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ways and prohibited their construction, so that Russia,
at his death, had only the single line between St.
Petersburg and Moscow, and this one was managed in such a
manner that the merchants preferred to send their goods
by the old teamsters, in common wagons, as the safer
and cheaper way.
The defeats in the Crimea brought the deliverance.
In however great respect for his father Alexander II.
had been educated, he was compelled at once on his
accession to the throne to repeal some of the most
absurd of these laws. This was received by the
people who had been so long gagged and fettered as if
from this time any kind of criticism of Nicholas’s
system of government would be allowed, and as if it was
the Tsar’s own intention now to change everything.
During the Crimean War, Herzen had already established
his Russian printing-office in London; and his
weekly newspaper, Kólokol (The Bell), gave the
signal for the free and reckless inquiry into all the
blunders and follies of the old régime. Never had such
language been heard in Russia, never had any one
wielded such a pen. The boldness carried away the
readers and conquered all minds. Herzen was soon the
most influential man in Russia, the idolized dictator of
the intelligent youth. He seemed to be omniscient;
nothing which happened in the land, from which he
had been banished, escaped his attention, so thoroughly
was he informed. He published secret state papers,
like the memoirs of Catherine II.; he threw light upon
embezzlements, frauds, infamous and cruel deeds,
committed in various parts of the empire. He had so many
connections, and in such high places, that on a day
when Kólokol contained serious charges against one of
the imperial adjutants-general, and a number printed
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