Eventually Mr. Tchelisheff arrived on the scene with his splendid vital force and practical solutions of the financial and other problems (or suggestions for them) that arise from prohibition, (especially when a Government monopoly and revenue are concerned,) which he most strenuously advocated when Mayor of Samara, as representative in the Duma—­everywhere, in fact, where he could obtain a hearing, willing or unwilling, up to the Emperor Nicholas himself.  And the Emperor showed that he was equal to the magnificent opportunity, and joined hands with the former peasant in aiding his country.

In an interview published by THE TIMES a while ago Mr. Tchelisheff mentions that his attention was first drawn to the subject of the evils of drunkenness by a book which he saw a muzhik reading.  Judging from the point at which he inserts that mention into his outline sketch of his career (previous to the great famine which he—­erroneously—­assigns to the “end of the ’80s,” but which came in 1891) his interest was aroused precisely at the time when Dr. Alexyeeff’s first utterances may be assumed to have seen the light of print.  At any rate, it is an admitted fact that Dr. Alexyeeff carried to Russia and to Tolstoy from the United States the idea and inspiration which has borne such wonderful fruit in the abolition of the liquor traffic “forever,” as the Imperial ukase runs.

Mr. Tchelisheff is a noteworthy figure in history accordingly, but Dr. Alexyeeff should not be forgotten.  When I made his acquaintance at Count Tolstoy’s, in Moscow, he had just requested (and obtained) a detail of service in Tchita, Trans-Baikal Province, Siberia, as physician to the political exiles there, thinking the region would repay study from many points of view, in his leisure hours.  The preface to the first edition of his book “Concerning Drunkenness” is dated “July, 1899, Tchita,” and from Tchita I received my copy from him.  In that preface he states the scope of his book in a way which confirms my conviction that Mr. Tchelisheff was first stirred to interest, and in the end aroused to action, by the United States, via Dr. Alexyeeff.  He writes: 

The battle which in all ages has been waged against drunkenness has been confined hitherto almost exclusively to the realms of medicine and ethics; the social part of the question is only just beginning to be worked out, and has hardly as yet won the rights of citizenship, and down to our own day there have been no serious legal measures adopted for the battle with drunkenness.

Therefore, he omits the legal aspects of the matter in his book and confines himself to an attempt at popularizing the information scattered in divers individual books, “borrowing everything which can lead to the ultimate goal—­the extermination of the evil caused by the use of spirituous drinks.”  He continues: