I understand that doom awaits him who first rises against the oppressors of the people. When has Liberty been redeemed without victims? Fate has already condemned me. I shall perish for my native land. I feel it, I know it, and gladly bless my destiny.—Ryleev.

A fabled king of Thrace fed his horses on human flesh, but a real czar of Russia washed his streets with blood. On his accession to the red throne, the Iron Despot immediately expelled progress from his empire by butchering the Decembrists—those pioneers of freedom who fought for a constitution and the abolition of serfdom. Exiles began to tramp the lonely Siberian highway, and from the time of that Nicholas I. to this Nicholas II.—a period of 75 years—over a million political prisoners have taken the 'long journey.'

The mighty country was turned into a military camp. The term of service was twenty-five years. The life was so hard that when a man was recruited, his relatives followed him as if to his grave. His mother ran after him, and sometimes fell dead on the spot. The emperor spent his time reviewing troops and altering uniforms.[1] If an officer appeared in the streets with the hooks of his uncomfortable collar unfastened, he was liable to be degraded to the rank of a common soldier and deported to some distant province. If a soldier complained of his diet, or was guilty of the slightest infraction of the most insignificant rule, he was condemned to run the gauntlet. He was stripped naked, his hands were tied behind him, and he was brought between two long rows of pawing privates and eager 'non-coms,' equipped and armed with sticks, whips and gun-stocks. Behind the soldiers stood officers commanding, "Harder! Harder!" Thru these lines the victim was compelled to run—because in yesterday's paltry parade conducted by a petty sergeant, he scratched his itching neck. At first it was his shoulders which they struck, but before he had gone very far he had no longer a back, but only a bleeding mass of quivering flesh thru which parts of the bones protruded. A doctor was always present to see that the culprit did not die before receiving his full punishment. That is, if he were booked for 500 blows and was on the point of succumbing after receiving 300, it was the physician's duty to send him to a hospital to regain sufficient strength to allow the additional 200 to be administered. However, in spite of the medicus, the mangled men often perished before their time, and then there was nothing to do but beat the corpse.[2]

During this reign originated the widespread system of stealing Jewish children from their homes, separating them from their families, severing them from their faith, and bringing them up to serve in the army. These were the Cantonists.[3] Thus it came about that when a mother of Israel gave birth to a boy, she did not rejoice as for one born and living, but lamented as for one dead and departed. (Sometimes Jewish mothers saved their children from the army by cutting off their fingers, or taking out one of their eyes).

Liberty was so shackeled she did not even dare weep aloud.[4] Since that unlucky day when Ryleev, Pestel, Bestuzhev, Kakovsky and Muraviov-Apostol dangled from a tall straight post and a strong crossbar, no revolutionist arose to oppose tyranny. During all the many years of the reign of Nicholas-with-the-Stick, no ray of light brightened a darkened nation, no torch glimmered in the bloody gloom. Hope was dead. Freedom was buried. Literature was in exile. Knowledge lay in a closed coffin. But censorship was alive, and autocracy had more eyes than Argus.

An anonymous pamphlet, toward the end of his reign, cried out that the czar had rolled a great stone before the door of the sepulchure of Truth, that he had placed a strong guard round her tomb, and in the exultation of his heart had exclaimed, "For thee, no resurrection!"

So thoroly was liberalism crushed, so completely was absolutism supreme, that 'Nikolaus Palkin' walked the streets of bleeding Russia unattended and unafraid.

Alas, when a nation has only knees to bend, but no hands to strike!

After his shadow had obscured the sun for a quarter of a century, a brilliant festival was given in his honor at Moscow—called the Holy City because it contains a Miracle Monastery for glorifying God and a Kremlin Fortress for crucifying Man. It was a fancy-dress ball, and a thousand gorgeous uniforms were there, from the leather coat of the Tungus to the embroidered flummery of the chamberlain. In this affair the children of the nobility played an important part. They were lavishly attired, and each carried an ensign representing the arms of the provinces of the Russian empire. At a given signal the little emblem-bearers began to march, and on reaching the purple platform upon which the royal family sat, all standards were lowered. The inflexible autocrat viewed the scene with satisfaction—all the provinces bowed before him. When the children retired to the rear of the immense hall, someone pulled the smallest of the boys from the ranks and placed him on the imperial elevation. The lad was arrayed as a Persian prince, and wore a jewel-covered belt and a high bonnet. Nicholas I. looked at his chubby face all surrounded with pretty curls and taking him to the czarevna Marie Alexandrovna, said in his military voice, "This is the sort of boy you must bring me." The woman was gravid at the time, and the soldier-like joke made her blush.

"Will you have some sweets?" asked the emperor.

"I want some of those tiny biscuits which were served at tea," eagerly responded the child. A waiter was called and he emptied a full tray into the tall bonnet.

"I will take them home to Sasha," said the curly little cherub.

Mikhael—the czar's brother—now paid attention to the little visitor. "When you are a good boy," he said, "they treat you so," and he passed his rough hand downwards over the rotund features of the diminutive would-be Persian; "but when you are naughty, they treat you so," and he rubbed the child's nose upward.

The poor innocent did his best to restrain himself, but unhappily the gushing tears could not be repressed. The ladies at once took his part, and Marie Alexandrovna set him by her side on a velvet chair with a gilded back—William Morris being then unknown. Soon the big eyes began to close, and drowsily putting his beautiful head in the lap of the future empress, the boy fell soundly asleep.

And the frolic went on. Under the glittering chandeliers the dancers glided. Over the waxen floors the merry feet waltzed. Wine disappeared by barrels, and revelry ran riot. Swords, spurs, buckles, medals, diamonds—how they all sparkled! The smooth-cheeked courtiers and the slick-tongued cavaliers gaily jested, and the silk-swathed ladies flirted their proverbial fans and smiled flatteringly at their wit, but not the wisest of them knew that someday this babe would awake and make his name terrible to the ears of tyrants!