245, 249, and 250 of the Penal Code," he is almost as much in the dark as ever with regard to the nature of his offense. He may be an "insulter of MAJESTY"; he may be held for ar intention" to change the existing form of government". . "at some more or less remote time in the future"; or he may have rendered himself liable to penal servitude by his neglect to inform the Chief of Gendarmes that he thinks his sister belongs to a secret society. He can console himself, however, with the reflection that when he is finally sentenced, the nature of the punishment to which he is condemned will indicate approximately the offense for which he has been tried. The "dopros" resembles in all respects the preliminary examination except that it is conducted by the Procureur in person, is based upon a much greater mass of data, and is consequently more severe and searching. At its conclusion the prisoner is required to sign his testimony, and is then remanded to his cell. The Procureur makes out, at his leisure, a statement of the case, showing what he thinks he can prove against the accused, and sends it with all the papers to the Ministry of Justice. After this time the prisoner, if he has not been obstinate and refractory, is granted certain privileges. He can have interviews with his relatives in the presence of an officer twice a week; he can write and receive open letters, and he is allowed books. Even these privileges, however, have their drawbacks. The relatives who come to see him may be arrested at the prison and exiled to Siberia by "administrative process";* half the contents of his letters may be "blacked out" or erased by the police through whose hands they pass; † and the only books given him may be the Bible and the Penal Code. ‡ The papers in the prisoner's case reach the Ministry of Justice in from one to three months. They may lie there awaiting examination three months, or even six months, more. When they are finally reached and the Minister proceeds to act upon them, he may do any one of four things: First, if the evidence submitted does not seem to him sufficient to justify even the detention of the accused, he may A young revolutionist by the name of Maidanski was hanged in Odessa in 1880. His mother, an aged peasant woman, when she heard that her son had been condemned to death, came to the prison to bid him good-bye. She was not allowed, however, to see him, but was herself arrested and exiled by "administrative process" to the province of Krasnoyarsk in eastern Siberia. + I have such a letter now in my possession. It consisted originally of four closely written pages of commercial note paper. The police erased all except the following words: "MEZEN, December 8th, 1880. "MY DEAR IVAN IVANOVITCH: I send you eight order his release, as he did in the cases of nearly eight hundred of the "propagandists." Second, if the evidence, although insufficient, seems to indicate that a case can be made out, he may return the papers to the Procureur with instructions to continue the investigation. This results in a further delay of at least six months. Third, if the evidence is not sufficient to secure conviction in a court, if it probably cannot be supplemented, and if the Minister is nevertheless satisfied that the accused is a disloyal person, whom it would be dangerous to release, he may order his exile to Siberia by "administrative process" for a period not greater than five years. Fourth, if the evidence against the accused collected by the Procureur is probably adequate to secure conviction in a court, the prisoner is held for trial. From the Ministry of Justice the papers go to the Ministry of the Interior, where they again await their turn for examination. The Minister of the Interior may approve the decision of the Minister of Justice, or he may disapprove it. In the former case the papers go to the Tsar for final action, and in the latter case they are "hung up" for further consideration, or sent back to the Procureur for amendment. The result of this course of procedure, every step of which is marked by delay due to the overcrowded condition of the various departmental and ministerial files, is to prolong almost indefinitely the period of uncertainty which intervenes between the prisoner's arrest and his final release, trial, or exile. Most of the politicals whose cases I investigated spent from one year to two and a half years in prison before they were sent to Siberia. In exceptional instances the terms of imprisonment were much longer. Solomon Chudnofski, who is now in exile in Tomsk, awaited final action in his case from January 27th, 1874, to July 18th, 1878, a period of four years and six months. During nearly the whole of this time he was in solitary confinement, and for twenty months he was in one of the casemates of the Petropavlovski fortress. Such delay is exasperating to the relatives. and friends even of prisoners who are known to be guilty; it is maddening to persons who roubles. It is all I can do at present. pages crossed