as a surgeon, I regarded it as my sacred duty to go, the same night I was called, to the place where the injured man lay. I had neither time nor opportunity, therefore, to give the police notice of my contemplated absence. Besides that, in the permission to practise given me by the Minister of the Interior there is nothing to prohibit my going outside the limits of the town to render medical assistance. If, notwithstanding this explanation, your Excellency finds it necessary to hold me to accountability, I beg your Excellency to issue such orders as may be requisite to have me dealt with, not by administrative process, which would be inconsistent with section thirty-two of the Imperially confirmed "Rules Relating to Police Surveillance," but by the method indicated in the "Remark" which follows that section, and which provides that a person guilty of unauthorized absence from his assigned place of residence shall be duly tried. In order that such misunderstandings may not occur in future, I beg your Excellency to grant me, upon the basis of section eight of the "Rules Relating to Police Surveillance," permission to go temporarily outside the limits of the town to render medical assistance.
Serge V. Martínof, M. D.
Governor Pedashénko did not condescend to make any direct reply to this letter, but merely sent the letter itself to the isprávnik Známenski with the laconic indorsement, "Let him be tried." Of course an offender in Russia cannot expect to be tried in less than a year after the accusation is made; and up to the time of our departure from Minusínsk the accused in this case was still waiting for arraignment. Since my return to the United States I have been informed by letters from Siberia that five years more have been added to Dr. Martínof's term of exile. Whether this supplementary punishment was inflicted upon him because he dared to save a poor peasant's life without the permission of the isprávnik, or merely because his behavior generally was that of a self-respecting Russian nobleman, and not that of a cringing slave, I do not know. When the end of an exile's term of banishment draws near, the local authorities are called upon for a report with regard to his behavior. If the report be unfavorable, an addition of from
