Given personal “honorable citizenship,” Vladimir Ritimoun, Proprietor of the Wollner Typographical Establishment; Karl Volter, Captain of the steamer _Emperor Nicholas II_, of the Riga Navigation Co. When a professor from his books was called up before the highest provincial dignitary to have pinned on his lapel for honorable service to the Empire the Order of St. Stanislaus, it was hard for him not to have a warm sentiment for those who had so signally recognized his talents. When on the document which recorded the promotion of a royal prince to a colonelcy was enrolled the name of a tradesman; when a neighboring doctor was raised his step in civil rank, each felt the touchstone. All who had served well in their respective positions might hope to be on the honor list, and this was the most effective tribute to the weakness, the worth, and the ambition of human nature. In Russia, as in France under Napoleon’s iron yoke, there was a welcome to every sort of ability, and its elevation to posts of the highest trust. The aristocracy sought for was one of power, not that of a small birth-caste. A fundamental democracy ran through society. Save for a few of the Guards regiments, the army was officered by poor men. The Cossacks’ officers were chosen from among their own people and were state-trained. In the knapsack of every soldier was Skobelov’s baton; in the desk of every chinovnik, Witte’s portfolio. So stood the bureaucratic edifice, complete in itself. Here and there a popular embellishment was added, perhaps to strengthen, often to conceal; but in grim reality it formed no part of the structure. Thus the Russian Empire finished out the nineteenth century. With the twentieth the system had come to trial for its stewardship.