which 

 religion seems to exercise upon thought and action, and which 

 seems to permeate existence in every class and every profession. 

 The moment that the foreigner sets foot upon Russian soil, the 

 intensity of religious feeling, and the larger part it plays in the 

 career of every individual, high and low, at once forces itself 

 upon the attention. 



In all things, however insignificant. Heaven's light must be 

 his guide. No place and no time is inappropriate for religious 

 meditation or devotion. Herein lies the peculiar merit of their 

 piety and, I may add, its superiority over that of other European 

 peoples. 



The conspicuous piety of the Russian people is a national 

 asset, both in its influence upon the private conduct of the 

 individual and in the dignity it confers upon civil life. 

 THEIR PHILOSOPHV.] 



The Russian manner of thinking seems to be influenced by 

 a certain careless fatalism which, in the upper classes and the 

 town populations, takes the form of an optimistic cheerfulness 

 under adverse circumstances, and, among the pe.isant classes in 

 the country, a morose submission to an inevitable destiny. 

 This habit of mind can best find expression in the homely phrase 

 that "nothing very much matters." 



But now that the people have become ambitious to control 

 their oh n destiny, the days of careless fatalism, of unquestioned 

 submission to authority, are at an end. 

 THE KRKMI.IN. 



The Kremlin not only fulfilled but surp.i5sed expectation. 

 The Kremlin is enshrined in my memory .is the most peerless 

 of man's creations. If to see the Krendin at close quarters is 

 ravishing, to sec it from a distanceis something beyond the 



descriptive powers of man 



At our feet stretched a vast plain of snow, and out of the waste 

 arose the Kremlin, " instinct with loveliness, not architecture, 

 not m.asonry," \ mist obscured the surrounding city, so that 

 the gorgeous fortress seemed to be suspemled in mid-air, like 

 Aladdin's palace, the creation of an entrancing dream, the 

 graceful phantom of a vanished age. 



THE RUSSIAN ARTS. 



In all classes dancing is an accomplishment, and if they 

 excel in dancing, the Russian singing is a thing to be dreamt 

 of. While at St. Petersburg we were privileged to hear a 

 concert of the Court Choir — perhaps the tinest choir of voices 

 in the world. There is something tragic and weiid in the 

 singing of the Russian people, which seems, nevertheless, to 

 be typical and characteristic of the land which gave them birth. 

 And these features add to its overwhelming cliarm. To hear 

 such a band of voices chanting the famous National .\nlhem i-> 

 an experience alone worth a visit to Russia. Although of no: 

 so long standing as their school of music, their school of art is 

 of a high order. 



