Show RUSSIAN circumlocution for in th astric AM th reason why changes that ara manifestly are in the direction of economy and thai apparently would injure no one agrenot made in russia is one of the most puzzling and exasperating things that are forced upon a travelers attention in every branch of the administration one is constantly stumbling upon abuses or defects that have long been recognized that have been commented upon for years that are apparently parent ly prejudicial to the interests of everybody and that nevertheless continue to exist if yon ask an explanation of an official in siberia he refers you to st petersburg if you inquire of the chief of the prison department in st petersburg he tells you that he has drawn up a project to cope with the evil but that thia broj act has not yet been approved by the minister of the interior if you go to the minister of the interior yon learn that the project requires a preliminary appropriation of money even its ultimate effect may be to save money and that it cannot be carried into es elution without the assent and co opera tion of the minister of finance if you follow the project to the minister ot finance you are told that it has been sent back through the minister to the chief of the prison department foi modification if you still persist in your determination to find out why this thing is not don you may chase the modified broj act through the prison department the minister of the interior and the mini of finance to the council of the empire there yon discover that inasmuch as certain cross and ribbon decorated senators and generals who barely knowli beria by name have expressed a doubt as to the existence of the evil with which the project ig intended to deal a special commission with salaries adonat ins to rubles a year and mileage haa been appointed to inveen sate th abject and make a report if you pursue the commission to siberia and back and search diligently in the proceedings of the council of the empire borits report you ascertain that the document has been sent to the mini of the interior to serve as a basis for a cw project and then as ten or fifteen years have elapsed and all the original projectors are dead everything be gins over again at no stage of oils cum process can you jay houi hand on a particular official and say herel you for this atno stage probably can yon find an official who is opposed reform 01 who has any personal interest in defeating it and yet the general effect of the process is more fatal to your reformatory project than any amoust of intelligent and active opposition the various bureaus of alie provincial governor generals office the chief prison department the ministry of tha interior the ministry of finance the ministry of council of ministers and the council of the empire constitute ahugh administrative maelstrom of ignorance and indifference in which project revolves slowly month after month and year after year until it is finally sucked down out of sight or perhaps thrown by a fortuitous eddy of personal or official interest in to the great gulfa tream current of real life george in century |