methods that prevail in Russia now, tells a story in the "Gulistan" of a terror-stricken fox who was seen limping and running away, and who, upon being asked what he was afraid of, replied, "I hear they are going to press a camel into the service."
"Well, what of it?" said the interrogator; "what relationship is there between that animal and you?"
"Be silent!" rejoined the fox. "If the malignant, out of evil design, should say, 'This is a camel,' who would be so solicitous for my relief as to order an inquiry into my case? and 'before the antidote can be brought from Irak he who has been bitten by the serpent may be dead.'"
In the year 1879 there was living in the Russian city of Pultáva a poor apothecary named Schiller, who desired for some reason to change the location of his place of business. As druggists in Russia are not allowed to migrate from one town to another without the permission of the Government, Schiller wrote to the Minister of the Interior, stating his desire to move and the reasons for it, and asking that he be authorized to close his shop in Pultáva and open another in Kharkóf. Week after week passed without bringing any answer to his request. At last, the Minister of the Interior happened to stop in Pultáva for a day or two on one of his journeys from St. Petersburg to the Crimea, and Schiller, regarding this as a providential opportunity, attempted to get an interview with him for the purpose of presenting his petition in person. Of course the guard at the door of the house occupied by the Minister refused to admit a poor apothecary with a paper, and Schiller, indignant at what he thought was an injustice, wrapped his petition around a stone, to give it weight, and threw it into the window of the Minister's room. He was at once arrested and imprisoned, and a few months later, upon the charge of having behaved in a disorderly manner and shown gross disrespect to the higher authorities, he was banished by
