The herald., 1895-02-17

, crushed and wiped out Of existence.
Slowly, the men of intellect, the men of
ideas diminish and ignorance takes their
place. The reader has no idea or concep-
what the single name, Siberia, means to
| the Russian. DO you know what it means?
| duties, whether at college or at your Of
| fee, an individual comes in and tells you
that you are wanted, and there is no prep
aration to be made. You go with him,
| you have got to go, and an officer tells
you you are under arrest for treason,
! of the Car, who now is the sole
owner of your soul and body. You
attempt to say something in self
| defense, when the officer slaps you on the
mouth and tells you to shut up, like a
dog. You are taken to st. Petersburg,
confined in the St; Peter and st. Paul
/ fortress, awaiting the day when you are
appointed to take that fatal walk to
Siberia-and there it all ends
Here is Siberia. You are away thou
sands of miles from civilization, from
books, from your home and ar friends.
In the mines, they tell you, is your home.
Chained to wheelbarrow, you work, eat
constitute 1854 out of 1865 in the year. All!
that gloomy day the Gar took hold of
the reins of the government officially, the
day he was crowned, that day even the
exiles of Siberia have holiday! There
are no Sundays nor holidays in Siberia
nation day. Who are these five millions
of people in Siberian Are they felons,
murders, highway robbers? No, no.
They are the cream and the flower of
Russian intelligence, sent there to end
their days in woe, misery and suffering;
ened, because morally they are bright,
intellectually smart: sent there because
they dared to disapprove of the existing
order of things. Sent there because rec
ognized by the Gar as men of ability and
ideas-as reformers, and in order to keep
his place he feels more safe with those
men when they are in Siberia. No, they
dom call them criminals, but theycall them
nihilists, which to translate from the
Latin origin of the word means in reality
'nothingness. These great men and
women are sent to Siberia as dangerous
objects to civilization, and are put there
out of harms reach! If father or a
mother have daughter, and if by mis-
fortune she happens to be handsome, and
if she refuses to acquiesce to the desires
and demands of the Russian officer, that
family is a doomed family-Siberia is
their home just because their daughter
defended her honor. Never refuse an
or your money, for just as soon as you
refuse to his demands the Siberian terri
tory is opened before you. How many a
Russian daughter, full of life and every
thing that is good, great, grand and
noble, has ended her life with her own
hands to save the entire family from
lifelong misery and mortal ago.
nyl Oh, my friends, how they welcome
liberator death, in Siberia. When death
comes and mercifully liberates their
bodies from chains, from pain and from
suffering-yes, death is their only friend.
Many and many do all in their power to
quicken his approach, but their hands are
SO chained that they fail to be instru-
mental in bringing him. None but Mr..
George Kennon, he was the only foreigner
that was able and that succeeded to pene-
trate into the very heart of Siberia. He
is an American, and a man of veracity;
read his accounts of what he has seen and
tell me then whether something can be
done to lessen the misery of our fellow
men. A dear friend Of mine while re-
turning with me from the Partisan expo
sition upon arriving on the border Of
Russian territory, the officer on guard
noticed newspaper showing from his
pocket; he went up to him, took the pa
per out and handed it to his superior Off
Ger, who after glancing at the paper, had
him arrested, and the dearest friend had
ended his life with his own hand in the
mines of Siberia. The paper he had was
an editorial of the Russian nihilists in
France.