Read Ebook: Russian Prisons St. Peter and St. Paul; the Schlüsselburg; the Ostrog at Omsk; the story of Siberian exile; Tiumen Tomsk Saghalien by Griffiths Arthur

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A retired military officer named Lagovskoi was shut up in Schl?sselburg in 1885 by "administrative process," without trial, and sentenced for five years, which was prolonged for another five years, still without trial. For having dared to address the governor with the familiar "thou," he was confined in a strait-jacket and his legs were tied together; then they gagged him, and holding him just a yard above the ground dropped him repeatedly till his head was cut open. The same treatment was administered to another prisoner, Popov, who was also gagged and his head banged upon the floor.

The effect of the imprisonment was seen in its results. In the six years after 1891, just forty-eight persons were removed into Schl?sselburg from the Alexis Ravelin, all of them young and in sound health at the time. At the end of these six years, five had committed suicide or had been shot, three were still retained but were out of their minds, three had died insane, nine others had died, the majority of them carried off by consumption. Twenty out of forty-eight was a large proportion, and the fact is authenticated by M. Petit, who can give the names and exact dates.

Two provincial prisons were much concerned with political prisoners, those of Kiev and Moscow. The former was the scene of many tragic episodes, and fierce conflicts between the revolutionists and the authorities. Some remarkable escapes were made from them. The university of Kiev was a hot-bed of political unrest, and its students were active and determined conspirators. An independent spirit was always present in the prison, the product of past resistance. It was from Kiev that the well-known Leo Deutsch escaped with two others in 1878, through the courageous assistance of a comrade Frolenko, who managed as a free man to get a false passport and obtain employment as a warder in the prison. He took the name of Michael and was in due course appointed to take charge of the corridor in which his friends Deutsch, Stefanovich and Bohanovsky were located. They had pretended to protest against his coming to their ward so as to disarm suspicion.

Frolenko set to work without loss of time. He provided disguises, two suits of private clothes and a warder's uniform, which the prisoners put on, and he then released them from their cells. As they were stumbling along the passage, one of them tripped against a rope which he caught at and pulled frantically. It proved to be the alarm bell of the prison and caused a deafening noise. The false "Michael" at once explained to the authorities what he had done unwittingly, and the disturbance passed off without further discovery. Again the fugitives, who had hidden themselves in the first corners they found, started on their journey and got out of the prison, where a confederate met the party and led them to the river and to a boat stored with provisions which awaited them. They voyaged along the Dnieper for a whole week, concealing themselves when necessary in the long rushes, and at last reached Krementchug, where they were furnished with passports and money and successfully passed the frontier. "Michael" went with them, and it was long supposed by the officials that he had been made away with by the prison breakers.

Beverley, a young man of English extraction, met death when escaping from the Kiev prison. He had been arrested for living under a false passport and being active in the revolutionary propaganda with a comrade Isbitski. He had driven a tunnel from their cell to a point beyond the prison walls. The authorities had discovered the tunnel and had posted a party of soldiers at the exit, where the fugitives must emerge into the upper air. As soon as they appeared they were shot down. Beverley was mortally wounded, and as he lay on the ground he was despatched by repeated bayonet stabs. Isbitski was also struck down, but was carried back alive after a severe beating.

The great central prison of Moscow, locally known as the "Butirki," served as a general depot for ordinary criminals on the point of departure as exiles about to be transported to Siberia. It is a vast establishment with accommodation for thousands; a mighty stone building which looks like a gigantic well. A great wall with a tower at each of the four corners encloses it, and the various classes of politicals were confined in these towers. In the north tower were the "administrative" exiles; in the "chapel" tower were those still under examination, and in another the female prisoners were kept. All the male political prisoners in Moscow wore chains and the convict dress. It was a degrading costume, made the more humiliating by the method of shaving the right side of the head and leaving the left side with the hair cut close.

