At any rate, the Russian government got from Talmage when he came to write his book of travels, a chapter of the most fulsome, least discriminating praise that you will ever read. Russia was all right, in every respect. Travelers were _never_ subjected to vexatious delays or examinations—for Talmage had not been delayed or vexed. He actually carried into Russia some books which criticised the government, and the magnanimous officials made no objection. There was no religious persecution in Russia! On the contrary, Jews and Gentiles, of all descriptions, could worship God in any manner that pleased them. The Government never interfered. If a nobleman conspired against the life of the Czar, he was arrested, put into a carriage, blindfolded, driven about for many hours to make him believe that he was on his way to Siberia, and he was then set down, at his own door, safe, unharmed, free! If a poet wrote scurrilous verses about the Empress, he was brought into the family circle of the Czar and asked to read the lines in the hearing of the lady. That was the worst. Siberia was described as a country of Italian softness of climate; and banishment to the Siberian prisons, mines, etc., was altogether better for criminals than ordinary jails. Doctor Talmage defended Russian autocracy, Russian police, Russian prisons, indignantly hurling back upon the slanderers of Russia their foul accusations. Listen to him—Talmage: “But how about the knout, the cruel Russian knout, that comes down on the bare back of agonized criminals? Why, Russia abolished the knout before it was abolished from our American navy.” Think of reading this stuff at a time when the ears of the world are yet tingling at the sound of the Cossack whips! Think of reading this _when we know_ that before Talmage’s book was written, and while it was being written, and ever since it was written, Russian peasants, by thousands, _have been flogged every year for non-payment of taxes_! “The Emperor received me with much heartiness. And at the first glance, seeing him to be a splendid gentleman, with no airs of pretension and as artless as any man I ever saw, it seemed to me that we were old friends from the start.” Doctor Talmage did not visit the Russian prisons which he defended; did not go to Siberia, which he compared to Italy; did not make any investigations of peasant-life; did not go among the working classes; did not talk with Tolstoy, nor any man of the dissatisfied elements. In fact, Talmage declares, in effect, that nobody was dissatisfied. Listen to Doctor Talmage, Page 422: “He who charges cruelty on the imperial family and _the nobility of Russia_, belies men and women as gracious and benignant as ever breathed oxygen.” Shades of von Plehve!