Besides this, strange as it may seem, a Government which rests on the arbitrary will of a single individual is, notwithstanding occasional outbursts of severity, much less systematically severe than authority founded on free public opinion.  When delinquencies occur in very high places the Tsar is almost sure to display a leniency approaching to tenderness.  If it be necessary to make a sacrifice to justice, the sacrificial operation is made as painless as may be, and illustrious scapegoats are not allowed to die of starvation in the wilderness—­the wilderness being generally Paris or the Riviera.  This fact may seem strange to those who are in the habit of associating autocracy with Neapolitan dungeons and the mines of Siberia, but it is not difficult to explain.  No individual, even though he be the Autocrat of all the Russias, can so case himself in the armour of official dignity as to be completely proof against personal influences.  The severity of autocrats is reserved for political offenders, against whom they naturally harbour a feeling of personal resentment.  It is so much easier for us to be lenient and charitable towards a man who sins against public morality than towards one who sins against ourselves!

In justice to the bureaucratic reformers in Russia, it must be said that they have preferred prevention to cure.  Refraining from all Draconian legislation, they have put their faith in a system of ingenious checks and a complicated formal procedure.  When we examine the complicated formalities and labyrinthine procedure by which the administration is controlled, our first impression is that administrative abuses must be almost impossible.  Every possible act of every official seems to have been foreseen, and every possible outlet from the narrow path of honesty seems to have been carefully walled up.  As the English reader has probably no conception of formal procedure in a highly centralised bureaucracy, let me give, by way of illustration, an instance which accidentally came to my knowledge.

In the residence of a Governor-General one of the stoves is in need of repairs.  An ordinary mortal may assume that a man with the rank of Governor-General may be trusted to expend a few shillings conscientiously, and that consequently his Excellency will at once order the repairs to be made and the payment to be put down among the petty expenses.  To the bureaucratic mind the case appears in a very different light.  All possible contingencies must be carefully provided for.  As a Governor-General may possibly be possessed with a mania for making useless alterations, the necessity for the repairs ought to be verified; and as wisdom and honesty are more likely to reside in an assembly than in an individual, it is well to entrust the verification to a council.  A council of three or four members accordingly certifies that the repairs are necessary.  This is pretty strong authority, but it is not enough.  Councils are composed of mere human beings, liable