I feel personally that Petrograd is safer than Paris.
At night there are automobiles, sleighs, and people on the
streets at 12 o'clock to a much greater extent than was true
in Paris when I left five weeks ago.
Most wonderful of all, the great crowd of prostitutes has
disappeared. I have seen not a disreputable woman since I
went to Petrograd, and foreigners who have been there for
the last three months report the same. The policy of the
present government has resulted in eliminating throughout
Russia, I am told, this horrible outgrowth of modern
civilization.
Begging has decreased. I have asked to be taken to the
poorest parts of the city to see how the people in the slums
live, and both the communists and bourgeoisie have held up
their hands and said, "But you fail to understand there are
no such places." There is poverty, but it is scattered and
exists among those of the former poor or of the former rich
who have been unable to adapt themselves to the conditions
which require everyone to do something.
Terrorism has ended. For months there have been no
executions, I am told, and certainly people go to the
theater and church and out on the streets as much as they
would in any city of the world.
(Certain memoranda referred to in the hearing relating to the work of
Capt.
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