I spent an evening at the club-rooms, where there was some heavy card-playing.  One man lost nine hundred roubles in half an hour, and they told me that such an occurrence was not uncommon.  In all card playing I ever witnessed in Russia there was ’something to make it interesting.’  Money is invariably staked, and the Russians were surprised when I said, in answer to questions, that people in America generally indulged in cards for amusement alone.  Ladies had no hesitation in gambling, and many of them followed it passionately. ‘Chaque pays a sa habitude,’ remarked a lady one evening when I answered her query about card playing in America.  It was the Russian fashion to gamble, and no one dreamed of making the slightest concealment of it.  Though I saw it repeatedly I could never rid myself of a desire to turn away when a lady was reckoning her gains and losses, and keeping her accounts on the table cover.  Russian card tables are covered with green cloth and provided with chalk pencils and brushes for players’ use.  Cards are a government monopoly.

[Illustration:  CHINESE COLLAR]

[Illustration:  SUSPENDED FREEDOM.]

On the day fixed for my dinner with the sargoochay I accompanied the Police Master and Captain Molostoff to Maimaichin.  As we entered the court yard of the government house several officers came to receive us.  In passing the temple of Justice I saw an unfortunate wretch undergoing punishment in a corner of the yard.  Ho was wearing a collar about three feet in diameter and made of four inch plank.  It was locked about his neck, and the man was unable to bring his hand to his head.  A crowd was gazing at the culprit, but he seemed quite unconcerned and intent upon viewing the strangers.  The Chinese have a system of yokes and stocks that seem a refinement of cruelty.  They have a cheerful way of confining a man in a sort of cage about three feet square, the top and bottom being of plank and the sides of square sticks.  His head passes through the top, which forms a collar precisely like the one described above, while the sides are just long enough to force him to stand upon the tip of his toes or hang suspended by his head.  In some instances a prisoner’s head is passed through a hole in the bottom of a heavy cask.  He cannot stand erect without lifting the whole weight, and the cask is too long to allow him to sit down.  He must remain on his knees in a torturing position, and cannot bring his hands to his head.  He relies on his friends to feed him, and if he has no friends he must starve.  The jailers think it a good joke when a man loses the number of his mess in this way.

[Illustration:  PUNISHMENT FOR BURGLARY.]

The sargoochay met us in the apartment where our reception took place.  He seated us around a table in much the same manner as before.  While we waited dinner I exhibited a few photographs of the Big Trees of California, which I took with me at Molostoff’s suggestion.  I think the representative of His Celestial Majesty was fairly astonished on viewing these curiosities.  The interpreter told him that all trees in America were like those in the pictures, and that we had many cataracts four or five miles high.