Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/70

 done out of such a sum in the past. There were five thousand workmen employed in the factory, so that meant that forty thousand roubles per day had been kept from them, in all twelve millions per year of three hundred working days, altogether thirty-six million roubles. The staff therefore asked the administrators to pay that sum into the treasury of the workmen's association, and they would undertake to distribute it. To facilitate the payment they left the thirteen sacks with the administrators, stating that the sacks were large enough to hold the amount either in gold or in banknotes, and they would come back for them the following day. Until then armed men would be on guard at the door, and would guarantee to the administrators that peacefulness and quiet which cannot fail to result from complete seclusion without interruption or communication from without. If, unfortunately, the sum should not be in the sacks at the appointed hour, the administrators would be placed in them themselves and the bags flung into the Neva, which flows conveniently near at hand.