“The massacre at Homel in January confirmed the fears which had been expressed, and spurred the above-mentioned individual to spare no efforts to prevent further massacres, which he succeeded in doing owing to the steps taken by the Prime Minister (Count Witte), who gradually succeeded in discovering the working of the hidden organisation. It was then that the following facts concerning the action of the massacre-mongers came to light. A group of persons, forming the active militia of our own ‘patriotic’ societies, working together with people closely related to a certain newspaper (_The Moscow Gazette_) started an active anti-revolutionary movement. Being ‘patriots’ in the sense recently defined by the member for Tver and ‘full Russians,’ they discovered the cause of the revolution to lie in the non-Russian races, in the inhabitants of the outlying districts, and among the Jews. They called on the Russian people, and especially the Russian soldiers, to grapple with the rebels, in ten thousands of proclamations of the most repulsive character. These proclamations were transmitted by members of the society to the place of action, and handed over there to their local allies, who in their turn distributed them with careful interpretations. The consequences, judged from the point of view of those who were trying to maintain central authority intact, were curious. The assistant of the Chief of Police (I take an ordinary example) distributes the proclamation without informing his chief. Or, for instance, the head of the first police station would be confided in, but not the head of the second. Special sums of money came into the possession of some of the subordinates of the Gendarmerie; certain obscure persons began to visit them; rumours circulated in the town of certain preparations; frightened people sought the Governor. The Governor reassured them, feeling, however, that the situation was far from reassuring. From the Ministry came telegrams about measures to be taken, and measures were often taken, but measures taken in this sense were far from inspiring universal confidence.