Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/97



from the Theatre Square in Warsaw along the Miodowa Street, at No. 7 on the left there is a house, over the door of which in Russian letters appear the words, "Censorship Committee." Across the yard to the right you enter through a narrow street door, and as in a post-office you see immense piles of newspapers and books in wrappers lying in heaps. It is the day's mail.

Every single newspaper which comes is taken out of its wrapper and examined; everything displeasing to the authorities is blackened over. Every book is opened and the leaves examined. Consequently there is no regular time for the arrival of this kind of mail. Sometimes three or four newspapers are received at once, and then for four or five days not one.

In another room the native newspapers are examined. On account of the conditions of censorship they are almost all evening papers. None the less are they unable to make use of the foreign mail of the day, which arrives from Berlin in the afternoon. They are generally poor. With one exception they are all assisted by private contributions. Their subscription list seldom rises to more than fifteen hundred. The professional journalists are compelled to write for four or five different papers on the same subject in order to live by their pens.

At eleven o'clock all the proof sheets go to the censor. The censors correct them according to their pleasure and caprice, their severity or indulgence depending very much on whether they have personal animosity towards the writer or not, whether they hope to obtain concessions from him, and whether they have been bribed or not.