The extortions of the Russian police have been at all times unblushing. Their rapacity knows no bounds, and it appears to be exhibited by every rank, from the highest to the lowest. George Augustus Sala, in his "Journey Due North," admirably summed up the situation in his day. He had been struck by the appearance of a man in uniform, seated in an admirably appointed droschky behind a priceless stepper, driven by a resplendent coachman, and he thought that he was gazing upon the Czar himself. The master was not, perhaps, of prepossessing appearance; he was stout and flabby, with pale, trembling cheeks, and close-cropped, shiny black hair, but he was in a smart uniform, with a double-eagled helmet, buckskin gloves, and patent-leather boots. "Who is it?" Sala asked of a Russian friend. "Field-Marshal? Prince Gortschakoff? General
[Illustration: "THE MAJOR ... SITS AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOM."]
Todleben?" "No, he is a Major of Police." "Has he enormous pay or a private fortune?" "That dog's son," replied the Russian, "has not a penny of his own, and his full pay all told is a sum of £40 a year." "But the private carriage, the horse, the silver-mounted harness, the luxury of the whole turn-out?" "_Il prend_; he takes." And later on Sala proceeds to tell us how the "taking" is done. The Major in his handsome office sits at the receipt of custom; everybody must bribe him--all those who seek for licenses, for privileges. As we have seen, police permission is needed for everything under the sun, and all who come seeking it must pay. They bribe the Major, his employees, even the private policeman at the doors. "It is a continual and refreshing rain," says Sala, "of grey fifty-rouble notes to the Major, of blue and green fives and threes to the employees, of fifty-copeck pieces to the grey-coats." And then the writer goes on to give specific instances of robbery on a large scale, telling us how this police body, "organised to protect the interests of citizens and watch over public order and morals, to pursue and detect and take charge of criminals ... simply harasses, frightens, cheats, and plunders honest folk."
During the course of a one month's residence in St. Petersburg Sala was robbed four times; first of a cigar-case, then of a purse, fortunately not very well lined, next of an overcoat, and lastly of a drawerful of nondescript articles, including shirts, cigars, and a pair of opera-glasses. This last robbery had been effected by breaking through a seemingly secure lock, and the victim suspected a certain chambermaid who attended to his room. He was on the point of laying the whole case before the police when a friend, a Frenchman who knew Russia by heart, interposed and strongly advised Sala to accept his loss; he would certainly recover nothing, and would as certainly be obliged to spend more than double the value of the property stolen, with the additional inconvenience of being nearly worried to death. The gist of this shrewd advice was that he should grin and bear it, buy new articles, but never complain. "Complaints will lead to your being replundered fourfold, hardly to the recovery of your possessions."