Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-12-28
PATHETIC STORY OF AN ExnE.

PATHETIC STORY OF AN EXILE.
Banisl,ed on Suspicion Of Intending Some
Day to Overthrow the Government.
To me perhaps the most attractive
and sympathetic of the Tomsk. exiles
was the Russian author, Felix Volkhof-
ski, who was banished to Siberia for
life in 1873 upon the charge of "belong-
ing to society that intends, at more or
less time in the future, to overthrow
the existing form of government" He
was about 80 years Of age at the time
1 made his acquaintance, and was q
man of cultivated mind, warm heart,
and high aspirations. He knew En-
glish we'll, was familiar with American
history and literature, and had, be-
lieve, translated into Russia many of
the poems of Longfellow. He spoke
to me with great admiration, I remem-
Der, of Longfellow's arsenal at
Springfield, I" and recited it to me aloud.
He was one of the most winning and
lovable men that it has ever been my
fortune to know; but his life had been q
terrible tragedy. His health had been
shattered by long imprisonment in the
fortress of Petropavlovsh: his hair was
prematurelv white; and when his face
was in repose there scanned to be an
expression of profound melancholy in
his dark brown eyes. I became in
timately acquainted with him and
warmly attached to him; and when I
babe him good-by for the last time on
my return from Eastern Siberia in
1886, he put his arm around me and
kissed me, and said, George Ivano-
witch, please don't forget us! In bid
ding you good-by I feel as if some
thing were going out Of my life that
would never again come into it"
Since my return to America have
heard from Mr.. VolkhofsE only once.
He wrote me last winter profoundly
sad and touching letter, in which he
informed me of the death Of his wife
by suicide. He himself had been
thrown out Of employment by the sup
preston Of the liberal Tomsk news
paper, the Siberian Gazette, and his
wife, whom I remember as pale, deli
cate, sad-faced woman, Is OF 80 years
of age, had tried to help him support
their family Of children by giving pri-
vate lessons and by taking in sewing.
Anxiety and overwork had finally
broken down her health; she had be-
come an invalid, and in morbid state
of mind, brought on by unhappiness
and disease, she reasoned herself into
the belief that she was an incumbrance
rather than help to her husband and
her children, and that they would ulti-
mately be better of if she were dead.
A little more than year ago she put
an end to her unhappy life by shooting
herself through the head with pistol.
Her husband was devotedly attached
to her; and her death, under such cir
cumstances and in such way, was a
terrible blow to him. In his letter to
me he referred to copy of James Rus
sell Lowell's poems that I had caused
to be sent to him, and said that in read
ing @After the Burial" he wildly real
lied for the first time that grief is of
no nationality-the lines, although
written by q bereaved American, ex-
pressed the deepest thoughts and feel
ings of bereaved Russian. He sent
with his letter small, worn, leather
matchbox, which had been given by
Prince Pierre Krapotkin to his exiled
brother Alexander, which the latter
had left to Volkhofski, and which Volk-
hofski had in turn presented to his wife
short time before her death. He
hoped, he said, that it would have some
value to me, on account of it's associa-
ton with the lives of four political of
tenders, all Of whom I had known.
One of them was refugee in London,
another an exile in Tomsk, and two had
escaped the jurisdiction of the Russian
Government by taking their own lives.
I tried to read Volkhofski's letter
aloud to my wife; but as recalled the
high character and lovable personality
Of the writer, and imagined what this
last blow of fate must have been to
such MANN exile, in broken health,
and with family Of helpless children
dependent upon him-the written lines
vanished in mist of tears, and with a
choking in my throat put the letter
and the little MATCHBOX away.
The Gear may whiten the hair of
such men as Felix Volkhofski in the
silent bomb-proof classmates of the for
tress, and he may send them in gray
convict overcoats to Siberia but a time
will come, in the providence of God,
when their names will stand higher
than his on the roll OF history, and
when the record of their lives and suf-
ferings will be source Of heroic in
SEPARATION to all Russians who love
liberty and their country.-George
Ke,saaa'a, in the Century.
Woefal Beggars in Shanghai.
One class that is constantly met with
at Shanghai is the beggars; they swarm
in the streets and use every effort to
extort money. I saw one man with o
knife in his hand, the blood flowing
from many wound he had inflicted
when denied aims at a shop. Some-
times . troop, stretched fat on their
faces. entirely obstruct some public
way, crying at the top OF their voices.
But the most revolving is where man
takes another with some horrible dis
ease on his back, and would enter a
shop or house, If not bought of. saw