The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-01-14
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no remittance Of the punishment was ever pos
slblo. Il Will send YOU through the ranks: yoi
shall be skinned under the sticks were threat
winch made part OF the current language.
Another tragedy which happened on tn
kropotl1in estate was still worse than tina
of Andrei. One of the maids. Pauline. @
Polya, was unusually skillful at embroid
cry and in this way became sort of com
panion of the young ladies of the house
hold. and in her behavior and talk was re
fined dnd gentle. She came TO disgrac,
through servant on neighboring estate
and was exiled to an Clubhouse. Her lCvel
begged to be allowed TO marry her, but b,
had no money, and his request was refus-
ed. The girls ladylike ways had given
offence. and she was punished in man.
ner which can only be described as dia-
bolical in its ingenuity:
There was in our household man employed as
position, on account OF his small size; he went
under the name OF 'Bandy Legged Filka." In
| his boyhood a horse had kicked him terribly, and
he did not grow. His legs crooked, his
feet turned inward. his nose was broken
and turned TO side, his jaw deformed.
| To This monster it decided TO marry Poya-
and She married by force. The couple were
I sent 10 become peasants at my fathers estate
/ IL R,azan.
Human feelings were not recognized, not even
| suspected, in seris, and when Turgucnef pub
| lishcd his little story. 'Mumu,' and Grigoroyich
began to issue his thrilling novels, in which he
| made his readers weep the misfortunes OF
the serfs. il was TO a great number Of persons
| a startling revelation. They love just DO:
| is il possibeY' exclaimed the sentimental ladies
who could not read French novel without
shedding tears over the troubles Of the noble
heroes and heroines.
All of which goes TO prove, not the in
herent depraVity of the Russian, but the
eagerness OF human nature to seize on
some pretext for caste separation. and the
truth OF that saying of Lincoln. that no
man. however wise or good. ought TO be
given absolute and irresponsible power
TO another. What happened on the Kro-
potkin estate would happen in this country
If one class of citizens were given any such
despotic power as the Russian landowner
had over his serfs. Kropotkin says fur
Their:
These were things which myself saw in my
childhood. II, however, ! were TO relate what
heard Of in those years, ii would be a much more
gfuesome narrative; stories Of men and women
torn from their families and their villages, and
sold, lost in gambling, or exchanged for a
couple Of hunting dogs, and then transported TO
some remote part of Russia for the sake Of Great
ing a estate; Of children taken from their
parents and sold to cruel dissoute masters,
and OF rcvolts of serfs which were sup
pressed by Nicholas is generals by fogging TO
death each tenth or fifth man taken out of the
ranks and by LAYING waste the village, whose
inhabitants after military execution. went beg
ging for bread in the neighboring provinces As
10 the poverty which during our journeys
in certain villages, especially IN those which De,
longed 10 the imperial family, no words would
be adequate TO describe the misery TO readers who
have not seen it.
These things, and others arising from !
the same principles Of government, made /
Kropotkin revolutionist. His career af- |
ter he became one is dramatic, eventful. !
and full of quiet, unostentatious heroism. |
He was exiled; he was prosecuted; he was |
imprisoned and he escaped In his story |
of these adventures he confirms all that /
George KEENAN, told in the pages of his
thrilling. tragic, pathetic narrative in
The Century" more than ten years ago.
He was placed at one time in solitary con-
tinement in the fortress Of St Peter and
ST. Paul. The beginning of this chapter is
one of the most characteristic passages in
the book:
This was, then, the terrible fortress where so
much Of the true strength Of Russia had persisted
turing the last two centuries, and the very name
4 which is uttered in ST. Petersburg in hushed
7oice.
Hore Peter tortured his son Alexis AMI killed
aim with his own hand; here the Princess Tara
,anora was kept in cell which filed with water
Turing inundatiOn-the rats climbing upon
ier TO save themselves from drowning; here the
errible Minich tortured his enemies, and Cath
rine II buried alive those who objected 20 her
]
lines Of Peter for hundred and seventy years,
he annals OF this Of stone which rises from
he Neva in front Of the Winter Palace were an
lals OF murder and torture, Of men buried alive,
TO SLOW death. driven TO insanity
n the LONELINESS Of the dark and damp dungeons
Here the Deoembrists, who were the first 10 I'M
url in Russia the banner Of republican rule and
he abolition Of seridOm, underwent their first
experience Of martyrdom. and traces OF them may
till be found in the Russian Bastille. Here were
Imprisoned the poets iyleef and Shevcherlo, Dos
oeTsky, Bakunin, Chernysheysky, Pisaref, and
0 many Others Of our best contemporary writers. |
Iere Ksrakozoh was tortured and hanged
Here, somewhere in the Alexis rayelin, Is still |
ept hcchaief, who was given up TO Russia by
wiizerlsnd as comInon-law criminal, but is
rested dangerous political prisoner, and viii
ever again the light. In the rayelin
re also two or three men whom, rurnor says,
leXandtr II. because Of what they knew, and
Tiers mus not know, about some palace mys-
cry. imprisoned them for life. One Of them, /
dorned with long gray beard lately seen ,
v an acquaintance Of mine in the mysterious
JrtreSs.
The incidents of the authors confine-
tent in this prison. and his escape from
/, are fascinating in the extreme 10 any
ne who cares for the nelodrama OF real
Re. He gives rather an amusing account
the way in which the actions of his wife
nd himself were reported by a spy at
ne time. They were travelling on the I
storted their most innocent actions into I
lspicious maneuvres, and though he told !
1thing which was not true, he gave a
eighty meaning 10 some very common
ace things. This throws some light on a
e evidence by which political prisoners a
e probably convicted, and the usefulness L
the numberless detectives employed by n
e Russian Government
Those who have followed these memoirs :.
serial form will find that the papers
lin interest by being read in the more p
impact arrangement of the book; and q
ose who read them thus for the first b
me viii hardly leave the work unfinished. h
Boston; Houghton, Mifnin g. Co. s2.OOD =,
The Mnn with the Hoe u
Prairie Folks" By Hamlin Garland 1.
sort Of companion volume TO Main n
-aveled Roads" and was. the author says. b
i'm, as alaa q 1