File:The boy travellers in the Russian empire- adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across Siberia.. (1886) (14767121785).jpg

Identifier: boytravellersinr00knox (find matches)
Title: The boy travellers in the Russian empire: adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across Siberia..
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Knox, Thomas Wallace, 1835-1896
Subjects: Soviet Union -- Description and travel Siberia (Russia)
Publisher: New York : Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ged since the first time I was here. Do they make prisoners sweep the streets ? one of the youths asked. They did at that time, and quite likely they do so now, the Doctoranswered. Every person arrested for intoxication was required to sweepthe streets the next day for a given number of hours, and it is a strangesight when, as sometimes happens, the sweepers are in the garments inMdiich they have been wending their devious ways homeward from a ball,or perhaps from a party where fancy costumes have been worn. Gener- BRIBERY IN RUSSIA. 169 ally speaking, jon see few besides the mnjiks, or lower classes, as the well-dressed people, with money enough in their pockets, can secure immnnityby means of a bril)e. A small donation to the proper officer will set themfree; but if they have no money they must do their share of work withthe rest. I have read that Russia is the land of bribes, said Fred—bribesboth great and small. It certainly has that reputation, was the rejoly, and doubtless not
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CULPRIT STREF.T-SWEEPERS. without justice. The pay of the officials is very small, quite out of pro-portion to the expense of living, and the temptation is certainly gieat. A 170 THE BOY TRAVELLEKS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. Russian once said to me that an official must steal in order to make anhonest living; he did not mean it as a joke, but in sober earnest, thoughhis language did not exactly express his meaning. He wanted to say thata man must accept pay for sliowing zeal in the interest of any one whoseaffairs passed through his hands, and unless he did so he could not prop-erly support himself and family. There is a story of a German savant who was intimate with the Em-peror Nicholas. The latter once asked him to point out any defects in the system of government, and thesavant immediately suggested theuniversal system of bribery, whichought to be stopped. The Emperorshook his head, and said it was im-possible to put an end to an evilwhich was so widely spread, But your Majesty could

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