There can be little doubt of the fact that the excessive precautions taken by the police, with a view to put down political agitation of any kind, have produced the very thing they are intended to prevent. A country squire in talking to me, one day, about a little market-town near his home, said, "They have posted a gendarme there. Until he came nobody ever bothered about politics. Now there is nothing else talked of." Some time ago the young Georgian nobles who were serving in the Russian army became infected with the doctrines of revolutionary socialism, and not a few suffered for their imprudence (e.g. the famous Tsitsianov, in 1877); at the present time the national feeling has become so strong as to leave no room for these ideas. Nevertheless, during my stay in Tiflis, last summer, a rumour was rife to the effect that a large number (a hundred or two) of young noblemen were about to be exiled, in view of the visit of the Tsar, who was expected to arrive at his new palace at Tsinondal, near Telav, in the autumn. The fact that this report was believed by the parties interested, is a powerful testimony to the arbitrary character of the proceedings of the Russian police. In the rural districts the people only know Russia as a foreign power that sends them tax-collectors, justices of the peace, and other civil servants, who perform obnoxious functions in a manner not calculated to conciliate the ratepayers. It is notorious that the chinovnik has an unpleasant reputation, even among his fellow-countrymen, and those who consent to a temporary exile in Transcaucasia are not precisely the flower of the profession, although their behaviour to Europeans leaves little to be desired. The justices of the peace, as in Poland, are directly appointed by the Minister of Justice at Petersburg; all the evidence has to be translated into the official language, and this accentuates the natural feeling of the litigants that they are being tried by foreign laws arbitrarily imposed from without. The personal character of the judges is, in many cases, not such as to inspire respect for the law; the arrogant, bullying tone of these personages is intolerable at any time, but especially when aggravated by alcoholism. I shall never forget one scene in particular at which I was present; a fine, tall mountaineer came humbly to present a petition to a puny, besotted judge, who was a guest at the house where I was staying; the representative of law and order was drunk, hopelessly drunk, and treated the suppliant in such a manner that I blushed to be in his company; I feared that the petitioner would take summary revenge for the insult, but he restrained his wrath; as he turned away there was on his face a look of hellish hatred, and I do not think that he will trouble the court again as long as he has a sharp kinjal of his own wherewith to settle disputes.