out]. . . I kiss you warmly. [Signed] "ALEXE." [four The Bible and the Penal Code were the only literature given, during the first part of his imprisonment, to a young exile from St. Petersburg whom I met in Siberia. The intention, doubtless, was to incite to virtue on the one hand and to warn against crime on the cther. To most political prisoners, however, such a selection of books would have suggested an instructiveor, as the officials would probably say, seditious and incendiary comparison between the laws of Russia and the laws of Christ, and would thus have defeated the object which the police had in view. received was "Etta nasha diella ” believe that their sons, daughters, sisters, or In 1886 there died in St. Petersburg a young girl not yet twenty years of age named Fedoteva, a student in one of the high schools for women in that city. She had been arrested nearly a year before upon some political charge and had been held in solitary confinement in the House of Preliminary Detention until her health had given way, and had then been removed, dangerously ill, to the hospital, where she died in the delirium of brain fever. Upon being apprised of the young girl's death, Mrs. Fedoteva went to the Chief of Police and asked at what time her daughter would be buried, as she desired to attend the funeral. She was told that the funeral would take place from the hospital at a stated hour on the following day. The authorities do not allow the friends of a dead political prisoner to take charge of the body nor to conduct the funeral if there is any reason to apprehend what is known in the official world as a demonstratsia or public manifestation of sympathy. In this case it was feared that the school associates of the dead girl would follow her body to the grave in a procession, and that the more excitable of them would perhaps attempt to make speeches, or create in some way a scene which would call public attention to the fact that a young girl accused of a political offense had died in prison untried. If a public funeral were permitted, and if a demonstratsia should be attempted by the dead girl's friends, the police would be obliged to interfere, and such interference would not only "excite the public mind," but would necessarily result in the arrest of more young people. Furthermore, interference with a funeral would be disagreeable-it would look too much like striking the dead. Clearly, therefore, this was a case in which the maintenance of public order and tranquillity and the protection of hot-headed young people from the consequences of their possible rashness required, and would justify, the utmost secrecy. Acting upon this reasoning, the Chief of Police directed that the young girl be buried quietly at night, without the knowledge of her relatives and friends; and she was so buried. When, at the appointed hour on the following day, Mrs. Fedoteva came to the hospital to pay the last and only possible tribute of love to the lifeless body of her dead child by following it to the grave, she was informed that the funeral had already taken place. When she went to the Chief of Police and asked where her daughter had been buried, the only reply she "That is This mournful story was first told to me by the managing editor of a well-known St. Petersburg newspaper, who, of course, did not dare to print it. I heard it afterwards from others, and was finally able to verify it completely and circumstantially by conversation with an official in the hospital where the young girl died. 66 In order to make clear the bearing of such a fact as this on the so-called policy of "terror," I will ask the reader of these pages the question which was put to me: Imagine that your only daughter, a school-girl, still in her teens, had been arrested upon a vague charge of disloyalty; that she had been thrown into prison and kept there a year in solitary confinement without a trial; that she had died at last of brain fever brought on by grief, anxiety, apprehension, and solitude; that you had not been permitted to stand by her death-bed; that you had been deceived as to the time of her funeral; and that finally, when you went humbly and respectfully to the Chief of Police and asked where your murdered child had been buried, that you might at least wet the fresh earth of her grave with your tears, you had received the contemptuous answer, That is our business,' what would you have done ?" The fierce impulse to avenge such wrongs as these is morally unjustifiable; it is unchristian; it is, if you please, criminal; but, after all, it is human. A man is not necessarily a ferocious, blood-thirsty fanatic if, under such provocation, and in the absence of all means of redress, he strikes back with such weapons as lie nearest his hand. It is not my purpose, in setting forth this and other similar facts, to justify the policy of the "terrorists" nor to approve even by implication the resort to murder as a means of tempering despotism; but it is my purpose to explain, so far