Show ed by the secret police who on the slightest indication of an accident would appear in the guise of beggars street merchants passersby it is when he goes on the railroad that the risks are greater there is no simple sending his secretary to get a ticket and book seats no the whole railroad system over which he Is to travel has to be mentally reviewed the officials have to be called to a conference with the minister in charge when the route is ar ranged the time table fixed and then graph gets busy the special train is prepared and steam Is kept up ready to start at any word is sent ahead to the garrisons along the line and the soldiery have to be pre pared to take positions along each of the line at distance of a very fews yards station masters are warned and the whole plan is ab sol perfect but one thing is wanting the exact day and hour of the journey that is known only to the czar and one or two in his complete confidence once his mind Is made up his train leaves and word Is passed on just of it A pilot engine with carriages Is run a short time in front and no one knows whether the czar Is on the pilot train or the train behind but both trains are impartially saluted any person found lurking in the vl of the railroad is liable to be shot tor it is not once but many times that the secret kept so closely has leaked out by some un known channel and the rails ime been under mined bridges have been partially destroyed and all kinds of infernal machines deposited on the track timed to explode at the exact mo ment of the passage of the train it Is the same whenever the czar travels his presence in a foreign town is a ways de noted by the number of apparently casual vis igors of hesslan appearance whatever his feelings may be the czarina makes no secret of her tear for herself her little girls and the little alexis whose may take place at any moment meanwhile the czar himself safely met his royal host nothing occurred to dis his enjoyment the numerous functions passed off safely and now that he has returned by a circuitous route to st arg the czarina can breathe freely until the next time he goes a traveling government pawnshops are the latest move on the part of russia to raise money for her revenue and ostensibly to help the people of course behind every scheme of this kind there must be a popular motive and to supply this the russian government attacks the terrible jew money lenders who have so long preyed upon the poor the people themselves are be tween the devil and the briny deep but per haps of the two evils the government Is the leiser after all it comes down to a question of per cent the jews charge 24 per cent on loans and as much more as they can reason ably squeeze on the contrary the government proposes to charge only 6 per cent having taken the monopoly of vodka the popular russian intoxicant thereby increasing the revenue by some 10 yearly the of finance in russia Is about to start imperial pawnshops the author of the project M says that it will in the course of a few years prove a source of about 50 yearly not only this but it will enable the poor to obtain at a hitherto un known rate that of 6 per cent per annum the lowest loan will be 2 rubles not quite 1 and money will be advanced on every con cel vable thing the imperial bank will supply the needed to start the pawnshops at the rate of 4 per cent interest the central pawnshop will be at st peters burg at first branches are to be opened in the larger cities including kiev odessa riga tit kharlov and warsaw when these are fairly started others will be opened in smaller towns till the whole empire Is studded with imperial pawnshops just as it Is with vodka moment the accounts will be audited by a branch of the imperial finance control in time private pawnshops will be bought up by the state j the authors are con aident of success and there seems little doubt that the enterprise will proe a very great blow to similar establish ments kept by private people or small corn canles these are per feet sharks in some towns they have found ed a trust so as not to lend money on pledges at less than 18 per cent this is the case in large cities like peters burg odessa and war saw in the last there of assy Ws of ess sa of ass s v are two enterprises fy a which hold the pawn shops in their grip according to law they are not allowed to take more than 6 per cent per annum but to this they add 6 per cent for accommodation and 6 per cent tor ansur ance the owner of the largest six pawnshops Is a count Lu blenski a man of good family and considerable wealth the owners of the oth ers are all well to do needless to say they find the b illness most lucrative and have ex pressed their determination to use all their in claence against the introduction of these new pawnshops nobody will pay them 18 per cent when they can get the same thing tor 6 they know only too well that their days are num bared as soon as the project becomes law the rich owners of these pawnshops are cor hated by the poor classes and by the so from time to time they are attacked by the latter not very long ago alere was an epidemic of pawnshop raiding in russian towns some socialists armed with revolvers and supported by a large following attacked the shots took away all the pledges returned them to their owners and told them to take them home those who had pawned bedding warm clothing and such necessities paid noth ing whereas those who had jewels were close ly questioned as to their drigin and when they were proved to tie stolen the trinkets were returned to their rightful owners in country places the pawnbroker s shop does not exist its work la done by jews who keep a general shop or do factor s work in the neigh boyhood among the peasants and squires these men lend money on anything some will advance it on condition that they take all the farmer s milk or eggs for some time others give money to the squires when the corn la still young claiming the crop when it has been reaped it does not always happen that the pawnbroker has the better ot the bargain the russian peasants and squires are often far from honest in their dealings squire will manage to borrow money on one fled of wheat or one crop of clover from three jews in three districts when the two last come they find the clover has gone they do not as a lule trouble to go to law about it as jus picc Is tardy as well as partial sometimes those who have thus been taken in are quite enthusiastic about the other man s cleverness there Is a sporting spirit on each side and the man who gets the better of the bargain earns his opponent s approval tor hav ing done a good thing there are cases too of diamond cut diamond but these rural pawnbrokers have no fear of the new project it cannot affect them be cause they advance money on things which am pawnbrokers cannot and run risks they would not A miserly peasant in the government of mos cow used a pawnbroker for the sake of ing his sons of their small inheritance he was an very bad terms with them and committed suicide but before doing so he pledged his crops and cattle determined that his children should have nothing but debts after he died they searched for the money when he was burled on learning that the estate was pledged for gold but could not find it years passed and they forgot about the trick he had played them the other day they were told that their father s corpse was to be removed to another part of the cemetery one son went while the transfer was being made and when the grave diggers opened the coffin they were astonished to find inside the skeleton a number of gold pieces which the man had evidently swallowed before committing suicide 1 |