Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/48

42 a passport under a fictitious name, and secure the necessary approval of consuls or ambassadors. Ivan Carlovitch, for whom the police are on the watch, comes here with a passport in the name of Joseph Cassini, a native of Malta, and subject of Great Britain. His English passport is obtained easily enough by a little false swearing; it is approved by the Russian minister at Vienna, and the fellow enters Russia with perfect ease. The honest traveller who has neglected the formality through ignorance is detained, while the Revolutionist goes on his way contented. The Revolutionist always knows the technicalities of the law, and is careful to observe them; and it is safe to say that the passport system never prevented any political offender from getting into Russia when he wanted to go there.

"I have been in Russia before," he continued, "and know what I am saying The first time I went there was from Berlin, and on reaching the frontier I was stopped because my passport was not properly indorsed. I supposed I would have to go back to Berlin, but the station-master said I need not take that trouble; I could stop at the hotel, and he would arrange the whole matter, so that I might proceed exactly twenty-four hours later. I did as he told me, and it was all right."

"How was it accomplished?"

"Why, he took my passport and a dozen others whose owners were in the same fix as myself, and sent them by the conductor of the train to Kœnigsburg, where there is a Russian consul. For a fee of two English shillings (fifty cents of your money) the consul approved each passport; another fee of fifty cents paid the conductor for his trouble, and he brought back the passports on his return run to the frontier. Then the station-master wanted four shillings (one dollar) for his share of the work, and we were all en regle to enter the Russian Empire. We got our baggage ready, and were at the station when the train arrived; the station-master delivered our passports, and collected his fee along with the fees of the conductor and consul, and that ended the whole business. The consul knew nothing about any of the persons named in the passports, and we might have been conspirators or anything else that was objectionable, and nobody would have been the wiser. Russia is the only country