headquarters. Here the spoils were divided, packed, and transported to Vladivostok to be sold to foreign, mainly German, ships, which maintained regular business relations with them.
The Russian Administration and Vladivostok port authorities knew of the activities of the association, which had, however, a long purse, and could afford to pay the police a high percentage of the profits.
Everybody knew of it, and many reports went up to Petersburg, whereupon the higher officials were eventually removed from their posts; they did not, however, leave the city, where they had acquired land and houses and led a festive life.
Vladivostok was most conveniently situated for the mediæval practice of buccaneering.
It was a frontier city of military type exposed to Japan, and it was gradually fortified. Some thirty years ago the journey from Moscow to Vladivostok took three months, and the town then seemed a hopeless hole. The civil and military officers were frequently men with a past of an enterprising and occasionally criminal character. The life of the town was curious. Its most aristocratic body was the "Association of Lancepups." I am ignorant of the origin of the word, but I know well the aims and objects of the society.
To be quite exact, it was a society of hopeless drunkards, fortunately an "exclusive" club, numbering not more than fifty members. The usual drink was either
