“I know what you are about to say,” I interrupted. “Of course, I uphold the liberty of the press as much as you do, and equally detest this tampering with the mails; but then I don’t expect to find the same measure of freedom here that I find in the United States or England. The Russian Government maintains a strict censorship of the Russian press. And, in order to be consistent, the Government also pretends to take great pains to keep out of the country all printed matter that it does not like.”
“Pretends, my good sir?” cried my English friend. “But it does keep out all such matter—as you have seen from these two specimens.”
“How about this?” said I, taking up the clean and whole copy of “Punch” from the table. “This contains two or three jokes at the expense of Russia. And there are the ‘Illustrated News’ and ‘Graphic,’ ‘Figaro,’ ‘Charivari,’ ‘Indépendance Belge,’ ‘Fliegende Blätter,’ ‘Kladderdatsch,’ and—can I believe my eyes?—the great London ‘Times’ itself! All regularly taken here and filed. You will find plenty of hits at Russia in these papers, and not one of them has been cut or blackened with a stamp. I can swear to that, as I have been looking all through them.”
“Yes, I know,” he answered. “But these all come that way, because they are addressed to the Russian proprietor of the Hôtel d’Europe. The outrage—for so I must still call it—is inflicted on me because I am an Englishman.”
It still gave him so much pleasure to imagine that he was a martyr because of his race that I hesitated to undeceive him. But I thought it better to correct his erroneous opinion by saying that, if he would ask the head-porter, through whose hands all the mail-matter came, he would find out that the newspapers addressed to all the transient guests of every nationality at the hotel were treated in exactly the same way. The letters, he would ascertain, came through straight enough, and showed no signs of tampering.
“That last is true,” said he.
“And, as for the papers,” I continued, “I am told that a line from your embassador or your consul-general addressed to the Russian Post-Office Department, or even a call at headquarters from yourself, will cause their prompt delivery undisturbed. Why not try it?”
“I would not condescend to ask the favor!” was the haughty reply.
“Well, then,” said I, shrugging my shoulders to imply a desire of closing the somewhat unprofitable conversation—“then I am afraid you will be obliged to put up with it. For my own part, I am free to say that, while I am in a foreign country, I will not hurriedly condemn laws and usages which happen to be unlike those in America. When I don’t like it, I will leave it.”