“By a careful investigation of the massacres the enquirer is brought face to face with certain definite and isolated phenomena. First, the massacre is always preceded by reports of its preparation, accompanied by the issue of inflammatory proclamations, which are uniform both as regards subject-matter and style. Secondly, when the massacre occurs, the facts which are officially stated to be its cause invariably prove to be false. Thirdly, the action of those who take part in the massacre reveals a certain organisation, which deprives it of all accidental and elemental characteristics. Those who take part in the massacre act in the consciousness of some right, in the consciousness of impunity, and they only continue acting till this consciousness is shaken; when that moment arrives the massacre ceases swiftly and easily. Further, in the action of the police there is never any uniformity, and while certain police districts are devastated by the massacres under the eyes of a considerable constabulary force, others remain almost untouched owing to the protection of the police, who perform their duties conscientiously and energetically. Finally, when the massacre is over, arrests are made, and the authorities who examine the culprits cannot help having the impression that those who have been brought before them are less like criminals than ignorant people who have been deceived by some definite thing. Thus we feel that some kind of uniform and widely-planned organisation exists. Those who affirm that it is simply the doing of the Government, and think that the question is thereby settled, are mistaken, but they are not wholly mistaken; and the events of the past winter, which form the subject of our question, will help us to throw some light on these dark proceedings. In January, 1905, a great quantity of well-printed proclamations, which had been widely circulated in the chief centres of Southern and Western Russia, together with alarming complaints regarding the preparation of massacres in Vilna, Bielostok, Kieff, &c., came into the hands of some one who occupied a subordinate position in the Ministry of the Interior, and who was well known as an enemy of massacres (I am not speaking of myself).