To Leo Deutsch, who was subjected to the prison barber before leaving Kiev, the ordeal was extremely painful. He says: "When I saw my own face in the glass a cold shudder ran down my spine and I experienced a sensation of personal degradation to something less than human. I thought of the days--in Russia, not so long ago--when criminals were branded with hot irons.

"A convict was waiting ready to fasten on my fetters. I was placed on a stool and had to put my foot on an anvil. The blacksmith fitted an iron ring round each ankle, and welded it together. Every stroke of the hammer made my heart sink, as I realised that a new existence was beginning for me.

"The mental depression into which I now fell was soon accompanied by physical discomfort. The fetters at first caused me intolerable pain in walking, and even disturbed my sleep. It also requires considerable practice before one can easily manage to dress and undress. The heavy chains--about thirteen pounds in weight--are not only an encumbrance, but are very painful, as they chafe the skin round the ankles; and the leather lining is but little protection to those unaccustomed to these adornments. Another great torment is the continual clinking of the chains. It is indescribably irritating to the nervous, and reminds the prisoner at every turn that he is a pariah among his kind, 'deprived of all rights.'

"The transformation is completed by the peculiar convict dress, consisting of a grey gown, made of special material, and a pair of trousers. Prisoners condemned to hard labour wear a square piece of yellow cloth sewn on their gowns. The feet are clad in leather slippers nicknamed 'cats.' All these articles of clothing are inconvenient, heavy and ill-fitting.

"I hardly knew myself when I looked in the glass and beheld a fully attired convict. The thought possessed me, 'For long years you will have to go about in that hideous disguise.' Even the gendarme regarded me with compassion. 'What won't they do to a man?' he said. And I could only try to comfort myself by thinking how many unpleasant things one gets used to, and that time might perhaps accustom me even to this."

A later episode in the experience of Deutsch is rather amusing. Many of the ordinary prisoners were in the habit of ridding themselves of their chains, at first at night and afterward during the day. The trick was winked at by the warders. Deutsch called for a nail and a hammer and openly broke the rivets in the presence of his warders. "Go and tell the governor what I have done," he said, and the offender was haled into the presence of the great man who indignantly protested, saying that it was a serious business. "Not at all," replied Deutsch, "it should prove to you that I have no intention of attempting to escape. And you see I still keep them on tied up with string." Nothing more was said for the moment; nor was the barbarous practice insisted upon when the politicals stoutly refused to submit to it.

The immunity continued until the time of departure arrived, when the officer who was to command the convoy insisted upon the strict observance of the regulations. Deutsch and his comrades still refused to comply. They were determined to resist till the last, and kept together lest they might be overcome singly. Just as they were to be marched off, they were told that if they chose to be examined by the prison doctor, he would excuse them from travelling on foot. When taken into his presence, a strong posse of warders fell upon them and overpowered them by sheer force. One by one they were dragged into a corner and held forcibly down on a bench while the barber shaved half their heads and the blacksmith firmly riveted the chains.

Dostoyevski, whose "Reminiscences of the Dead House," recording his personal experiences of convict life, are quoted, says that long afterward he shuddered at the mere thought of the head shaving: "The prison barbers lathered our skulls with cold water and scraped us afterward with their sawlike razors." Fortunately it was possible to evade the torture by payment. A fellow convict for one kopeck would shave anyone with a private razor. This man was never to be seen without a strop in his hand on which, night and day, he sharpened his razor, which was always in admirable condition. "He was really quite happy when his services were in request, and he had a very light hand, a hand of velvet." He was always known as "the Major," no doubt a survival of the old institution of the barber-surgeon, as military doctors often bear the rank of major.

