MR. SALA'S LECTURE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XX, Issue 234, 10 October 1885, Page 2

MR. SALA'S LECTURE.

j-here was a large attendance ab the , Theatre last night, when Mr G. A. Sala delivered his lecture on Russia, and from the first he was perfectly at home with his audience, and attracted their attention by stating that what he was about to tell them was the story of an eye-witnees who had studiei the manners and customs and politics of the country he was about to describe. Ie was no lurid nightmare, no bogey picture of Russia that he desired to paint, but he was anxious to abow what was good as well as what was evil in a people who ought to be our friends and nob our foes. His first visit was made at the requeßt of Charles Dickens in the year 1856, just after that colossal struggle in the Crimea, which had cost England ovtr a hundred millions sterling and hundreds and thousands of her best soldiers and pailors, for all of which there was but a poor result to show, for he bail always beeu of opinion that England

then lost her opportunity by not j bitting hard enough at a time when she had a chance of administering to her enemy a permanent knock down blow. This, however, she was prevented from co'.vg owing to her being so handicapped and hampered by her fquivooal ally. Trance. It was piteous to think of the many brave men who wenfc down in the Crinira before wh»t the Emperor Nicholas culled his most reliable Generals, General January and General February. But tbe-e Generals, cruel as they were, -were the means of doing good, since they called our, i from her home in England that blessed | Christian woman Florence Nightingale, of whom he (the lecturer) had heard even the Turks speak in terms of almost; adoration as "The Lidy of the Limp," whose very shadow as it. passed along the wall the soldiers would rise from their pallets to kiss. A pleasant description of his trip up the B-vlcic *Sc?a followed, and an amusing account of his arrival at Cronstadc, where, among other questions to which he had to reply, wa9 one as to his motive in coming to Holy Eussia? Here he had to resort to a mild equivocation for if he had said that he was there as a journalist he would have found himself at once under police surveillance, and his letters opened and read, and many of them never reaching their destination, so he told them that he was a student of the fine arts. Any conscientious scruples that he might have experienced on account of this equivocation were, however, speedily removed, for he soon found that in no country in the world were fraud, malversation, and lying elevated to such a fine art as in Kussia. The censorship of the press and the manner in which it was exercised was then amusingly depicted, and this was followed by a description of St. Petersburg so graphic and so realistic that, as one of the audience was heard to say, "I almost feel that I have been there and seen it for myself " The devoted and almost superstitious loyalty of the people to their " Little Father," as they termed the Emperor, was illustrated by several anecdotes, while the stories told of the " drosky " or cab driver, were numerous, their humor • being keenly appreciated by tho audie.nce. That Mr fcJ'Ja does not like the Russians is very clear. Ij was an old saying " Scratch the Russian find you will find the Tartar beneath " hub it was a true one. Scratch the officer and beneath his gaudy uniform, his gold epaulets, aud his jewelled orders, you would find the Tartar, cruel, perfidious, almost barbarous ; scratch the Russian civilians in his evening dress and the result would bo the same. The building of St. Petersburg by thousands of soldiers and slaves under tha direct supervision of Peter the Great was then touched upon, and the reason related why he wanted this city so far tn the north. Ib was to serve as a political window through which he might look into Europe. In these days were not the Russians working to put up another political window through which they might look into British India ? Whether ib was the duty of British statesmen to whitewash thab window, to brick ib up, or even to smash it, Wns nob for him to say. Describing the buildings in which were displayed the trophies obtained by the Russians from their enemies, Mr Sala said that it was not without pride that he had noticed thab amongst them all there was not a eingle rag of British bunting. The cheers that followed afforded very clear proof that the pride he had felt was very largely shared by his enthusiastic audience. Looking round the cathedral where lay buried bo many of the Russian monarchs, and thinking over their history and tho manner of their death, Mr Sa!a found ample confirmation of the maxim that the government of Russia was " despotism tempered by assassination," for of those who lay there many had been murdered. Even Nicholas, who at the time of the Crimean war sat in his luxurious winter palace and chuckled over the slaughter of his euemies thab was being carried on by his trusty Generals I January and February, was supposed to have been assassinated, although it was given ! out that he died of influenza, but if you spoke to a Eussian about that influenza, you might notice a curious shrug of the shoulder and twinkle of the eye that were very significant indeed. The Russian pesaant, filthy, half starved, ignorant, and almost brutal in his habits was then sketched, yet out of this material was the Russian army made. The peasant was caught, washed, shaved, and drilled, and in time was converted into an admirable fighting machine. He didn't think, couldn't think, but lie could fight, and he was doggedly, obstinately, brave, and was actuated