. Russia in revolution; being the experiences of an Englishman in Petrograd during the upheaval . of thepoHce were accounted for. It was a terrifying sight to see a privatelimousine tearing down the road filled witharmed men and a machine-gun mounted onits roof. The gun was of very little use, asit was with the greatest difficulty that themen themselves could keep in position, letalone the gun, which wobbled about peril-ously. Upon the motor lorries machine-gunswere mounted in such a v/ay as to commandthe front edge of the house roofs from theroadway. When those in charge were certainof a part
. Russia in revolution; being the experiences of an Englishman in Petrograd during the upheaval . of thepoHce were accounted for. It was a terrifying sight to see a privatelimousine tearing down the road filled witharmed men and a machine-gun mounted onits roof. The gun was of very little use, asit was with the greatest difficulty that themen themselves could keep in position, letalone the gun, which wobbled about peril-ously. Upon the motor lorries machine-gunswere mounted in such a v/ay as to commandthe front edge of the house roofs from theroadway. When those in charge were certainof a particular building from which the policewere firing, the lorry would draw up andreturn the fire. With such indiscriminate shooting thecasualties were extremely heavy. They wouldhave been much more so had the policearranged their machine-guns on a level withthe roadway instead of on the roofs of thebuildings. Situated as they were the machine-guns could only command a narrow strip ofroad, whereas on the ground level they couldhave commanded a whole street. The Head Office of the Secret Police was. - o HOURS OF CRISIS 125 situated in a large block of buildings on theFontanka Canal, where was also situated theflat of the Minister of Interior. The mobbroke in and, to avoid destroying the propertyof their fellow citizens, brought out everyarticle of furniture from the Ministers flatand the Secret Service Offices, together withevery document, book and scrap of paperthey could find. These were made into hugebonfires in the streets. Thus in a few mo-ments were destroyed thousands of docu-ments containing details and general particu-lars of every criminal and political andreligious suspect throughout the Empire, tosay nothing of the vast volumes of informa-tion relating to enemy spies. That the incriminating evidence relatingto the political and religious prisoners andsuspects should be burnt was entirely just,but it was certainly deplorable that docu-ments containing particulars of crimin
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