There were some compensations for the politicals. One was the unvarying sympathy they evoked from the population on the rare occasions when they came in contact with them. Kindly folk, when they could, forced charitable gifts upon them. When Deutsch and his party took the train at Moscow for Nizhni-Novgorod, the platform was crowded with well-wishers, and they started for Siberia amid the tears and sobs of friends and relatives, shouting affectionate farewells and joining in the plaintive melody struck up by the prisoners, many of whom sang beautifully. At the first station peasants and workmen came to the carriage windows unhindered, with humble offerings. One old woman pressed a kopeck, the smallest copper coin, upon Deutsch, crying, "Here! Take it in the Virgin's name. Take it, take it, my dear." She insisted when he protested he did not need it as much as many others. But he accepted it, and kept it as a remembrance of the warm-hearted old creature.

It was the same all along the road. Everywhere, as they passed, groups of people waved their hands with expressive gestures. It was the custom of the country to show compassion thus for "the children of misfortune," the kindly designation of the poorer classes for all prisoners. Deutsch, with his shaven head, convict garb and clanking chains, won especial interest. Many sought to serve him and begged him to write down any special article he was in need of and it should be sent after him.

There were societies formed to assist prisoners with presents of small useful articles when starting for their dreary exile. Long before the party left Moscow, Deutsch and his companions were begged to make out a list of their requirements, and as they were fifty in number, and were to be half a year on the road, the demands on the kindness of their benefactors were not few. But at any cost and with much personal inconvenience, all that was asked for was given. These same friendly societies came under the officious attentions of the police, for a list of the members was once seized at a search of houses, and as they were supposed to belong to some secret associations with evil aims, they were immediately classed as a branch of the Red Cross League of the "People's Will" organisation. The most criminal action of the society was that of seeking to provide political prisoners with old clothes. Yet a number of arrests of members followed, and many of these perfectly harmless, well-meaning people were detained for some time in gaol.

The kindly custom prevails throughout Russia of sending gifts of food to the prisoners at festival seasons. The "Easter table" is generally the rule in Russian cities, when the master keeps open house and any visitor may enter to be hospitably entertained with food and drink. The principle is even carried further and helps to soften the hardships of the prisoners. At Moscow all manner of good things were sent in, Deutsch tells us: "Easter cakes, eggs, hams, poultry, and all that is customary, including several bottles of light wine and beer, so that our Easter table was a magnificent sight. Under the superintendence of the old governor and his staff," he continues, "we spent the evening and half the night in a merry fashion not often witnessed in a prison. Songs were sung, there were jokes and laughter; finally a harmonica appeared, and the young people began to dance. Yet, despite so much hearty and unfeigned cheerfulness, not one of us could forget our real condition; indeed, the very sight of gaiety brought to the minds of many of us remembrance of home, where our dear ones were at this moment celebrating the feast-day, though with many sad thoughts of the absent."

It was the same in far-off Siberia. At Omsk, where Dostoyevski was confined for four years, gifts were sent to the prison at Christmastide in enormous quantities,--loaves of white bread, scones, rusks, pancakes and pastry of various kinds. There was not a shopkeeper in the whole town who did not send something to the "unfortunates." Among these gifts were some magnificent ones, including many cakes of the finest flour, and also some very poor ones, rolls worth no more than a couple of kopecks, the offerings of the poor to the poor, on which a last kopeck had been spent. These delicacies were divided in equal portions among the occupants of the various prison barracks, and caused neither protest or annoyance, as every one was satisfied.

There were good Samaritans in Siberia who spent their lives in giving charitable assistance to the "unfortunates." Dostoyevski very rightly calls their compassion, which is quite disinterested, "something sacred." There was a lady in the town of Omsk who laboured unceasingly to assist all exiles and especially the convicts in the prison. It was conjectured that some dear one in her family had gone through a like punishment, and, in any case, she spared no effort to offer help and sympathy. The most she could do was but little, for she was very poor; "but," says the author, "we convicts felt when we were shut up in the prison that outside we had a devoted friend." He made her acquaintance when leaving the town, and with some of his comrades spent an entire evening at her house. "She was neither old nor young, neither pretty nor ugly. It was not easy to guess whether she was intelligent or high-bred. But in her actions could be seen infinite compassion, and an irresistible desire to please, to solace, to be in some way agreeable. All this could be read in the sweetness of her smile."