as I can, certain morbid social phenomena; and in making such explanation, circumstances seem to lay upon me the duty of saying to the world for the Russian revolutionists all that they might fairly say for themselves, if the lips of the dead had not already moldered into dust, and if the voices of the living were not stifled by prison walls. The Russian Government has its own press, and its own representatives abroad; it can explain, if it chooses, its methods and measures; and it can defend itself against charges which are without foundation. The Russian revolutionists, buried alive in remote Siberian solitudes, can only tell their story to an occasional traveler from a freer country, and ask him to lay it before the world for judgment. George Kennan. THE GRAYSONS: A STORY OF ILLINOIS.* BY EDWARD EGGLESTON, Author of "The Circuit Rider," "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," "Roxy," etc. IV. LOCKWOOD'S PLAN. EORGE LOCKWOOD, being only mildly malicious, felt something akin to compensation at having procured for Tom so severe a loss. But he was before all things a man secretive and calculating: the first thing he did with any circumstance was to take it into his intellectual back-room, where he spent most of his time, and demand what advantage it could give to George Lockwood. When he had let all the boys out of the store at a quarter past twelve, he locked and barred the door. Then he put away the boxes and all other traces of the company, and carried his tallow candle into his rag-carpeted bedroom, which opened from the rear of the store and shared the complicated and characteristic odors of the shop with a dank smell of its own; this last came from a habit Lockwood had when he sprinkled the floor of the store, preparatory to sweeping it, of extending the watering process to the ragcarpet of the bedroom. His mind gave only a passing thought of mild exultation, mingled with an equally mild regret, to poor Tom Grayson's misfortune. He was already inquiring how he might, without his own hand appearing in the matter, use the occurrence for his own benefit. Tom had had presence of mind enough left to beg the whole party in the store to say nothing about the affair; but notwithstanding the obligation which the set felt to protect one another from the old fogies of their families, George Lockwood thought. the matter would probably get out. He was not the kind of man to make any bones about letting it out, if he could thereby gain any advantage. The one feeling in his tepid nature that had ever attained sufficient intensity to keep him awake at night was his passion for Rachel Albaugh; and his passion was quite outside of any interest he might have in Rachel's reversionary certainty of the one-half of John Albaugh's lands. This, too, he had calculated, but as a subordinate consideration. He reflected that Rachel might come to town next Saturday, which was the general trading-day of the country people. If she should come, she would be sure to buy something of him. But how could he tell her of Tom's unlucky gambling? To do so directly would be in opposition to all the habits of his prudent nature. Nor could he bethink him of a ruse that might excuse an indirect allusion to it ; and he went to sleep at length without finding a solution of his question. But chance favored him, for with the Saturday came rain, and Rachel regretfully gave over a proposed visit to the village. But as some of the things wanted were quite indispensable, Ike Albaugh was sent to Moscow, and he came into Wooden & Snyder's store about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. George Lockwood greeted him cordially, and weighed out at his request three pounds of tenpenny nails to finish the new corn-crib, a half-pound of cut tobacco to replenish the senior Albaugh's pipe from time to time, a dollar's worth of sugar, and a quarter of a pound of Epsom salts, these last two for general use. He also measured off five yards of blue cotton drilling, six feet of halfinch rope for a halter, and two yards of inchwide ribbon to match a sample sent by Rachel. Then he filled one of the Albaugh jugs with molasses and another with whisky, which last was indispensable in the hay harvest. These articles were charged to John Albaugh's account; he was credited at the same time with the ten pounds of fresh butter that Isaac had brought. George Lockwood also wrapped up a paper of "candy kisses," as they were called, which he charged Ike to give to Rachel from him, but which he forgot to enter to his own account on the day-book. "By the way, Ike," he said, " did you know that Dave Sovine got back last week?" "Yes," said Ike; "I hear the Sovine folks made a terrible hullabaloo over the returned prodigal,-killed the fatted calf, and all that." "A tough prodigal he is!" said Lockwood, with a gentle smile of indifference. "You'd better look out for him." "Me? Why?" asked Ike. "He never had any grudge ag'inst me, as I know of." "No," said Lockwood, laughing," not that. But