if he could, the man who purchases that information, which, from the very nature of the case, it is almost impossible to verify.  In all probability the so-called information would have been carefully prepared at the General Staff for the express purpose of fooling the briber.  There is a different class of information which, it seems to me, is more legitimate to acquire.  The Russian Ministries of Commerce and Finance always imagined that they could overrule economic laws by decrees and stratagems.  For instance, they were perpetually endeavouring to divert the flow of trade from its accustomed channels to some port they wished to stimulate artificially into prosperity, by granting rebates, and by exceptionally favourable railway rates.  Large quantities of jute sacking were imported from Dundee to be made into bags for the shipment of Russian wheat.  One Minister of Commerce elaborated an intricate scheme for supplanting the jute sacking by coarse linen sacking of Russian manufacture, by granting a bonus to the makers of the latter, and by doubling the import duties on the Scottish-woven material.  I could multiply these economic schemes indefinitely.  Now let us suppose that we had some source of information in the Ministry of Commerce, it was obviously of advantage to the British Government and to British traders to be warned of the pending economic changes some two years in advance, for nothing is ever done quickly in Russia.  People in England then knew what to expect, and could make their arrangements accordingly.  I can see nothing repugnant to the most rigid code of honour in obtaining information of this kind.

On May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed Irish Secretary, and Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland, were assassinated in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.  I knew Tom Burke very well indeed.  The British Government offered a reward of ten thousand pounds for the apprehension of the murderers, and every policeman in Europe had rosy dreams of securing this great prize, and was constantly on the alert for the criminals and the reward.

In July 1882, the Ambassador and half the Embassy staff were on leave in England.  As matters were very slack just then, the Charge d’Affaires and the Second Secretary had gone to Finland for four days’ fishing, leaving me in charge of the Embassy, with an Attache to help me.  My servant came to me early one morning as I was in bed, and told me that an official of the Higher Police was outside my front door, and begged for permission to come into my flat.  I have explained elsewhere that Ambassadors, their families, their staffs, and even all the Embassy servants enjoy what is called exterritoriality; that is, that by a polite fiction the Embassy and the houses or apartments of the Secretaries are supposed to be on the actual soil of the country they represent.  Consequently, the police of the country cannot enter them except by special permission, and both the Secretaries