The Central Committee of Labour in St. Petersburg, excited by
the state of siege in Poland, and no doubt by the general anticipa- tion of armed repression, issued fresh orders early in the week for a general strike. The trains ceased to run, all associated work was suspended, the newspapers did not appear in St. Petera- burg, and crowds paraded the streets singing the Marseillaise. The Ministry deliberated whether or not to proclaim martial law, and the respectable classes feared lest the reactionaries should call up the "hooligans," who threaten the intelligents and the Jews. The Jews, followed by many foreign residents, are quitting the capital for Finland, where the hotels are choked with émigrés, and terror has fallen upon the whole shopkeeping class. On Thursday there was an unprecedented panic on the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, and every prospect of a fall in the rouble.
