the prison, so that at least he should not be compelled to see them in that situation. The humane disposition and sensitiveness to human suffering of which this is an illustration characterized all the dealings of Colonel Kononóvich with the political convicts; and so long as he was permitted to treat them with reasonable kindness and consideration he did so treat them, because he recognized the fact that their life was hard enough at best. Late in the year 1880, however, the Minister of the Interior began to issue a series of orders intended, apparently, to restrict the privileges of the state criminals and render their punishment more severe. They were forbidden, in the first place, to have any written communication whatever with their relatives. To such of them as had wives, children, fathers, or mothers in European Russia, this of itself was a terrible as well as an unjustifiable privation. Then they were forbidden to work in the gold placers, and were thus deprived of the only opportunity they had to see the outside world, to breathe pure, fresh air, and to strengthen and invigorate their bodies with exercise. Finally, about the middle of December, 1880, the governor received an order to abolish the free command, send all its members back into prison, half shave their heads, and put them again into chains and leg-fetters.[1] Colonel Kononóvich regarded this order as unnecessarily and even brutally severe, and tried in every way to have it rescinded or modified. His efforts, however, were unavailing, and
- ↑ All of these orders were issued while the Liberal Lóris-Mélikof was Minister of the Interior, and I have never been able to get any explanation of the inconsistency between his general policy towards the Liberal party and his treatment of condemned state criminals. Some of the officials whom I questioned in Siberia said without hesitation it was the minister's intention to make the life of the political convicts harder; while others thought that he acted without full information and upon the assumption that modern politicals were no more deserving of sympathy than were the Decembrists of 1825. The Decembrist conspirators — although high nobles — were harshly treated, therefore Nihilists should be harshly treated. Many of the political exiles whom I met in Siberia regarded Lóris-Mélikof's professions of sympathy with the Liberal and reforming party as insincere and hypocritical; but my own impression is that he acted in this case upon somebody's advice, without giving the matter much thought or consideration.