When her visitors left she gave each of them a cardboard cigar box of her own making. It was all but valueless, but the gift was inestimable as a proof of her desire to be remembered. Dostoyevski here analyses the theory that a great love for one's neighbour is only a form of selfishness, and asks very pertinently what selfishness could animate such a nature as this.

This song is inconceivably pathetic. George Kennan, who often heard it, declares that it resembles nothing with which he was acquainted. It is not singing nor chanting, nor like wailing for the dead, but a strange blending of all three. "It suggests vaguely the confused and commingled sobs, moans and entreaties of human beings who were being subjected to torture, but whose sufferings were not acute enough to seek expression in shrieks or high pitched cries.... No attempt was made by the singers to pitch their voices in harmony or pronounce the words in unison. There were no pauses or rests at the ends of the lines, no distinctly marked rhythm. The singers seemed to be constantly breaking in upon one another with slightly modulated variation of the same slow, melancholy air, and the effect produced was that of a rude fugue of a funeral chant." The following is an extract from the words sung:--

"Have pity on us, O our fathers! Do not forget the unwilling travellers, Do not forget the long imprisoned. Feed us, O our fathers--help us! Feed and help the poor and needy! Have compassion, O our fathers, Have compassion, O our mothers, For the sake of Christ, have mercy On the prisoners."

An advantage enjoyed by the political prisoners in Russian prisons is the affable demeanour of the official staff towards them. Every prison official as a rule treats them with a certain amount of courtesy and respect. This is due to an unwritten law arising from the long established belief that these "politicals" belonged to the educated and cultured classes, and that their offences, so-called, have been committed with high motives, in obedience to the dictates of reason and conscience, in the hope of improving the condition of the people and winning a greater measure of liberty and independence for their down-trodden nation. Superior officers were, as a rule, polite in their address, and subordinates spoke civilly and treated them with marked consideration. The prisoners watched jealously the attitude of their masters toward them, and fiercely resented any failure of respect, or anything that tended to lower their personal dignity.

Leo Deutsch tells a story of the sharp lesson in manners taught to a great functionary, the chief personage and head of the prison department, M. Galkin Vrasski. The incident occurred at Moscow when he was making a tour of inspection through the provincial prisons. The politicals had heard that, conscious of his power and self-importance, he was in the habit of entering cells, when visiting them, with his hat on. The first he reached was occupied by one Dashkievich, who had been a theological student,--"a man of very calm but unyielding temperament, and permeated to an uncommon degree with the instinct of justice and fairness." The great chief entered with much ceremony, escorted by the governor and a brilliant staff, and asked Dashkievich pompously whether he had any complaint to make. "Pardon me," interrupted the prisoner quietly, "it is very impolite of you, sir, to enter my apartment without removing your hat." Vrasski reddened to the roots of his hair, turned on his heel and walked out, followed by his entire entourage.

He was at pains to ask the name of the man who had dared to reprove him thus openly. He had learned his lesson, for he appeared at all the other cells hat in hand. But the offence rankled, and as Deutsch avers, he took his revenge later. Dashkievich had been sentenced to "banishment to the less distant provinces of Siberia;" this was altered by Vrasski's order, and he was sent eventually to Tunka in the furthest wilds, on the border of Mongolia.

In this matter of removing the head-dress, the politicals were very punctilious. Once, on arrival at the Krasnoyarsk prison, which was chiefly cellular, a party of politicals had a serious conflict of opinion with the governor, who ordered that they should be placed in separate cells singly, instead of in association. They resented and positively refused to abide by this order, and demanded to be lodged as heretofore along the road, in company with one another. Pending a change of decision, they remained in the corridor with their baggage, and would not budge a step. The governor of the prison insisted upon compliance with the regulations, and he was backed up by the chief of police, a very blustering and overbearing person. The prisoners would not yield and the matter was referred to higher authority, first to the colonel of gendarmerie, then to the public prosecutor, and lastly to the governor of the district. Nothing could be decided that night, and the prisoners, still obdurate, camped out in the passage, being permitted to have their own way until the district governor had been heard from.

