Duma.

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|FTER a parliamentary interregnum of seven months the second Russian Duma has foregathered in the Tavrida Palace, but under auspices very different from those of last year.

This time there was no monarch to dazzle the eyes of the peasant and to welcome Russia's "best men"; there were no ceremonies except those of the Orthodox Church, no pageantry, no eloquence. Indeed, nothing so significant could well be more matter of fact and prosaic than was the meeting in the palace. The essence of the ceremony consisted in the perusal of a tamely written address by a sallowfaced official who looked as though he might have been a portrait of one of Catherine's dignitaries, who, in obedience to the waving of a magician's wand, had stepped down from the frame of a mellow canvas and appeared before five hundred individuals, most of whom could hardly realize what they had come to accomplish.

As usual, a bad beginning was made, owing largely to the shortsightedness of the government. For instance, it was understood the evening before that a member of the Right would propose three cheers for the Czar. This was known both to the Constitutional Democrats or "Cadets," as they are termed for shortness-and to the authorities. Now the "Cadets," who dominated the first Duma, aspire to lead the second, and regard their leadas ministers-elect, were resolved

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not to stand up at the name of the emperor, not to cheer him, and even to remain seated when listening to his ukase. Foreseeing all these incidents, say those whom experience has endowed with wisdom, it was the duty of the authorities to take the matter into their own hands and to instruct Privy Councillor Golubeff, who opened the Duma, to call for three cheers for the Czar. He should have done it, not a member of the Right. That would have deprived the "Cadets" of the pretext for remaining seated which they since put forward, that it would have been derogatory to their dignity to respond to a word of command issued by their political adversaries. And if in answer to Golubeff's summons a section of the deputies had refused to rise, he might have appealed to the loyalty of the house. At present all this and much more is clear to the government, which has at least one characteristic trait in common with Epimetheus.

The "Cadets" then remained seated, and offered what has been taken as a wanton and petty insult to the monarch with whom they profess themselves ready to work. Pettiness is an unpardonable sin in statesmen and those who hope to become statesmen. The more one differs from others in matters of genuine importance, the more one should endeavor to conform to them in trifles. Even Republicans might consistently honor a king or an emperor in his capacity as head of the state. But the refusal of Anarchists to rise

was intelligible. They made no professions of readiness to collaborate with the monarch. The "Cadets'" attitude was queer and unbecoming. There was something tragi-comical in the convulsive way in which some undecided deputies among them sprang to their feet, looked round, and seeing the majority of the chamber seated, flopped down heavily on the smooth wooden chairs, then started up again and down again. The fitful movement was symbolical. If it needed an accompaniment in words, one can imagine the leaders approaching the throne from which they hope to receive ministerial portfolios one day and exclaiming dramatically: "Caesar, morituri te non salutant."

What a curious assemblage of types and individuals, tongues and races this Duma is! Cossacks and priests, lawyers and ploughmen, hewers of wood and drawers of water, Orthodox bishops and free-thinking Moslems, Roman Catholic priests, Tartars, Germans, Bashkirs, Poles, Letts, Moldavians, Lithuanians, Revolutionists, Graceof-God Monarchists, Anarchists, Nihilists, elbow each other or sit cheek by jowl in the spacious lightsome hall. And all of them are professional legislators. Many of the brawny men of the people look as if they had been suddenly taken from the plough, the anvil, the lathe but yesterday, and had come by express to throw light upon the intricacies of the agrarian, financial and other imperial problems, and to step in boldly where learned specialists and experienced administrators had hesitated to tread. Ne sutor ultra crepidam was never addressed to them.

Excellent men they may be as farmers, mechanics, laborers, as husbands, fathers or sons, as Christians, Mohammedans or Buddhists; but judging by received standards they have as much vocation for making laws for the vast Russian empire as a stonecutter has to make a lady's watch. Most of them know less of the mechanism of consti

tutional government, of the work of a parliament, of the requisites of good legislation, than of comparative anatomy or Hegelian philosophy. But the election day was their Pentecost, and they have received the spirit. The very words which will daily and hourly strike their ears in this assembly of improvised legislators awaken no ideas in their brain, conjure up no pictures in their imagination.

Russia is suffering from a recrudescence of revolutionary fever which political parties had the power to bring on, but are impotent to allay. A mutinous spirit permeates large categories of the nation, dissatisfaction is widespread, and unrest is noticeable everywhere. Nobody has faith in the government, whose acts appear to proceed from vacillation and to be executed by a palsied arm. No party can build plans upon its promises or trust their cause to its safe keeping. It trims, it veers, it blows hot and cold, steers north and south. Before the vanguard of the revolution, which is composed mainly of students who do not study and of workmen who are out of employment, it recoils with a mixture of awe and dread and contempt. It cherishes convictions which it relegates to the limbo of disembodied ideas; it acknowledges the efficacy of measures which it has not the courage to employ; it foresees real dangers which it would fain ward off, but only by means of a spell. It is startled by its own shrill voice, frightened by its own shifting shadow, neither trusted by its friends nor feared by its enemies. The only function it discharges at present is to maintain an armistice between the regime and anarchy until such time as the forces of the revolution are ready to be unleashed. And then it is not merely the Cabinet or the institution of demi-autocracy which will be affected; most probably the regime itself and its highest and oldest and most powerful representatives will all be engulfed together.

Viterbo:

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NLY recently connected by rail with the rest of the world, and that by a studiously inconvenient line, Viterbo has been left outside of the regulation tourist track. This is a matter of regret (for the sake of the tourist), for in few places in Italy are the evidences of medievalism more intact, or can more interesting historic memories be found.

This city, that stands at an altitude of over three hundred feet above the South Etruscan plain, and which is still bounded by the remains of what was once the dense Cimmerian forest, is the only Etruscan stronghold that continued to be important after the fall of Rome. Its history is, in miniature, the history of all Italy, a history of internecine warfare, of conquest by barbarians, of oppressions by Pope and emperors in turn, of liberty and tyranny, of fanaticism and culture.

If we may trust the local chronicles, it was even the first city in Italy to become an independent commune. This was in the eleventh century, just when these species of miniature republics first rose into being. In 1100 the famous Countess Matilda of Tuscany, then overlord of the town, included it in her celebrated grant to the papal see, which came to be called the Patrimony of St. Peter. In this wise Viterbo became by right a papal city. No wonder, therefore, that in the twelfth century, when the Popes and the Romans entered upon their long wars of con

flicting interests, Eugenius III. should have migrated to Viterbo, and thus prove the first pontiff to seek an asylum amid its walls, and to install there his pontifical court. By so doing he laid the seeds of that jealousy between Viterbo and Rome which lasted for many centuries, and might be said to have survived to this hour, so reluctant were the Viterbese to be connected by rail with Rome, and so inconvenient and slow and miserable in all respects is the service that links them with the outer world.

I had long desired to see this city, famed for its beautiful fountains and beautiful women. I was scarcely prepared for so much beauty, and certainly not prepared to find it had preserved such a pronounced medieval character. To begin with, it still owns, almost intact, its Longobard walls and towers, that surround it for the space of five kilometers, broken only, as of old, at stated intervals by six gates, of which four were renovated in the sixteenth century, while two still exhibit all the majestic solemnity of twelfth and thirteenth century architecture. It is by the so-called Porta Romana that the city is commonly entered, so named because it abuts on the classic Via Cassia that connected Florence with Rome. It was inaugurated solemnly in 1653, on one of Innocent X.'s visits to Viterbo a place he was partial to, as it was close to his favorite summer villa, and his equally favorite sister-inlaw, the dissolute Olimpia Maidalchini