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released from prison and enrolled in the free command. At the last meeting of the political convicts and their wives, on New Year's Eve, it was noticed that Semyonofski seemed to be greatly depressed, and that when they parted he bade his comrades good-bye with unusual manifestations of emotion and affection. About 2 o'clock that morning Mr. Charushin (Charoo'shin), a political convict in whose little cabin Semyonofski was living, was awakened by the report of a pistol, and rushing into the room of Semyonofski found that the latter had shot himself through the head. He was still living, but he did not recover consciousness, and died in about an hour. On the table lay a letter addressed to his father, with a note to Charushin asking him to forward it, if possible, to its destination. The letter was as follows: MINES OF KARA,

Night of December 31, January 1, 1880-1. MY DEAR FATHER: I write you just after my return from watching the old year out and the new year in with all my comrades. We met, this new year, under melancholy and disheartening circumstances. You have probably received a letter from the wife of one of my comrades, whom I requested to inform you that we had been forbidden thenceforth to write letters to any one-even our parents. Senseless and inhuman as that prohibition was, there awaited us something much worse-something that I knew nothing about when that letter was written. Ten days or so after we received notice of the order forbidding us to write letters, we were informed that we were all to be returned to prison and confined in chains and leg-fetters. There are nine men of us, namely: Shishko, Charushin, Kviatkovski, Uspenski, Soyuzof, Bogdanof, Terentief, Tevtul, and 1; and we have all been living about two years in comparative freedom outside the prison. We expected something of this kind from the very day that we heard of the order of Loris Melikof prohibiting our correspondence; because there was in that order a paragraph which led us to fear that we should not be left in peace. Tomorrow we are to go back to prison. But for the faith that Colonel Kononovich has in us we should have been arrested and imprisoned as soon as the order was received; but he trusted us and gave us a few days in which to settle up our affairs. We have availed ourselves of this respite to meet together, for the last time in freedom, to watch the old year out and the new year in. I shall avail myself of it for yet another purpose. I do not know whether the carrying out of that purpose will, or will not, be a betrayal of the confidence that Colonel Kononovich has reposed in us; but even if I knew

that it would be such a betrayal I should still carry

out my purpose.

It may be that some one who reads the words "they are going back to prison" will compare us to sheep, submissively presenting their throats to the knife of the butcher; but such a comparison would be a grievously mistaken one. The only means of escape from such a situation as ours is in flightand how and whither could we fly, in a temperature of thirty-five degrees below zero, and without any

previous preparation for such an undertaking? The reason why no preparations have been made you know, if you received the letter that I wrote you last August.

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My own personal determination was to attempt should come in the spring, when it would be posescape if the order for our return to prison sible to escape, and to do it, not on the spur of the moment, but after serious preparation. It has not, however, happened so. In the mean time I feel that my physical strength is failing day by day. I know that my weakness must soon have its effect upon my mental powers, and that I am threatened and all this while I am living outside the prison. with the danger of becoming a complete imbecile — The question arises, what would become of me in prison? My whole life rests on the hope of returning some time to Russia and serving, with all my soul, the cause of right and justice to which I long ago devoted myself; but how can that cause be served by a man who is mentally and physically wrecked? When the hope of rendering such service is taken away from me, what is there left? Personal self-justification? But before the moment comes for anything like complete satisfaction of that desire, they can put me ten times to the torture. I have, therefore, come to the conclusion that there is no longer anything to live for-that I have earned the right, at last, to put an end to sufferings that have become aimless and useless. I have long been tired-deathly tired-of life; and only the thought of home has restrained me, hitherto, from self-destruction. I know that I am about to cause terrible grief, Sasha,1 to you, and to all who love me; but is not your love great enough to forgive the suicide of a man tortured to the last extremity? Understand that, for God's sake! I have been literally tortured to death during these last years. For the sake of all that you hold dear, I beseech you to forgive me! You must know that my last thoughts are of you that if I had a little more strength I would live out my life, if only to save you from further suffering; but my strength is exhausted. There is nothing left for me to do but to go insane or die; and the latter alternative is, after all, better than the former.

Good-bye forever, my dear, kind, well-remembered father and friend! Good-bye, Sasha, and you my younger brother, whom I know so little. Remember that it is better to die, even as I die, than to live without being able to feel one's self a man of principle and honor.