As they sat at dinner the next day, the chief of police brought the answer. He was in full parade uniform and wore his helmet. "Gentlemen," he began ceremoniously, "I am to inform you"--He was abruptly interrupted by the request to first remove his helmet. The officer protested that when in parade uniform he was forbidden to do so. "Then we shall not listen to you," said the prisoner Lazarev. "We have nothing to do with your uniform. It is a mere question of manners." "But I really cannot, I will not," replied the officer. "Then you may take your message back to the governor, we shall not listen to it," was the answer of the politicals, and their firmness won the day. The result was a concession to their demands. "I wonder how many officials," remarks Deutsch, "have had to learn this elementary lesson in politeness from us."

The exile system--A principal secondary punishment--Reform of 19th century--Classification of exiles--The hideous march into Siberia--Infant mortality--Less than half the exiles sentenced by regular tribunals--Many banished by "administrative process" on arbitrary order--The "untrustworthy"--Power to banish exercised by many even minor authorities--Some cases of rank injustice--Monstrous ill-usage of a medical man--Dr. Bieli and his wife's insanity--Students and young schoolgirls exiled--Simple banishment--The exile's life in Siberia--Danger of protesting against ill-usage--Penalties of infringing rules--Surgeon forbidden to practise in a case of life and death--Terrors of banishment to the far north in the arctic province of Yakutsk--A living death--Denounced by Russian press.

An account has been given of the most prominent Russian penal institutions in the mother country and of the prisons established for all offenders upon whom confinement has been generally imposed as a preparatory step to deportation. It remains to describe the system of Siberian exile, long the principal element of penal coercion known to the Russian code. For all alike, the undoubtedly guilty and the resolute patriots with high aims, but often violent methods, this penalty exists and has existed for centuries, ever imposed recklessly with marked indifference to the human suffering it has entailed.

Banishment to the far-off wilds began soon after the vast region of Siberia became part of the Empire, that is to say, in the middle of the seventeenth century. It originated in the idea of "removal;" and was adopted as a convenient outlet for the wrecks of humanity who had survived the cruel, personal inflictions prescribed by savage laws. All who escaped the capital sentence and were neither impaled nor beheaded, endured secondary punishment of atrocious severity; they were flogged by the knout or bastinadoed; they were cruelly mutilated, their limbs were amputated or their tongues torn out; they were branded with hot irons or suspended in the air by hooks run into the ribs, and left to die a death of lingering torment. Those that were left were transported to Siberia.

What the system was and to a great extent still is, despite skin-deep reforms, with its most glaring evils, claims description in any account purporting to be complete. It is necessary to refer to the sufferings endured and the infamies practised in some detail, so that we may realise the true measure of the infinite misery they have caused. It is almost impossible to conceive of the horrors of that march of thousands of both sexes across a continent; ragged, debilitated men, weak women and helpless children, tramping on and on for a whole year or more, shoeless, insufficiently clad and subsisting on the chance alms of the charitable; fed by a meagre pittance, lodged nightly in half-ruinous log prisons, or festering for weeks in detestable forwarding prisons. The Russian exile system has rivalled in its inflictions the cruelties and barbarities of the darkest ages.

The demand for enforced labour steadily increased as Siberia's natural resources became more and more evident. The discovery of mineral wealth, the rich silver mines of Nertchinsk in the Trans-Baikal, and the establishment of large manufactories at Irkutsk called for more exiles, and laws were passed extending the punishment. Any kind of misconduct led to deportation. Jews were exiled for failing to pay their taxes, serfs for cutting down trees without permission, and minor military offences were visited with this penalty. Large numbers took the road, but without the slightest organisation. There was no system; the exiles were driven in troops like cattle from town to town. No one knew exactly the cause of exile or could differentiate between individuals. Some were murderers and the most hardened offenders; some were simple peasants guilty of losing their passports or the victims of an oppressive proprietor. "The exile system," says Kennan, "was nothing but a chaos of disorder in which accident and caprice played almost equally important parts."

