It is not at all incomprehensible either, that
the proprietors of houses— public or private
— which are the resort of loose or disorderly
characters,— of houses where thieves are
notoriously harboured, or where dissipation is
rampant, should exhibit a laudable celerity in
keeping up the most friendly financial relations
with the police. And they must not
only bribe the major, but they must bribe
the employés, and even the grey-coated
police-soldiers. It is a continual and refreshing
rain, of grey fifty-rouble notes to the major,
and of blue and green fives and threes to
the employés, and of twenty-five copeck
pieces to the grey-coats. Then the major
has his immediate subordinates, his polizei-capitan,
his lieutenants, his secretaries, his
orderlies, who must all be feed— and feed
frequently; woe-betide the hotel, grog-shop,
or lodging-housekeeper who forgets that
the police are of their nature hungry, and
that the stomachs of their purses must be
filled! Any stick is good enough, they say,
(though I don't believe it) to beat a dog with;
but, it is certain that any accusation trumped
up against a financially recalcitrant licensed
victualler in St. Petersburg, is sufficient to stir
the official wrath of the grand-master of
police, who will, unless feed to a tremendous
extent, himself, shut up that unbribing man's
house incontinent.

This is why I have called the Russian
police Boguey. I am not speaking of it
now, under its aspects of espionage and
slander, and midnight outrage. I am speaking
of it, simply as a body organised to protect
the interests of citizens, to watch over
public order and morals, to pursue and
detect, and take charge of criminals. It does
not do this. It simply harasses, frightens,
cheats and plunders honest folks. It is as
terrible to the ignorant as the Cock Lane
Ghost, and is as shameful an imposture.

In the course of one month's residence in
St. Petersburg— from May to June— I was
robbed four times;— of a cigar-case, of a
porte-monnaie— luckily with no gold and very
little silver in it— of an over-coat, which
was coolly and calmly stolen— goodness
knows by whom— from the vestibule of a
house where I went to pay a visit; and lastly,
of an entire drawerful of articles: shirts,
neckhandkerchiefs, papers (not notes on
things Russian— I always took care of those,
about me), cigars, and an opera-glass. The
drawer I had left securely locked on leaving
home in the morning. On returning, I found
it broken open, and the contents rifled as I
have described. Of course, nobody knew
anything about it; of course the servants were
ready to take their Russian affidavits that no
one had entered my apartment during my
absence— by the door at least; someone might,
they delicately hinted, have come in by the
window; and, indeed, I found that my casement
had been ingeniously left wide open,
with a view of favouring the out-door theory.
I was inclined, however, most shrewdly to suspect
a certain stunted chambermaid, with a
yellow handkerchief tied round her head, and
an evil eye, which eye I had frequently detected
casting covetous glances at the drawer where
my effects lay perdu. I was in a great rage.
It is true I had lost no jewellery. My diamond
solitaire was in safe keeping; and my gold
repeater (by Webster) was in England, four
pounds ten slow. But I was exasperated on
account of the loss of my papers (might there
not have been a sonnet addressed to Her with
a large H among them!), and on the first
flush of this exasperation I determined to
lay before the police authorities, at least a
declaration of the robbery of which I had
been the victim. In the nick of time there
came and arrested me in my mad career a
certain sage. He was not a Russian— being
in truth of the French nation, and a
commercial traveller for a Champagne house at
Rheims; but, he had travelled backwards and
forwards in Russia for years, and had spied
out the nakedness of that land thoroughly,
from Riazan to Revel. He was a high-dried
coffee-coloured man, who wore a wig and a
black satin stock, and carried a golden snuffbox
with a portrait of Charles the Tenth on
the lid. Said this sage to me:

"At how much does Monsieur estimate his
loss?"

"Well," I replied, "at a rough guess, one
might say thirty roubles."

"Then," resumed the sage, "unless Monsieur
wishes to spend, in addition to his
already disbursed thirty, another fifty
roubles, but very probably more, and, over
and above, to be very nearly tracassé to death,
I should advise Monsieur to put up quietly
with his loss, and to say nothing about it—
especially to Messieurs de la Police."

The oracle thus delivered with much Delphic
solemnity, made me much more inquisitive
to know why in this strange land a man
should not only be robbed, but made to pay
besides, for having been plundered. In the
pursuit of knowledge, it appears to me, if I
remember the circumstance with correctness,
that the sage and I adjourned to the refreshment
buffet of the Hotel Heyde, and that
there, after the consumption of several
malinka riunkas, or petit verres of curaçoa,
and the incineration of sundry papiros or
cigarettes, I became strangely enlightened
as to what an expensive luxury being robbed
is in Russia.

If ever you journey for your sins, my dear
friend, Due North, and happen to have
anything stolen from you— be that anything your
watch, your fur pelisse, or your pocket-book
full of bank notes— never apply to the police.
Grin and bear it. Put up with the loss.
Keep it dark. Buy new articles to replace
the old ones you have lost; but, never complain.
Complaints will lead to your being
re-plundered fourfold. They will end in
your being hunted like a fox, and torn up