THE LAST PROCLAMATION.
WE, Nicholas the First, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, and King of all Good Fellows, proclaim:
That we have been insulted by the Turk, whose stony heart we have—on the bended knees of our Christian spirit—supplicated, but to no purpose.
We have, as becomes a Christian autocrat, submitted to have our dearly-beloved Ambassador, Prince Menschikoff, publicly bastinadoed in the streets of Constantinople.
We have allowed Omar Pacha to pull the nose of our dearly-beloved General, Prince Gortschakoff.
We have—by a meekness and endurance unparalleled in the House of Romanoff—begged, suffered, entreated, wept, rolled ourselves in the dust, to appease and mollify the cannibal spirit of the Turk.
But all in vain. He is stiff-necked, and not to be turned. We, therefore, propose to march with our sacred soldiers to Constantinople, and there and then—(Grace having been duly said by the Patriarch of our Holy Church)—to eat the accursed Sultan Abdul-Medjid alive, and WITHOUT SALT! [Here follows a pious invocation for a blessing on the Imperial intention.]