Two cases may be quoted here of the haphazard arbitrary treatment that commonly prevailed. A peasant who had innocently bought a stolen horse was sent to Siberia as an enforced colonist, but was not set at liberty on arrival. Through some error and confusion as to his identity, he was transported to the Berozev mines and worked there underground for three and twenty years. Again, the governor of Siberia, Traskin, of notoriously evil repute, having a spite against one of the councillors of the State Chamber, banished him from the province of Irkutsk, with an order that he should never be permitted to remain more than ten days in the same place. The wretched man accordingly spent the rest of his life in aimless wanderings through Siberia.

A Russian painter, M. Jacoby, has painted an awful picture depicting the frightful scene. It has been graphically described by Kropotkin and may be quoted here in full to give a clear idea of this hideous march.

The infant mortality under these conditions almost exceeds belief, and deportation to Siberia has been aptly and truthfully described as a "massacre of the innocents." In the year 1881, when 2,561 children followed the exile march, very few survived. The majority succumbed to the hardships of the road and died before or immediately after their arrival at their destination. The yearly quota has constantly increased, numbering from five to eight thousand. To the danger to health incurred must be added the moral degradation, especially in the case of the young girls.

Before reviewing the conditions and setting forth the actual facts, with the processes that produced them, it will be well to dissect the grand totals and arrive at the relative proportions of the three principal classes composing the whole body of exiles constantly moving across the frontier to fill the prisons and to people Siberia to its uttermost ends. Less than one-half were criminal in the sense that they had committed offences and had been adjudged guilty in open court by duly constituted tribunals. The larger moiety had had no legal trial; they had been punished with banishment by the irresponsible action and simple fiat of minor officials and bodies of ill-educated peasants, wielding the extraordinary powers conferred by "administrative process." At no time and in no civilised land have people been so ruthlessly sacrificed and subjected to the forfeiture of personal liberty by this utter abnegation of justice and fair play, and the result is a standing disgrace to the government that permitted and encouraged it. The extent to which this most reprehensible system has obtained may be judged by a simple statement of figures. For many years past the average number sentenced to exile by legal verdict in regular courts was 45.6 per cent. of the whole yearly contingent, and those banished by "administrative process" was 54.4 per cent. It must always be borne in mind that, in describing the methods pursued and the painful results attendant on them, more than half the sufferers were either entirely innocent or guilty of offences that could only be deemed criminal by a strained interpretation of the exercise of authority, and in no case had they been properly tried and convicted by law.

The system has been defined by Mr. Kennan as "the banishment of an obnoxious person from one part of the empire to another without the observance of any of the legal formalities which in most civilised countries precede the deprivation of rights and the restriction of personal liberty." A person might be entirely guiltless of any offence, he need not have made himself amenable to the law; it was enough that the local authorities should suspect him of being "untrustworthy" or believe that his presence in any place was "prejudicial to public order," or threatened public tranquillity. He might be arrested forthwith and detained in prison for a period varying from two weeks to two years, and then by a stroke of the pen be deported, forcibly, to any part of the empire and kept there under police surveillance for from one to ten years. He could not protest or seek to defend himself. The same impenetrable secrecy was maintained as in the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition. Not a whisper reached him of the causes of his arrest; he might not examine the witnesses who accused him or supported the charge against him. He must not call upon friends to speak of his loyalty and good character; he was perfectly helpless and altogether at the mercy of the authorities, and even his nearest relatives were in ignorance of his whereabouts or what happened to him. They could not help him or must not if they would.

