News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-12-02

| regulations; but When the number Ol
''politicals" increased to twenty, the
difficulty of watching them all became
greater, and the authorities thought il
necessa y as means of preventing es-
capes, TO require every exile to report
himself at stated intervals to the chief
Of police and to sign his name in book
| kept for the purpCcc. To this reguIa-
tlon krapotkin refused to submit. 81
have lived here" he said to the Eprag-
max, NEARLY five years and have not yet
made the first attempt to escape. II
yol think that there is any danger of
my running away now, you may send a
soldier or police officer to my house
every day to watch me; but after being
unjustly exiled to Siberia Il don't pro
pose to assist the government in its
| supervision of me. l will not report at
the police office" The IsqTaUnik con-
ferred with the Governor of the province,
who lived in Krasnoyarsk, and by the
latter's direction told Krapotkin that if
he refused to obey the obnoxious regu-
| lation he would be banished to some
| place lying farther to the northward and
eastward, where the climate would be
more severe and the life less bearable.
krapotkin, however, adhered to his de-
termination and appealed to General
| ShelashnIkof, who was at that time the
Acting Governor General of Eastern
Siberia and who had been on terms of
personal friendship with Krapotkin be-
| fore the latter's banishmenE General
Shelashnikof replied in a cool, formal
| note, insisting upon obedience to the
regulation and warning Krapotkin that
further coAtumacy would have for him
disastrous consequences. While this
appeal was pending, General Anutchin
was appointed Governor General of
Eastern Siberia, and, as a last resort,
Krapotkin wrote to his aged mother in
St. Petersburg to see Anutchin previous
to the latter's departure for his new post
and present to him petition in her sons
behalf. When the aged and heart
broken mother appeared wi b her petl-
ton in General Anutchin'a reception
Ioom she was treated with insulting
brutality. Without reading the petition
Anutchin threw it violently on the floor,
asked her how she dared come to him
with such petition from a traitor to his
country, and declared that if her son
"had his deserts he would be cleaning
the streets in some Siberian city under
guard, instead of walking about at
liberty" For this brutal insult to his
mother Krapotkin told me that he was
afraid he should kill Anutchin if he ever
happened to see him
By this time all of the other political
exiles in Minusinsk had submitted to the !
new regulation and were reporting at the |
police Office, and Krapotkin was notified |
by the Espr0CRik that if within a stated |
time he did not follow their example he |
would be banished to Turukhansk, a |
wletched settlement of twelve or fifteen |
houses, situated IL the province of Yen
lseIsk, near the coast of the Arctic
Ocean. Krapotkin, however, still ad-
hered to his resolution, and after a ter
'ibly trying interview with his wife, to
FhOm he was devotedly attached, he
succeeded in extOrting from her prom
Sc to return to European Russia with
heir young child, and let him go to
1urukhansk alone. What this promise
ost them both in misery T-couid Imagine
rom the tears which suffused their eyes
When they talked to me about it. At
he last moment, however, while Mrs.
was making preparations to
'eturn to European Russia, she happened
% see in the Siberian Gazette a letter
rom some correspondence political
,xile, | think-in Turukhansk, describ-
ng the loneliness, dreariness, and un-
lealthfulness of the settlement, the
Arctic severity of the climate, the alb
'ence of all medical aid for the sick, and
he many miseries of life in such place.
This completely broke down the wife's
,ortitude. She went to her husband,
with sobs, and told him that
she would send her child to European
Russia, or leave it with friends in Minu-
,insk but 60 with him to Turukhansk
she must and shouId-to let him 90 there
alone was beyond her strength. after
this," said Prince Krapotkin, ''there was
nothing for me to do but put pistol to
my head or yield, and yielded. l went
to the police office, and continued to
report there as long as l remained in
Minusinsk"
have related this incident in Prince
Siberian life partly because
It seems to have first suggested suicide
to him as means of escape from an in
position, and partly because it
IS in many ways an index to his charac-
Ter. He was extremely sensitive, proud,
and high spirited, and often made a
light upon some point which a cooler,
mole philosophic man would have taken
as one of the natural incidents of his
situation.
About two years ago Prince Krapotkin
was transferred from Minusinsk to
TOmsk, a change which brought him
few hundred miles nearer to European
Russi1, but which in other respects was
not perhaps a desirable one. When l
saw him in February he was living sim
ply but comfortably in rather spacious
og- house, ten minutes drive from the
European hotel, and was devoting him
elf to literary pursuits. He had a good
library of two CT three hundred
am ng which | noticed the
works of Professors New
,omb and Holden, Stallo's Concepts of
Science, of which he expressed very
ligh opinion, several volumes OF Smith
ionian Reports, and forty or fifty other
American books. His favorite study
vas astronomy, and in this branch of
cience he would probably have distin-
suished himself under more favorable
circumstances. After his exile, however,
le was not only deprived of instruments.
1ut had great difficulty in obtaining
books; his private correspondence was
Inder control, and he was more or less
constantly disJuieted and harassed by
lo.ice supery ision and searches of his
louse; so that his completed scientific
work was limited to few articles upon
subjects, written 70 French
md German periodicals. He was fine
inguist, and wrote almost equally well
n French, German, or Russian. Eng
ish he read easily but could not speak
On the last day before my depart re
rom Tomsk he came to my room, bring
ng letter which I had promised to
AIRY for him to one of his intimate
riends in Western Europe. With the
Ieen sense of honor which was one of
lis distinguishing characteristics. he
brought the letter to me open, so that |
night assure myself by reading it that it
contained nothing which would com
promise me in case the Russian police
hould find it il my possession / told
Iim that | did not care to read it, that
would run the risk of carrying anything
hat he would run the risk of writing =
lis danger in any case would be greater
han mine. He thereupOu seated him
elf at my writing table 10 address the
Envelope. We happened at the moment
o be talking of his brother, Pierre Kra-
,otkin, and bis pen, taking its sugges
ion from his thoughts, wrote autOmati-
ally upon the envelope his brothers.
Iame instead of the name of the person
or whom the letter was intended. He