overnment or other appointment, on the
committee of censorship, for example,--some ratable position. Upon
this they can depend for a livelihood, aside from the product of their
brains; which is practical, and affords a firm foundation upon which to
execute caprices.)

He suggested various things which I was not, and I declined to accept
his suggestions. We got it settled at last, though he shook his head
over my extravagant obstinacy in paying two dollars, when I might have
got off with half the sum and a lie. He imparted a good deal of amusing
information as to the manner in which people deliberately evade the
passport tax with false statements; for example, governesses, who would
scorn to be treated as nurses, get themselves described as _bonnes_ to
save money. I have no doubt that the authorities amiably assist them by
friendly suggestions, as in my own case; only I decline to sail under
false colors, by the authority of my own government or any other; so his
amiability was wasted so far as I was concerned.

It would seem to the ordinary reader that the police would be able to
lay hands on a man, when he was wanted, with tolerable promptness and
accuracy, after all the details which the law requires in these "address
tickets," as the local passports are called, had been duly furnished.
But I remember one case among several which impressed me as instructive
and amusing. The newspapers told the tale, which ran somewhat as
follows: A wealthy woman of position, residing in one of the best
quarters of St. Petersburg, hired a prepossessing young lackey as one of
her large staff of domestics. Shortly after his advent, many articles of
value began to disappear. Finally, suspicion having turned on this
lackey, he also disappeared, and the police undertook to find him. It
then became apparent that the fellow had used a false passport and
address, and was not to be found where he was inscribed. He caused an
exciting chase. This ended in the discovery of a regular robbers' nest,
where a large number of false passports were captured, the prepossessing
lackey and his friends having abandoned them in their attempt to escape.
The papers were also constantly remarking on the use made by peasant men
of their passports. The wife is inscribed on the husband's "document,"
separate passports for wives being, as a rule, difficult of attainment
in the lower classes. The peasants are thus able, and often willing, to
control their wives' pla