Footnote 1:

The Russian word is "neblagonadiozhny" and means literally, "of whom nothing good can be expected," and the expression has been given a very wide interpretation. Young people who read certain forbidden books or join forbidden societies for the ventilation of certain principles are deemed untrustworthy.

The power to send people into exile thus arbitrarily was vested in petty authorities, officers of gendarmerie, subordinate police officials, or mere executive orders countersigned by the minister of the interior and approved by the Czar. There is nothing new in this system. The people of Russia, from noble to serf, have never enjoyed the semblance of liberty; the Russian bureaucracy has wielded the unlimited power delegated to it by the autocratic Czar, and from the beginning of the eighteenth century twenty different classes of officials could employ "administrative methods" as a substitute for judicial process. The right was vested in governors, vice-governors, chiefs of police, and provincial bureaus, ecclesiastical authorities and landed proprietors. In addition to the power to send into exile, these various authorities could at their discretion confiscate property, brand, inflict torture and flog with the knout. Village communes had also the power to order the removal by exile of members who were worthless and ill-conducted, of whom their fellows were anxious to get rid.

Innumerable cases of oppression and injustice are on record of which a few may be cited. One of the most flagrant was that of Constantine Staniukovich, who was the son of a Russian admiral. He had been in the navy but had a fondness for literature and became a writer of plays and novels condemned by the censor as of "pernicious tendency." But he continued to write and finally became the proprietor of a magazine. He was seized without warning and locked up in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. His wife, who was at Baden Baden, heard nothing of his arrest, and found when she returned to St. Petersburg that he had mysteriously disappeared. She learned, after diligent inquiry, that he was in prison, and that his letters had been secretly tampered with, his offence being a correspondence through the post with a well-known Russian revolutionist residing in Switzerland. At length, after a long imprisonment, he was exiled by administrative process to Tomsk for three years. His magazine was discontinued by his absence and he was financially ruined. Neither wealth nor a high social position could save him from arbitrary treatment.

The most monstrous instances of high handed proceedings are recorded. One unfortunate gentleman was exiled because he was suspected of an intention to put himself in an illegal situation, no more than a projected change of name. Another man was exiled and sent to Siberia because he was the friend of an accused person who was waiting trial on a political charge, and of which he was in due course acquitted. But the friend of this innocent man was deemed an offender, and was sent across the frontier. Such was the chaos of injustice, accident and caprice, that errors were constantly made as to identification. When the roll of a travelling party was called, no one answered to the name of Vladimir Sidoski. A Victor Sidoski was in the ranks and was challenged to answer. "It is not my name. I am another man, I ought not to have been arrested; I am Victor, not Vladimir," was the answer. "You will do quite as well," retorted the officer. "I shall correct the name in the list." And Victor the innocent became Vladimir the prisoner. It sometimes happened that an arrest was made by mistake; the wrong man was taken and it was clearly shown, but no release followed. It was unsafe to take up the case of any victims of misusage. One lady who resented acts of manifest injustice was arrested and banished because "it was no business of hers."

The measure of administrative process has been defended by intelligent Russians who visit the blame upon the Nihilists and terrorists,--"a band so horribly vile that their crimes are beyond parallel." A writer in a German periodical justifies this language by denouncing the bloodthirsty recklessness of the revolutionists who have not hesitated to use the assassin's knife and dynamite bombs. To give local authorities power to banish the suspected was essential as a means of precaution, "the only possible means to counteract the nefarious doings of these dark conspirators." Admitting, however, that the decision was unfortunate and has caused unspeakable misery, he says: "From the day this power was delegated no man knows at what moment he may not be seized and cast into prison or doomed to exile."