he 's cleaned all the money out of all the *Copyright, 1887, by Edward Eggleston. All rights reserved. boys about town, and he'll be going after you country fellows next, I guess. He's the darnedest hand with cards!" "Well, he won't git a-holt of me,” said Ike, with boyish exultation. "I don't hardly more 'n know the ace f'um the jack. I never played but on'y just once; two or three games weth one of the harvest hands, four years ago. He was showin' me how, you know, one Sunday in the big haymow, an' jus' as I got somethin' 't he called high low jack, the old man took 't into his head to come up the ladder to see what was goin' on. You know father's folks was Dunkers, an' he don't believe in cards. I got high low jack that time, an' I won't fergit it the longest day I live." Ike grinned a little ruefully at the recollection. "Could n' draw on my roundabout fer a week without somebody helpin' me, I was so awful sore between the shoulders. Not any more fer me, thank you!" "It 'u'd be good for some other young fellows I know, if they 'd had some of the same liniment," said Lockwood, beginning to see his way clear, and speaking in a languid tone with his teeth half closed. "Blam'd 'f I did n't see Šovine, a-settin' right there on that kag of sixp'ny nails the other night, win all a fellow's money, and then his handkerchief and his knife. The fellow you know him well got so excited that he put up his hat and his coat and his boots, an' Dave took 'em all. He's got some cheatin' trick ur 'nother, but I stood right over 'im an' I can't quite make it out yet. I tried to coax 'im to give back the hat an' coat an' boots; but no, sir, he 's a regular black-leg. He would n't give up a thing till I lent the other fellow as much money as he'd staked ag'inst them." "Who wuz the other fellow?" asked Ike Albaugh, with lively curiosity. "Oh! I promised not to tell"; but as Lockwood said this he made an upward motion with his pointed thumb, and turned his eyes towards the office overhead. "Why, not Tom?" asked Ike, in an excited whisper. "Don't you say anything about it," said George, looking serious. "He don't want his uncle's folks to know anything about it. And besides, I have n't mentioned any name, you know"; and he fell into a playful little titter between his closed teeth, as he shook his head secretively, and turned away to attend to a woman who, in spite of the rain, had brought on horseback a large "feed-basket" full of eggs, and three pairs of blue stockings of her own knitting, which she wished to exchange for a calico dress-pattern and some other things. But Lockwood turned to call after the departing youth: "You won't mention that to anybody, will you, Ike?" "To b' shore not," said Ike, as he went out of the door thinking how much it would interest Rachel. Ike Albaugh was too young and too lighthearted to be troubled with forebodings. Rachel might marry anybody she pleased "f'r all of him." It was her business, and she was of age, he reflected, and he was n't her " gardeen." At most, if it belonged to anybody to interfere, "it was the ole man's lookout." But the story of Tom Grayson's losing all his money, and even part of his clothes, was something interesting to tell, and it did not often happen to the young man to have the first of a bit of news. A farm-house on the edge of an unsettled prairie is a dull place, where all things have a monotonous, diurnal revolution and a larger annual repetition; any event with a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit which intrudes into this system is a godsend; even the most transient shooting-star of gossip is a relief. But this would be no momentary meteor, and Isaac saw in the newly acquired information something to "tease Rache with," and teasing one's sister is always lawful sport. He owed her some good-natured grudges; here was one chance to be even with her. Ike got home at half-past six, and Rachel had to spread for him a cold supper, chiefly of corn-bread and milk. He gave her the ribbon and the little package of square candy kisses from Lockwood. Rachel sat down at the table opposite her hungry brother, and, after giving him a part of the sweets, she amused herself with unfolding the papers that inclosed each little square of candy and reading the couplets of honeyed doggerel wrapped within. "Did you hear anything of Tom?" Rachel asked. "Yes." "What was it ? " "Oh! I promised not to say anything about it." "You need n't be afraid of making me jealous," said the sister, with a good-natured, halfdefiant settling of her head on one side. "Jealous? No, it's not anything like that. You ain't good at guessin', Sis; girls never air." "Not even Ginnie Miller," said Rachel. She usually met Ike's hackneyed allusions to the inferiority of girls by some word about Ginnie. It was plain her brother was in a teasing mood, and that her baffled curiosity would not find satisfaction by coaxing. She knew well enough that Ike was not such a fool as to keep an interesting secret long enough for it to grow