PRIVATE LIFE IN RUSSIA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 155, 1 July 1879, Page 4

PRIVATE LIFE IN RUSSIA.

4. correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette in describing the peculiar ' aspect of affairs in Russia, says:—"Nobody lakes of Liberalism in drawingrooms, for there are so many conspiracies •fool.. There is so much espionage, Arresting, and exiling to Siberia thai the most dangerous rebels ere thosfl who ose the most fulsome adulation in speaking of the Court. An imprudent word might cost tpo dear at a moment when apsaeaioa are believed to be larking everywhere, and when the official journals are screaming in a panic to the police that they are riot active nor watchful enough. Here is an example of what the police are expected to do : After the attack on General Drenteln it was ascertained that the young man who had shot at him had for some weeks previously been taking riding Icsbods, with a view, aa it now seems, of escaping readily after his crimp. So the Golos writes : — ' It is astonishiug that the owner of the riding-sobool did not feel his suspicions excited by the youne man's coming daily to take lessens. He should have made irquirie*, ond hsd him watched. . Watch a man because he takes riding lesson*! Why not, then, set detectives upon every person who dinea daily: at same restaurant? Asa 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 cartridges for hia sporting goes, lest be should be suspected of sinister designs. Foreigners who cojne into Russia have always been closely < looked after by the police; but nbw* Russians travelling within their own 1 country are pestered quite as much! as foreigners. A boyard from the provinces comes up to St. Petersburg on business, end alights at a great hojtel • . like Demoth's. He must exhibit hU passport vif&l by the authorities of all the towns where he has spent a night during his journey ; and this done he most obtain a permit de sSjour from the police of the capital. While he has 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 bis hotel room and overhaul every article in his luggage, confiscating his private letters at the same_ time' 4 for leisurely perusal at their convenience Our tourist returns to table ', d'hdte dinner and enters into conversation with a fellow-countryman by his i aide, or he goes off to spend an evening at the Winter Gardens and falls in with some strangers whom he has known in Paris. Next day' he is ar r rested and brought to book for having been chatting with people who turn put 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 Czarewftph being a prisoner in his own houses 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 hate spent the last winter season at St. Petersburg describe it as having been funereally dull; though this city was nevfcr so crowded with wealthy families, because most of the landowners have grown afraid to live on their estates, not only because they dread Nihilist 7 risings among the peasantry, but be* - cause 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 ■ ; toff enjoy themselves. They had enough under Nicholas ; and the 1 present revival of this regime can only reeult in converting all of them into consparitors. In facb/tbeyarer all conspirators as it is ; for everybody is more or less exercised in devising means of '' extrication from the quandary, and it "must needs be that! many incline to means which are deprecated by the authorities. As to the Czar's intentions, nothing is known. But he is supposed to be brooding in the helpless bewilderment of a man who is afraid to touch a single brick in a cranky fabric • lefifcthewholeofitahoald tumbledown."