nd twenty thousand people perished
before it could be checked. Nearly the entire city has gone up in smoke
on more than one occasion and yet it still lives. When I was there its
streets were ablaze with electric lights at night and thronged with
shopping multitudes by day, but all this is changed at this time.

If we can believe the historian, orgies have taken place in this city
that would make it, for the time being, a rival of Hades itself. When
the Russians turn against a man their hatred knows no bounds. In one
case they caught a pretender for the throne and almost continuously for
three days they tortured him in every imaginable way, shape and form.
After he was finally killed they were so afraid that he might come to
life that they took his body, burned it to ashes, loaded them in a
cannon and fired it, scattering them to the four winds.

One of the empresses of Russia became enraged at one of the princes
whose wife had died and she compelled him to marry an old ugly woman
whose nickname was "Pickled Pork." One historian says: "The marriage
festival was celebrated with great pomp: representatives of every tribe
and nation in the Empire took part, with native costumes and musical
instruments: some rode on camels, some on deer, others were drawn by
oxen, dogs and swine. The bridal couple were borne in a cage on an
elephant's back. A palace was built entirely of ice for their
reception. It was ornamented with ice pillars and statues, and lighted
by panes of thin ice. The door and window posts were painted to
represent green marble: droll pictures on linen were placed in ice
frames. All the furniture, the chairs, the mirrors, even the bridal
couch, were ice. By an ingenious use of naphtha the ice chandeliers were
lighted and the ice logs on the ice grates were made to burn! At the
gates two dolphins of ice poured forth fountains of flame: vessels
filled with frosty flowers, trees with foliage and birds, and a
life-sized elephant with a frozen Persian on its back adorned the yard.
Ice cannon and mortars guarded the doors and fired a salute. The bride
and groom had to spend the night in their glacial palace."

For centuries the common people of Russia were afraid to open their
mouths. Detectives were everywhere and half of the people exiled to
Siberia had no idea what they had committed. One of the secret service
men might visit a peasant home disguised as a tramp or agent. Allowed
into the humble home he would exami