The fact is that the Poles, like the Liberals here, are in a great hurry. They wish everything to be done at once, and changes which have taken some centuries to elaborate in other and calmer countries to be brought about here in a few days. The Liberals are now crying loudly that nothing will satisfy them but a Constituent Assembly based on universal suffrage. They are unwilling to wait a few months until order can be restored, and until the Duma can meet and vote on the adoption or the non-adoption of such an assembly. They wish it to come straight into existence, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus. All that is written in the Liberal papers here must not be taken as an absolutely impartial and dispassionate record of facts. A well-informed, sensible, and Liberal Russian told me yesterday that some of these papers—and among them not the most Radical, some of which, he said, were managed by sincere and able men—were merely for opposition for the sake of opposition, and that whatever Count Witte said or did they would say it was wrong; some of them act the part of deliberate inciters and wish merely to add fuel to the general excitement. I am not of course alluding to Liberal newspapers which have an old-established and solid reputation such as the _Russkie Viedomosti_ of Moscow. There is a newspaper here which was especially violent in insisting on the fact that not only General Trepoff but also all the military should be removed from the town; these violent articles did not prevent them from sending privately to General Trepoff to ask for a squadron of Cossacks to protect their office, begging at the same time that this request might be kept secret.