ABOUT RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 August 1917, Page 3

ABOUT RUSSIA.

To tlie Editor. ' 'Sir. —Many would lie glad if you would . find spate for the matter contained in ] the attached extract from a letter i from an American in Russia. The ] letter was sent to the National City Bank of New York, and is quoted •, in their bulletin for last month. The writer says:—"l place a great deal of j faith in the Russian people, and in their 1 good sense. The days of revolution in Petrograd were wonderful. One thing •] especially raised my estimation of the Russians even more than the wonderfully well conducted revolution as a whole. In the basement of tlie building .] where I live were stored 8000 bottles of wines and vodka, the property of the 1 house owner, who was very wealthy. J Soldier.?, common privates, learned of I this cellar and poured in there in Inm- I dreds. I was absolutely astonisheel to ; hear them smashing all of the bottles, i Only a fen- tried to take some away, and ! these were prevented by the rest. This i was a revelation when you consider that Russia was, before the war, the greatest drinking nation on earth. Had not the other stores of wines and vodka in various parts of the city been similarly treated, Petrograd would leally have been a city running in blood."—I am, ; etc., G.H.M. 22/8/17.