Vlll PREFACE. 



was half finished, however, I found myself compelled 

 to admit that matters were very bad, indeed. 



The harshest feature of the many harsh sides of life 

 in Russia, to an American, is the utter absence of con- 

 stitutional rights. 



Individuals have no rights in Russia. They exist in 

 peace and breathe the air outside a prison cell solely 

 on the sufferance of the police, whose authority over 

 them is practically that of deputy despots in their 

 capacity as representatives of the Czar. 



When I first reached St. Petersburg, I wrote home of 

 the agreeable impression that was made on me by see- 

 ing the Czar driving freely about the streets, with 

 scarcely any escort. Before leaving Russia, however, 

 I discovered that, in order to make this sort of thing 

 possible, the Czar's Chief of Police summarily expels 

 from the capital no less than fifteen thousand persons 

 every year, or an average of over forty a day. Tourists 

 and casual visitors from America and Europe see the 

 Czar driving about in this manner, but they know 

 nothing of the other side of the picture — of the steady 

 streams of " suspects " and others driven from the city, 

 three fourths of whom are probably innocent of evil 

 intent, and so they come away with rosy and erroneous 

 impressions, thinking they have seen Russia. 



Those who have seen merely St. Petersburg and 

 Moscow, have seen little or nothing of real Russia, nor 

 even if they have made the grand tour across the 

 country by rail, and up or down the Volga. These 

 tourists have glided over the surface of Russia, their 

 path made smooth and agreeable by the imported 

 polish of the West ; but they have not been in it. 



