He took me down the street three blocks to visit his daughter, so that when I returned to America I could assure my friend that his sister, too, was safe. She and her husband were both working for the Soviet Government and had but one complaint to make, “scarcity of food.” She was a teacher in one of the Soviet schools. They had two beautiful boys; the elder was studying sculpture in a Soviet art school, the younger was still in the grades. I asked this most intelligent and refined woman whether the Bolshevists had broken up the homes in Petrograd. She smiled and said, “Do they believe that in America?” When I had to answer that “some do,” she replied, “Please tell them it does not show intelligence to believe such things.” I talked to three or four of the business men along the Nevsky Prospekt who were still clinging to their little shops, with their pitiful stocks of goods. These people have remained undisturbed for reasons I have already explained. In substance they all said the same thing: “It is terrible,—terrible. Before long we must quit business. The Bolshevists are setting up what they call ‘Soviet’ stores. The people don’t come to us now,—only a few of our old customers. The Soviet stores control the products and undersell us. Russia is doomed. We want to go away. How is it in America?” The last cry of the private shopkeeper in Russia! Some day when the war is over and Russia is doing business with the rest of the world, these same shopkeepers will probably find the Soviet stores more attractive even than their own. They may remember, with no regret, their constant struggle to survive competition. Doubtless they will get behind the counters of the Soviet stores, as many of their kind have already done, and there find security of employment and compensation, and in the knowledge that they are rendering a real service to the New Russia they will find an adequate substitute for the stimulation of “private enterprise.” With the removal of the capital to Moscow, the sending of thousands of workers to the army, the voluntary emigration to the villages of thousands of others, and the exodus of the bourgeoisie to Scandinavia, France, England and even America, Petrograd has probably one half the population it had under the Czar. Moscow had gained, however, during the same period in greater proportion than Petrograd lost. [Illustration: CHICHERIN Commissar of Foreign Affairs ]