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rel's brim. Two rubber tubes had been smuggled into them, and these they fixed to two breathing holes inside the bottom of the barrel. Gershuni had a revolver, a little bread and a little ether in case he could not breathe. And, yes, another weapon of defence. The keepers had a bad habit of examining barrels by running their sabers down through them. Here was a danger,-but how to be met? By an iron saucepan jammed down over the ears. As he tells the story, Gershuni conveys inimitably the patriotic discomfort of his position. Did ever adventurer set forth for his cause in such wise, -with a sauerkraut barricade, with a saucepan helmet, curled up like a seedling in a cask?

What followed was rather indistinct to him. Whether from lack of air or the discomfort of his position, his head was dull and full, and he could hear little or nothing. Things moved slowly there in the barrel. He knew that his fellow prisoners had selected the strongest of them to handle it, to place it on the wagon, with a little block under the edge to let the air in; thence to be taken to the storage building escorted by the guard. "What have you? "A barrel of sauerkraut,"-they had practiced how they would say it.

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They feared new dangers would be in waiting here, not the least of them the rampant appetites of the wives of the officers for fresh sauerkraut. As a precaution, the prison workers were to urge that they lower the barrel through to the sub-cellar, where it was colder for the sauerkraut. They were allowed to do this, but in midair the ropes cracked, and the barrel turned. Other than to add quick pains to the misery of the man inside no damage was

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done, and he was rolled at length on the floor of the sub-cellar. Even then there was an in

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THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS. THRILLING ESCAPE OF A RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONIST.

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T is a noteworthy list, that of the Russian

revolutionists who, during the past year, have visited this country to arouse interest in the Russian people's fight for political freedom. It includes Maxim Gorki, Gregory Maxim, Nicholas Tchaikovski, and now the famous peasant leader Alexis Alyadin and the terrible Gregory Gershuni.

ahead of his enemies to confound their scheming and force their hand in unexpected quarters." Plehve called him the backbone of the revolution when, in 1904, he sentenced the little Jew to death. Gershuni escaped execution, however, and his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. He was first sent to Moscow and then, in the summer of 1906, with a number of others, to Akatui, on the Mongolian frontier, in Manchuria,-a month by train and ten days afoot. Of his own career Gershuni says:

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It is like the career of many another revolutionist. You begin with a book and you wind up with a revolver."

A most thrilling, dramatic story is that of the escape of the hunted Jew Gershuni, who got out of a Manchurian prison in a barrel of sauerkraut and fled across the desolate plains, slipping through Japan and across the Pacific to San Francisco. From the Pacific Coast to New York he has been making speeches and arousing sympathy for his oppressed countrymen. In a graphically told story, in the March number of Charities and the Commons, Paul U. Kellogg tells the story of Gershuni's escape. The career of this Jew revolutionist and his escape from the vengeance of the authorities is so typical that the outlines of it cannot fail to be instructive.

Gershuni is called the inventor of the revolution," a far-seeing tactician, a thinker

Here is Mr. Kellogg's description of Gershuni's escape from Akatui, the data being gleaned from conversation with the revolu tionist himself:

The prison was fast, he tells you with his quick gestures, so fast that the prisoners were left by themselves in the strong room where they were kept at work on provisions for the garrison. Opposite were the houses where the officials lived and the storehouse to which the prisoners carried the provisions under guard. Everything that passed was examined by the officials, but a. chance lay in the barrels of sauerkraut filled from cabbages cut up in the prison shuni doubled up into a cask, and his fellows room. When the day of the trial came, Gerfastened in above him a false head, or partition, fashioned from leather found in the workroom. bage and trickle that they filled in to the barIt was crude, but it kept up most of the cab

rel's brim. Two rubber tubes had been smuggled into them, and these they fixed to two breathing holes inside the bottom of the barrel. Gershuni had a revolver, a little bread and a little ether in case he could not breathe. And, yes, another weapon of defence. The keepers had a bad habit of examining barrels by running their sabers down through them. Here was a danger, but how to be met? By an iron saucepan jammed down over the ears. As he tells the story, Gershuni conveys inimitably the patriotic discomfort of his position. Did ever adventurer set forth for his cause in such wise, -with a sauerkraut barricade, with a saucepan helmet, curled up like a seedling in a cask?

