A NATIONAL CHARACTERISTIC. 3 2 5 



unprejudiced judgment between them, I have no hesi- 

 tation in yielding the palm, with a considerable margin 

 in their favor, to the subjects of His Imperial Majesty, 

 the Czar. 



Patriotic Russians will tell you that in the person 

 of the Czar are embodied all the virtues of all the 

 Russias. Alexander III undoubtedly possesses most 

 of the negative virtues and some of the positive ones, 

 and in his benevolent countenance you look in vain 

 for the cynical suspicion supposed by many to be the 

 inherent expression of autocratic sovereigns. The 

 Czar possesses his full share of the passivity of the 

 Muscovite character, which leads men to shift their 

 burdens and responsibilities to others ; and so, per- 

 haps, he has honored his faithful Chief of Police, by 

 handing over to him his own lawful share of the 

 national trait in question. 



In the natural order of things, from an American 

 point of view, the Czar should be the most suspicious 

 person in Russia. That honor, however, undoubtedly 

 belongs to His Imperial Majesty's deputy just men- 

 tioned. He is the Czar's watchdog. And just as a 

 householder may dismiss all worry from his mind after 

 giving his watchful bull-dog the run of his premises, 

 so, within the measure of human fallibility, does the 

 Czar resign his care. 



Suspicion is, so to speak, the stock in trade of a 

 police officer in any country, and when he figures as a 

 cog in the wheels of a thorough-going autocracy his 

 business is fairly to bristle with it. The usefulness of 

 the Czar's Chief of Police depends on the amount of 

 suspicion that is concentrated in his person and his 



