“How do I know that you have not injured my horses?” asked Dickens’s Marquis, while the frantic peasant was lamenting his crushed child. “Let the woman come to my house; she shall be paid. Drive on, coachman,” said the Duke of Béthune. “Served you right!” says the Czar. “Served you right!” say the Grand Dukes, speaking through the individual called Vladimir. “You should not have quit work. You should not have asked a hearing. You got crushed by my troops. I forgive you for it. Go back to your work. Be content with your lot. May God assist you.” Thus the voice of class-rule speaks in Russia today as it spoke in France on the eve of the Revolution, and as it always has spoken in every part of the world _since man learned the trick of enslaving his brother_. * * * * * As everybody knows, the real governors of the vast empire of Russia are the Grand Dukes. The Czar is a mere puppet in their hands. When he is obedient they control him. When he is disobedient they murder him. Thus they killed Paul, the father of Alexander the First, because he favored an alliance with Napoleon Bonaparte, while the Grand Dukes favored an alliance with Great Britain. They would “remove” the present emperor if he were to pit his will against theirs. The spokesman of the present cabal of Grand Dukes is Vladimir, as perfect a type of the cruel, obstinate, narrow-minded aristocrat as Europe ever saw in its worst days. Speaking to Michael Davitt, the Irish member of the British Parliament, this Grand Duke declared that the reason why representation could not be given to the common people of Russia was that _they were not fit to exercise it_. He regarded and intended this to be an indictment against the common people. On the contrary, it is a tremendous indictment against the government. The Russian people, as distinguished from the Russian aristocracy, have been completely under the control of the laws and the administration which the ruling class saw fit to establish. The altar and the throne have supported each other. Church and State have been firm and fast allies. Ever since the days of Peter the Great the minds and the consciences of the common people of Russia have been absolutely dominated by the ruling class. The shepherds have had full control of the flock. The guardians have had no interference with the education of their wards. If after so many hundreds of years the mass of the Russian people are so steeped in ignorance and superstition that they are unfit to exercise the common rights of manhood, _that fact_, if it be fact, _damns the Russian aristocracy with the deep guilt of having debased the nation committed to its care and guidance_. * * * * * No substantial reform has ever been conceded within a state governed by king or aristocracy until the blood of sacrifice has first been shed.