The Czar is the great brandy-merchant to his people. The brandy trade is his monopoly, and his chief means of livelihood as a potentate. Before he took to the spirit-trade, licenses for the distillation and retailing of brandy used to be always sold to the same persons, who acquired enormous wealth by their transactions. Government, aware of this, reduced their profits by conditions and changes which at last drove out of the market all but those persons who carried on a wholesale business on the largest scale. A few hundred wholesale distilling firms, too deeply concerned in their trade to bring it to a stand-still, carried on their business at the mercy of the emperor; who soon ordered that all brandy produced by the distillers should be sold to the government, which then doubled its quantity with water, and supplied it to licensed dealers for retail sale--of course, after more dilution--at fixed prices to the public. Licenses are sold by auction, and their prices are often run up by agents of the government; so that speculators in them are almost as likely to be ruined as to thrive. Much has been said of a mysterious treasure belonging to the crown, yearly augmented by a procession of millions of roubles to the vaults of the fortress of Saint Petersburg. Mr. Donai does not believe in this problematical deposit of wealth; because its sources, being such as have been here detailed including borrowed money, cannot accumulate. Borrowers are not usually people whose coffers overflow with millions. The real truth is that the Russian government gets money as savages get fruit, by cutting down the tree; and lives upon capital as well as interest. The loan of last year may have covered the interest of former loans, and perhaps the cost of arms purchased in Belgium; but even that is not certain, for six issues of paper money have already been forced into currency; private contributions have been claimed and urged upon the people from the pulpit with no very great result; and this reminds us that one source of money to the Czar has not been named in the preceding summary. It is the Russian church. There remains the bag of money in the pocket of the church. When, in eighteen hundred and forty-five, the empress was to go to Italy, the clergy paid a contribution of two millions--the price of the forcible conversion of the peasants in the Baltic provinces. The present war is set forth as a holy war, and the church may be asked fairly to assist in paying for it, and no doubt is asked very perseveringly, and for no small sums. But how heavy is the purse of the Russian church? Its contents used to be valued at twenty-six millions sterling; and, although the holy fathers may contribute even to the last farthing, we unfortunately know that twenty-six millions are soon swallowed up when a great war is being waged.