What followed was rather indistinct to him. Whether from lack of air or the discomfort of his position, his head was dull and full, and he could hear little or nothing. Things moved slowly there in the barrel. He knew that his fellow prisoners had selected the strongest of them to handle it, to place it on the wagon, with a little block under the edge to let the air in; thence to be taken to the storage building escorted by the guard. "What have you? A barrel of sauerkraut,"-they had practiced how they would say it.

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They feared new dangers would be in waiting here, not the least of them the rampant appetites of the wives of the officers for fresh sauerkraut. As a precaution, the prison workers were to urge that they lower the barrel through to the sub-cellar, where it was colder for the sauerkraut. They were allowed to do this, but in midair the ropes cracked, and the barrel turned. Other than to add quick pains to the misery of the man inside no damage was

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A GROUP OF REVOLUTIONISTS AT THE AKATUI PRISON IN SIBERIA.

(Gershuni is the man in the front row.)

done, and he was rolled at length on the floor of the sub-cellar. Even then there was an in

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terminable interval before the last foot had shuffled out and the key turned. With his knife Gershuni slit the leather partition and was doused with sauerkraut. Down it came over his saucepan and into his eyes and mouth and neck. Then he felt the wrench of a stout pair of hands, the barrel head gave way, and his nose was in the free air again.

His rescuer was one of the revolutionists who had been planning the escape from without the prison, and who had dug a narrow tunnel from the courtyard back of the storage house to the sub-cellar. The two of them crawled into the tunnel and waited for a signal. It was a long wait. They thought twice that they were discovered.

The signal came; by skirting the houses the two men reached the outside of the village, and across some rough hills to where a horse and wagon were in waiting for them. Gershuni had had a razor, and in the sub-cellar had shaved his beard and changed his clothes; he was a workingman now instead of a prisoner. They drove for two days and two nights without a stop, reaching Manchuria, and thereafter he went on in the guise of a Russian tramp, directed by friends of the revolution at each point to the man to look for at the next stopping place. When you ask for more particulars as to his long flight to the coast and how he reached Japan, you get a shrug of the shoulders and a terse "They are my friends."

ROUMANIA, A NATION WITH A FIXED IDEA.

ALTHOUGH wholly European in char

acter, the Roumanian people are very little known to even well-informed persons. It is welcome, therefore, to read, in the Hojas Selectas (Barcelona) a paper on this interesting nation.

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A brief historical account describes the surprising way in which the Roumanians, during centuries of oppression by the Turks, managed to preserve their national feeling, their peculiar national character, uncontaminated by the surrounding mixed races, their traditions, their religion and their language. All this they did in obscurity, disorganized, with none of the inspiration of a government of their own or open opportunities for their energies. It is not surprising, therefore, that since their independence they should have forged ahead as energetically and forcefully as any of the Western States of America. In forty years they have become a nation welded together by the ties of common sentiment and interest and inspired by the most patriotic and single-hearted aim in life.

After Greece had succeeded in freeing herself from the Turk, the countries along the Danube followed her example and fought so valiantly and struggled so unceasingly for their individual existence that at last, in sheer shame, Christian Europe was obliged to acknowledge them as independent kingdoms. But this recognition was not obtained without some practical benefits to the grasping so-called Christian powers. Impersonal and unhuman diplomacy took no account of language and feeling as a basis for frontier lines, but placed boundaries between people that are one in spirit. Roumanians have never failed to have as their aim to unite under their flag all those of their own tongue, spirit and customs. And the Roumanian inhabitants of Hungary, Transylvania, Bucovina and elsewhere have never ceased to aspire to become an integral part of the nation to which they belong by all the rights of common feeling.

