lency also availed himself of this favorable opportunity to "squeeze" five hundred rúbles out of the isprávnik of Tiukalínsk as the price of immunity from prosecution on the charge of violating law by sending an exile out on the road while dangerously sick. The report may or may not have been well founded, but it was a notorious fact that the governor sold to the highest bidder most of the provincial offices at his disposal, and that he received payment in money intentionally lost to him at cards by the office-seekers.[1]
Dr. Dólgopólof remained in the Ishím hospital until he recovered his health, and was then sent forward to his destination. He was eventually transferred to the province of Semipalátinsk, where his condition was greatly improved, and where, when I last heard of him, he was engaged in making craniological measurements and anthropological researches among the Kírghis.[2]
I have, perhaps, devoted a disproportionate amount of space to this "affair of the unauthorized extraction of a bullet, by the administrative exile Nifónt Dólgopólof, from the leg of Madame Balákhina, wife of the mayor of Tiukalínsk"; but it is a typical case, and not only illustrates the inherent defects of the Russian method of dealing with "untrustworthy" citizens, but shows clearly the specific nature of the grievances against which the Surgút exiles protested in their letter to the Minister of the Interior in April, 1888. In that case one of the politicals, the late Mr.
- ↑ There were isprávniks in Siberia, at the time of my visit, against whom were pending as many as ten criminal charges. They had contrived, however, by means best known to themselves and their superiors, to stave off trial year after year, and I have no doubt that they are still holding their places.
- ↑ A fairly accurate account of the treatment of Dr. Dólgopólof by the isprávnik of Tiukalínsk was published in the Siberian Gazette at Tomsk, and the substance of it was reprinted in the London Times of January 11, 1884 (weekly edition), under the head of "Russia." The Russian censor, however, would not allow the Siberian Gazette to say that the victim of this brutality was a political exile, and consequently the London Times was unaware of the fact. The circumstances that led to the final collision between the isprávnik and the young surgeon are now published for the first time.