not only by a dread of his commanding officer but by the belief that. his " Little Father " was more than an earthly potentate, that he was not only a prince but a patriarch. If ever there should be war between two countries let no one underrate the Eussian soldier. His next visit to Russia was in 1876, when there was a war scare. He was sent to see what she was up to, and after some trouble and much travelling he found out. She was then mobilising a huge army on the Turkish frontier. A Conference of representatives of the Powers was held at Constantinople, where they wore jockeyed and deceived by Ignatieff, the Russian representative, the result being the cruel and bloody war of 1877, when we ought to have helped the Turks but did not. Splendid soldiers and second to none in the world they were crushed by the weight of superior numbers. Russia was at the gates of Constantinople, and the Treaty of Stefano was signed, which would have reduced the Ottoman Empire to a dependency of Russia. But this was not to be. There was a British statesman who was carefully watching what was going on. Disraeli stepped in, tore the treaty to shreds, clutched the bear by the throat and made the brute disgorge, and returned from the Berlin Conference with what he had promised to secure — ' ' peace with honor. ' ' For the third time Mr Sala was called to visit Russia. On a Sunday evening in March, 1881, he was at a dinner party at a Scotch nobleman's house where there were assembled a number of most distinguished guests. As they were at their soup there came a telegram with the startling news that an attempt had been made to assassinate the Emperor Alexander 11. Of course, they were all deeply shocked, but "dinner is dinner" and they proceeded. By the time they had got to the roast another telegram had arrived announcing that the attempt had succeeded only too well. The first feeling that came over him was one of real and unfeigned sorrow that one who, whatever might be his faults, had conferred an inestimable boon upon millions of Russian serfs by setting them free, should have thus been murdered. The next was a presentiment that he would have once more, and much against his wish, to return to Russia. He was not wrong. Before long there came a letter from the editoi of the Daily TelcQvapli asking him to write an article on the price of fish and -whether he would go to Russia. He wrote a very furious article on the exorbitant price of salmon, and got ready to ?o. Arrived in Russia, he found the populace crushed with sorrow and full of a nervous apprehension as to what was to come next. The air was full of rumors of arrests of tbe highest in the land on charges of Nihilism. Theu came the funeral obsequies, in connection with which there were three great pageants, shows so magnificent and yet so fantastic that they might be described as masquerndes dipped in black ink. Perhaps the most striking was the lying in state in the cathedral, draped from floor to roof with black, wax candles innumerable shedding their light on the scene, acolytes waving their silver censers, the odour from which filled the building, and indeed it was wanted for the odour of death was there. On an inclined plane on a dais draped with cloth of gold lay tha Imperial coffin open. As tbe spectators pußsed they knelt in lowly obeisance and kissed the dead monarch's haud. Tho face too was visible, but it had been patched and painted and mended and rouged iv order to remove the marks of the terrible dynamite, which had done its deadly work only too surely. Below and under cover was nothing but a sack stuffed with sawdust, all the body having been blown to pieces. They had all heard of the passport system in Russia but they would perhaps be suiprised to learn the extent to which it was carried on this occasion. Jusfi before the lid was put on the coffin, the highest Dignitary of the Church advanced and placed in it a passport addressed to St. Peter, who was supposed to be in charge of the keys of Paradise, asking him to look after the Czar and see that he was all right. On yet another occasion was he in Russia and that was at the coronation of the present Emperor. We must, however, pass on now to the close of the lee-

ture. It might be asked by many what were Euasia's intentions with regard to England. He fully believed that of the 40 millions of Russians there were but a small proportion who wanted to cut our throats, but there was a strong war party, and especially among the nobles, who foresaw that a revolution must be at hand in which they would lose their estates, and these they wiehed to replace by others in Central Asia or perhaps in Hindostan. The Czar did not want to go to war but he was urged on by this party, who having been foiled on the borders of Afghanistan were now at the bottom of the revolution in Roumelia. That war between England and Russia was inevitaole he quite believed, and if ( it had to come he could but say, in the interest of permanent peace, the sooner the better. For two bours Mr Sala, who was frequently applauded, kept his audience deeply interested, and ib would, we believe, bo safe to say that there was nob one ia the Hall who was nob sorry when the lecture came to a close. We are glad to find that another opportunity ia to be afforded the people of Nelson of hearing him, and that the subject selected is one which cannot fail to interest the hundreds of people there must, be her© wbo have read with keen delight the works of Dickens and Thackeray. To have an intimate personal friend of these two favorite authors come here aad talk to us about them is a treat that few could ever bave anticipated, and the Theatre ought to be full on Monday night.