PRIVATE LIFE IN RUSSIA.

Kumara Times, Issue 846, 17 June 1879, Page 4

PRIVATE LIFE IN RUSSIA.

A correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette, in describing the peculiar aspect of affairs in Rnsaia, says Nobody talks of Liberalism in drawing-rooms, for there are so many conspiracies afoot. There is so much espionage, arresting, and exiling to Siberia that the most dangerous rebels are those who usethe most fulsome adulation in speaking of.the Court. An imprudent . word might' cost too dear at a moment when assassins are believed to be lurking eVerywhere, and when the official journals are screaming in a panic to the police that they are not active nor watchful enough. Here is a little example of what the .police are expected to do: After the attack on General Drenteln it was aaccertained that the young man who had shot at him had for some weeks previously been taking riding lessons, with a view, as it now seems, of escapit g readily after crime. So the Golos writes: —‘ It is astonishing that the owner of the riding-school did not feel his suspicions excited by the young man’s coming, daily to take, lessons. He should have made inquiries, and had him watched.’ Watch a mah because he takes riding lessons ! Why not, then, set detectives upon every IpeHonwho dines daily at the same restaurant! As a fact, it seems that the police do. watch so much and so. annoyingly that a prudent man will not stop to . stare, ,at the Imperial palace, nor ask audience of a Minister, nor purchase cartridge's! lor his sporting guns, lest he should be suspected of sinister designs. Foreigners who- come into Russia have always been closely looked after by the police^; but now Russians travelling within their own couutry are postered quite as much asi foreigners. A boyard from the provinces comes up to St. Petersburg on business, and alights a great hotel like Demuth’s. He bust exhibit his passport, vised'by the authorities of all the towns where he has spent a night doting his jontney ; and this done he must obtain a

permis de sejour from the police of the capital. While he was gone to one of the offices of the Third Section on this errand detectives, who have requested him to give up his keys proceed to his hotel ‘ room and overhaul every article in his luggage, confiscating his private letters at the: same time for leisurely perusal at their convenience. Our tourist returns to table d’ hote dinner and enters in conversation' with a fellow-countryman by his side,- or he goes off to spend an evening at the Winter Garden and falls in with some strangers whom he has known in Paris. Next day .he is arrested and brought to book for having been seen chatting with people who turn out to be conspirators. It may be said that a man can avoid talking to strangers at table , d’hote; but the provincial Russian may chance to be arrested simply because he has attended a party at the house of some great lady who has been collared by the police because she is a friend of a prince of the blood who has-suddenly fallen into disgrace; When one hears :of the Czarewitch being a prisoner, in ; his own uouae, of another , Grand Duke being exiled to his estates, and of dozens of noblemen, ladies, and even young girls being arrested for supposed complicity with the Nihilists, it becomes obvious that the moral • atmosphere -.in . which Russian society, is now living must be one of freezing terror. People who have spent . last winter season at St. Petersburg describe it as having been funereally dull; though this city was never so crowded with wealthy families, because most of the landowners have grown afraid to live on their estates, not only because they , dread Nihilist risings among the peasantry, but because they fear to have enemies at Court who might accuse them ; of having fomented such outbreaks. This miserable state of public uneasiness cannot last long. The Russians are an - impulsive people, who love to talk and enjoy themselves. IJhey had enough . compression uijdec Nicholas'; and the present revival of this, regime can only - W|»li in converting all of them into conspirators. In fact, they are all conspirators as it is } foreverybody is more or less exercised in devising means of extrication from the quandary, and it must Wf»d* bo that many incline to means tvhiph are deprecated by; the authorities. . As to. the, Czar’s intentions, • nothing is known. Bat he is supposed to be brooding in the helpless bewilderment of a man yhoia afraid to touch a single brick in a 1 cranky fabric lest the whole of it should tumbledown.”

Honorable representatives of -the people ■Would generally appear, in the eyes of the Uamaru Mail at least, to be in a very itnjwcunioußßtate. In a recent issue it asserts S Bion of Parliament will be short, because the ■ pecnnwy; necessities of the msioritv of a?nent will re nder com- . . pmsory for them to return to their business wfn? P P. oa « lblft otf >ers say that mem- . / Pa 'i lament J w l vitw Wellington as £ £LrV5 Ug? ’ “ d Wlll proloD « tbe aession . ,-m .to enjoy as « possible the th ? members of £tSf?, e6t S eBB °i ing • oy their the period that • engaged in serving their ; OPWtfq, 6 "Lqrd Augustus Loftns,” our (Argus) . ; <»rrespondent wrote on 10th pril, ‘ii ac k ■s?^ e^i"| n ,-I | Ph<i o n, having arrived some jdays back from fit. Petersburg. , He will leave for New.fioUth Wales about the end of Mw via San: Pranchco. His horses and ' wil' "Iw wnt out to'Sydney by way of the Cape. His lordship, has two sons, Wm t 0 Australia. The fitheWS«5 ?nry L ° ftU8 ‘ Will acti as fais Srd l se . cretar y* Singular to say, MFA A. Loftus w a relative of his predeoessor, Sir Hercules hobinson, though the fTO have never met.” &