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manians from other countries were cheered to the echo in the streets and fêted all over the city like lost sons. Certain Roumanians who have lost position and money in the struggle against the Hungarians were treated as holy martyrs.

It is forty years now since the present King of Roumania ascended the throne, during which time his aim and the aim of his people has never wavered. The anniversary of Roumanian independence was celebrated recently with every sign of the prosperity and material advance which have marked The recent jubilee exposition at Bucharest those years. The Roumanian army, the revealed hitherto unknown riches of Roudarling of the nation, has grown and pro- mania. Its agricultural future should be gressed until, in proportion to its size, it ranks among the first of Europe. No attempt is made to conceal the fact that the aim of this concentration of attention on the army is for the purpose ultimately of forcing back the boundaries of the kingdom until all Roumanians at heart are openly subjects of the Roumanian Government. At the recent jubilee celebration this generous wish of the people was shown in a thousand ways very striking in modern times when such ideal aspirations are little felt. Bands of Rou

golden, since its vast plains of fertile land are suitable for that purpose and its population is both thrifty, hardy and intelligent. One of the great assets of the future of the kingdom is its deservedly popular royal family. Its King (a Hohenzollern by birth) is a wise, devoted, and experienced sovereign; its Queen is the talented and much beloved Carmen Sylva, and its royal family, of impeccable integrity, is devoted heart and soul to the country and related to some of the most influential royal families in Europe.

JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES-PARTNERS.

AN effective reply to the recent war talk in the United States and Japan, in the form of a demonstration of the mutual commercial interdependence of the two nations, is contributed to the North American Review for March 15 by Baron Kaneko, whose intimate acquaintance with American, as well as Japanese, conditions gives added force to his

argument.

Beginning with the proposition that the United States and Japan are the two nations of the world that to-day hold the key to Asiatic commerce, with the Pacific Ocean as the common waterway of international trade, Baron Kaneko proceeds to describe the existing commercial relations between the two countries. He maintains that the products supplied by Japan to the United States,namely, raw silk, tea, and artistic goods, can never be produced here in any considerable quantities. Government statistics show that in 1906 the raw silk exported from Japan amounted to $60,000,000, of which 90 per cent. came to the United States. The value of the tea exported last year by Japan was $20,000,000, a large proportion of which was consumed by the United States and Canada.

Baron Kaneko feels warranted in stating that no lady in the United States can get a silk dress if the importation of silk from Japan is stopped, and that the average Amer

ican citizen cannot drink tea if Japanese tea is excluded from America.

On the other hand, if any American will study closely the conditions of Japanese life, he will be amazed, says this Japanese authority, to find how much the Japanese depend upon American products:

In the ordinary upper or middle class families in Japan, we get up in the morning from a bed whose sheets are made of American cotton, put on the Japanese costume, which is made from American cotton, eat bread whose flour comes from Minnesota, and take a cup of tea with condensed milk from Chicago and sugar from the Philippines, Hawaii, or the southern United States. After breakfast, we light a cigarette or take a puff at a pipe. In either the tobacco used comes from Virginia, Tennessee, or some other American State. We take up our morning newspapers, whose pages are of paper imported from Milwaukee or western Connecticut. So great is the extent of Japanese dependence upon the United States. We cannot into Japan, 75 per cent. comes from the United Of the raw cotton imported States. Condensed milk, tobacco leaf, flour, and paper we cannot either raise or make in our country at prices lower than the Americans charge.

raise raw cotton.

At night, all our streets, in every city, town, and hamlet, from the extreme north of Kurile to the extreme south of Formosa, are lit with petroleum which comes from West Virginia or Pennsylvania. So, then, the United States feeds us, clothes us, and gives us light. The Japanese cannot live a single hour without American supplies.

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