That is the picture of the minister of the interior as public opinion in Russia paints it. I must confess that the picture is as little to my taste as is the man. While the great Russian novelists are, above all, masters in the use of shades, political public opinion likes to work with the strongest colors, with bloody superlatives. Suspicious as the circumstances may be that not a soul in the broad Russian empire is inclined to say a friendly word for the ruling power of the time, yet the unprejudiced observer must reckon with the circumstance that even without a free press in Russia there is a certain uniformity of political opinion which can only be explained on the hypothesis of a certain uniform centre of opinion, many of whose statements are taken on faith by every one. I imagine that this centre is situated pretty high, perhaps in the immediate neighborhood of the Czar, and that the picture of each minister is sketched by his rivals, but, like every article for the masses, only in poster style, in striking words, very white or, oftener, very black. He, not a Russian and not a rival, who has not the same burning interest in getting rid of Plehve, will therefore do well to transpose this rascal from his supernatural atmosphere into an every-day one, and a somewhat different picture will result. I think of it in this light: Plehve comes from a states-attorney and a police career. Some traces of this origin cleave to every one of like training. Judges who have been states-attorney are the terror of lawyers, because of their inquisitorial manner, and because of their inclination to see in every defendant a person already condemned. Furthermore, dealings with police agents are least of all fitted to cultivate scrupulousness. Let only Puttkammer's words be recalled, "Gentlemen do not volunteer for such services."[3] The continual fear of assassination, which is well founded in the case of the head of the Russian police--Plehve allows his expenditures for the guarding of his person to amount as high as eight hundred thousand rubles a year--does not conduce to making a man human; and, finally, all bearers of honors in Russia are cynics, because their existence is founded only on the mood of a single person, and their whole career is a game of hazard. In the case of Plehve and others there is this additional evil influence, that not being Russians--Plehve is a Pole, of Lettish-Jewish origin--they must distinguish themselves by special Russian Chauvinism in order to avoid suspicion. Plehve is not a great man, his whole ministerial career being devoid of a single noteworthy act. He is a successful official, who intends by every means to make himself felt in high circles, and who considers himself justified in countering the intriguing of his rivals by any or all the means customary in the land, and "Voilà tout." But, in general, love of truth is not a characteristic of so-called public life in Russia. Hence it would be unjust to count as