Rulers, with their backs to the wall, plead these outrages are imperative in self-defence. The malcontents, ever increasing in numbers and violence, have openly determined to make government impossible and that terrorism by bomb-throwing and assassination is the only argument left. They will accept no compromise; they distrust all promises, and move steadily on to social revolution. “We cannot call our souls our own,” said a working man in Moscow to an English writer; “we cannot discuss affairs of our country without risk of Siberia; we are taxed down to the last kopeck; we are black-mailed by every petty official; we have no freedom of the press; if anybody in authority does us wrong, we have no redress ... we hate the bomb-throwing as much as you do. But it is the only argument left to us.” This is characteristic of the spirit animating the “great mass of lethargic ignorant Muscovites” goaded at last to action and gaining hourly in strength and recklessness. Meanwhile the government maintains the struggle. Its persistent answer is to refuse reforms until order is restored, and it still finds champions and supporters, especially in the so-called “Black Hundred,” a powerful reactionary organisation based upon an unofficial union of the Russian people. An examination of any of the recent budgets for yearly expenses of this huge empire will show a most astonishing percentage appropriated to the maintenance of order,—the upkeep of the police and censorship of the press,—and will furnish to the intelligent observer a reason for present conditions, as well as a reason for admiring the fidelity of the educated members of the lower classes to their ideal of liberty. Transcriber’s Note Spelling and punctuation, where printer or editorial errors were obvious, has been corrected, as summarized here: 221.4 Bogo[lom/mol]etz Transposed. 267.8 and the number had been much larger not long Replaced. before[,/.] 289.25 the fortress of Sch[l]üsselburg, Added. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History and Romance of Crime; Russian Prisons, by Arthur Griffiths