He casts all the responsibility on the revolutionists, but in doing so, as Kennan says, puts the cart before the horse. Terrorist measures were the reply to grievous oppression. "It was administrative exile, administrative caprice, and the absence of orderly and legal methods in political cases that caused terrorism, not terrorism that necessitated official lawlessness." Already the true facts are patent and thoroughly understood by the world at large. The so-called excesses of the revolutionists have not been committed, as the champions of the Russian government would have us believe, "by bloodthirsty tigers in human form at the prompting of presumptuous fancies," but "by ordinary men and women exasperated to the pitch of desperation by administrative suppression of free speech and free thought, administrative imprisonment for years upon suspicion, administrative banishment to the arctic regions without trial, and, to crown all, administrative denial of every legal remedy and every peaceful means of redress."

Already "the whirligig of time has brought its revenges." Russia is wading through blood to the still far-off horizon which is at last dawning on a vexed and tortured people. The overthrow of despotism is approaching inevitably if slowly. The will of the people cannot be ignored or their aspirations checked and crushed by the old arbitrary methods of repression and coercion.

A whole volume might be filled with the detailed iniquities of the administrative process, which was so largely operative and so long before the oppressed people were goaded into retaliation. As far back as the early decades of the nineteenth century, statistics were gathered by a careful and industrious writer covering the period between 1827 and 1846 and showing the average number banished annually to be between three and six thousand, and the aggregate for the twenty years to be nearly eighty thousand. Beyond doubt in more recent years the numbers have steadily grown, although the exact figures are not available.

Several young girls were condemned, not merely to exile, but to hard labour for from six to eight years for having given a socialistic pamphlet to one workman. A child of fourteen became a penal colonist for shouting aloud that it was a shame to condemn people to death for nothing.

The majority of the administrative exiles were political prisoners, but all politicals were not let off with simple banishment. A considerable number of political offenders were sentenced to hard labour and also to penal exile. They did not live apart but were incorporated with the common-law criminals and subjected to precisely the same irksome treatment; they were equally deprived of civil rights, and could never count upon freedom absolute and unconditional. A few might in the long run be allowed to return to European Russia, at the intercession and with the guarantee of influential friends, but endless exile was generally their portion and a hard hand-to-mouth existence, with unceasing struggles to gain bread, for when nominally free they are still under police surveillance and do not easily find the means of a livelihood. They are worse off than when prisoners, for they are granted no government allowance and must fight for every kopeck under many disadvantages.

A code of rules has been drawn up for all whom the law condemns to exile and enforced domicile, whether at home or in far-off Siberia. The pregnant word "banishment" is carefully excluded from these rules, and police surveillance takes effect on those "assigned to definite places of residence," an expression euphemistically applied to the wildest and most remote regions of the empire. It is an obviously colourable suppression of true facts. The names of such places as the frontiers of Mongolia, the arctic province of Yakutsk, or the sub-tropical mountain districts of Central Asia are never mentioned, but there can be no mistakes as to the irksome character of the rules. It is a life of sufferance, of sometimes open arrest, and often of rigorously curtailed freedom of movement. The exile must remain where he is planted; to move his quarters he must give notice and obtain the consent of the police, to whom he must constantly report himself. His chosen place of residence is liable to visitation and search at any time of the day or night, and anything it contains may be removed; his correspondence, all letters and telegrams, inward and outward, may be read or withheld at all times.

The manner of the exile's daily life is laid down with great minuteness, and the nature of his employments specified, chiefly in the negative sense. He cannot hold any position in the service of the state; he must do no clerical work for any society or institution; he must not promote, or serve with any company; he cannot act as curator of any museum; he must not give lectures or impart instruction as a schoolmaster; he must not take any part in any theatricals, and is forbidden generally to exercise any public activity. He may not embark in any photographic or literary occupation; may not deal in books, must not keep a tea house or grog shop, or trade in intoxicating liquors. He shall not appear or plead in court except on behalf of himself and his near relations, nor without special permission may he act as physician, accoucheur, apothecary or chemist. The penalty of contravening any of these regulations is imprisonment for terms varying from three days to one month. Exiles without means are granted a meagre allowance from the treasury, but it is withdrawn if they fail to obtain employment through bad conduct or laziness. The difficulty of getting a living under so many restrictions is not considered.

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