Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1903 — RUSSIA’S ARGUS EYE. [ARTICLE]

RUSSIA’S ARGUS EYE.

Tlx Keen Watch Tkat Is LxercSsaxK Oyer All Postal Hotter. In the Russian post’office a watdftit eye is kept on all newspapers and Magazines, and any matter officially considered objectionable is ruthlessly “blacked out.” A similar surveillance ia--extended to private correspondenceThe task thus undertaken is a giganticone, but the Russian official system has*proved itself equal to the undertaking. - In every post office of importancetjmre are officials constituting the? “blict? cabinet,” whose duty it & tor examine the letters received. According.' to the system followed in the llosiow post office, all the letters are handed* over to the “black cabinet/' Them one’ official sorts out ail those which are*addressed to suspected families, another all those addressed in suspected handwritings, while a third arranges the* remainder in little heaps and then draww at random several' letters from e»tk heap. All the letters selected hr these various ways are then opened and examined. In this ingenious way the Russian* government strives to keep a eontlnaal V check on the free intercourse of its subjects, and it is not surprising that “underground” means of communication « have been developed.