I had only just despatched the last of the preceding pages of this paper when the dreadful news came of a new iniquity¹ committed in regard to the Russian people by those light-minded men who, crazed with power, have appropriated the right of managing them. Again coarse and servile slaves of slaves, dressed up in various dazzling attires—varieties of Generals wishing to distinguish themselves, or to earn the right to add one more little star, fingle fangle, or scrap² of ribbon to their idiotic³ glaring get-up, or else from stupidity or carelessness—again these miserable⁴ men have destroyed amid dreadful sufferings thousands of those honorable, kind, hard-working laborers⁶ who feed them. And again this iniquity not only does not cause those responsible for it to reflect and repent⁷, but one hears and reads only about its being necessary as speedily as possible to mutilate and slaughter⁸ a greater number of men, and to ruin still more families, both Russian and Japanese.