stale and unmarketable on his hands. "Let it go, I don't care," she said, as she got up and moved about the kitchen. "You would, if you knew," said Ike. "But I don't, and so there's an end of it"; and she began to hum a sentimental song of the languishing sort so much in vogue in that day. The melancholy refrain, which formed the greater part of this one, ran: "Long, long ago, long ago." It is one of the paradoxes of human nature that young women with all the world before them delight in singing retrospective melodies about an auld-lang-syne concerning which, in the very nature of the case, they cannot well know anything, but in regard to which they seem to entertain sentiments so excruciating. "It was n't so very long ago, nuther," said Ike, whose dialect was always intensified when there were harvest hands on the place. "What was n't?" said Rachel, with her back to him. "Why, Tom's scrape, of course." "Was it a very bad one? Did he get took up?" Rachel's face was still averted, but Ike noted with pleasure that her voice showed a keen interest in his news. "Oh, no, 't 's not him 't ought to be took up; it 's Dave Sovine." Rachel cleared her throat and waited a few seconds before speaking again. "Did Dave hurt Tom much?" she asked, groping after the facts among the various conjectures that suggested themselves. "Well, yes," said Ike, with a broad grin of delight at his sister's wide guessing; but by this time he was pretty well exhausted by the strain put upon his feeble secretiveness. "Yes, hurt him? I sh'd say so!" he went on. "Hurts like blazes to have a blackleg like Dave win all yer money an' yer knife, an' yer hankercher, an' yer hat an' coat an' boots in the bargain. But you mus' n't say anything about it, Sis. It's a dead secret." "Who told you? "Nobody," said Ike, feeling some compunction that he had gone so far. "I just heard it." "Who'd you hear it from?" 66 George Lockwood kind uh let 't out without 'xactly sayin' 't wuz Tom. But he did n't deny it wuz Tom." Having thus relieved himself from the uncomfortable pressure of his secret, Ike got up and went out whistling, leaving Rachel to think the matter over. It was not the moral aspect of the question that presented itself to her. If Tom had beaten Sovine she would not have cared. It was Tom's cleverness as well as his buoyant spirit that had touched her, and now her hero had played the fool. She had the wariness of one who had known many lovers; her wit was not profound, and she saw rather than contrived the course most natural to one of her prudent and ease-loving temperament; she would hold Tom in check, and postpone the disagreeable necessity for final decision. V. THE MITTEN. NEXT to Tom's foreboding about his uncle was the dread of the effect of his bad conduct on Rachel. On that rainy Saturday afternoon he thought much about the possibility of making shipwreck with Rachel; and this led him to remember with a suspicion, foreign to his temper, the part that Lockwood had taken in his disgrace. By degrees he transferred much of his indignation from Sovine to George Lockwood. He resolved to see Rachel on his way back to town, and if possible by a frank confession to her to forestall and break the force of any reports that might get abroad. The bold course was always the easiest to one of so much propulsiveness. He remembered that there was a "singin'," as it was called in the country, held every Sunday afternoon in the Timber Creek school-house, half-way between his mother's house and Albaugh's. This weekly singing-school was attended by most of the young people of the neighborhood, and by Rachel Albaugh among the rest. Tom planned to stop, as though by chance, at the gathering and ride home with the ever-adorable Rachel. When Tom reached the school-house, Bryant, the peripatetic teacher of vocal music, was standing in front of his class and leading them by beating time with his rawhide riding-whip. Esteeming himself a leader in the musical world, he was not restricted to the methods used by musicians of greater renown. It is easy for ignorance to make innovation, the America of fifty years ago was seriously thinking of revising everything except the moral law. While Noah Webster in Connecticut was proposing single-handed to work over the English tongue so as to render it suitable to the wants of a self-complacent young nation, other reformers as far away as St. Louis were engaged in improving the world's system of musical notation. Of the new method Bryant was an ardent propagator; he made much of the fact that he was a musical new light, and taught the "square notes," a system in which the relative pitch was not only indicated by the position of the notes upon the clef, but also by their characteristic shapes. Any simpleton could here tell "do" from "me" at sight. In the "Missouri Harmonist" the lines and spaces were decorated with quavers and semiquavers whose heads were circles, squares, and triangles, Old Hundred becoming a solemn procession of one-legged and no-legged geo |