Once more, good-bye! Do not think ill of your unhappy son and brother, who, even in his unhappiness, finds consolation.

EUGENE.

All that was mortal of Eugene Semyonofski now lies in the political convicts' buryingground on a lonely hill known as “The Convict's Head" in Eastern Siberia. The unpainted wooden cross that marks his grave will soon decay, and then nothing will remain to show where lie the ashes of a man whose brilliant talents, high standards of duty, and intense moral earnestness might have made him an

1 "Sasha" was Semyonofski's brother Alexander.

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honor to his country and an invaluable worker in the cause of freedom and humanity.

Of course Colonel Kononovich was greatly shocked by Semyonofski's suicide, but this was only the beginning of the series of tragedies that resulted from an enforcement of the Government's orders concerning the treatment of the political convicts.

Very soon after Semyonofski's suicide, Mr. Rodin, another political convict, poisoned himself to death by drinking water in which he had soaked the heads of matches; Mr. Uspenski (Oo-spen'skee) hanged himself in the bathhouse; and Madame Kavaléfskaya, sister of

1 Mr. V. Vorontsof (Vor-on-tsof), author of "The Destiny of Capital in Russia" and of a large number of articles upon political economy in the Russian magazines European Messenger," "Annals of the Fatherland," and " Russian Thought."

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one of the best known political economists in Russia,1 went insane, shrieked constantly, broke the windows of her cell, and was so violent that it became necessary to confine her in a strait-jacket.

Colonel Kononovich was too warm-hearted and sympathetic a man not to be profoundly moved by such terrible evidences of human misery. He determined to resign his position as governor of the Kara penal establishment, whatever might be the consequences; and in pursuance of this determination he wrote to the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia and to the Minister of the Interior a very frank and bold letter, in which he said that he regarded the late instructions of the Government concerning the treatment of the political convicts as not only impolitic but cruel. If they wanted an officer who would treat the politicals in

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accordance with the spirit of such instructions, they had best send a hangman there. He, himself, was not a hangman; he could not enforce such orders without doing violence to all his feelings, and he must therefore ask to be relieved of his command. The resignation was accepted, and in the summer of 1881 Colonel Kononovich left the mines of Kara, and some time afterwards returned to St. Petersburg. As he passed through Irkutsk he had an interview with Governor-General Anuchin (An-noo'chin), in the course of which the latter said to him, rather coldly and contemptuously, "Of course, Colonel Kononovich, a man holding such views as you do could not be ex

pected to act as governor of the Kara prisons and mines, and I doubt whether such a man can hold any position whatever in the Government service."

"Very well," replied Kononovich, "then I will get out of it."

Soon after his arrival in St. Petersburg, Colonel Kononovich had an interview with Mr. Durnovo (Door'no-vo), Assistant Minister of the Interior, in the course of which he said to the latter, "I did not relax any necessary discipline at Kara, nor did I violate or neglect to enforce any law. If you want to have good order among the political convicts at the mines, and to have your Government respected, you will have to send there men with convictions like mine. That I had no selfish aims in view you can understand from the fact that the course I pursued was dangerous to me. You have probably received not a few accusations made against me by other officers. I am not afraid of accusations, nor of opposition, but I do fear my own conscience, and I am not willing to do anything that would lose me its approval. The Government, by its orders, made it impossible for me to serve as governor of the Kara prisons and at the same time keep an approving conscience, and I therefore asked to be relieved. If I should be ordered there again I would act in precisely the same way."

The subsequent history of the Kara penal establishment, which I shall give in a later article, must have made Mr. Durnovo think many times of these brave, frank words.

I have not been able to speak favorably of

many Siberian prisons, nor to praise many Siberian officials; but it affords me pleasure to say that of Colonel Kononovich I heard little that was not good. Political convicts, honest officers, and good citizens everywhere united in declaring that he was a humane, sympathetic, and warm-hearted man, as well as a fearless, intelligent, and absolutely incorruptible official. Nearly all the improvement that has been made in the Kara penal establishment within the past quarter of a century was made during Colonel Kononovich's term of service as governor. In view of these facts

continued suffering and ill-treatment on the road, this young man was as wild, suspicious, and savage as a trapped wolf. He seemed to regard all the world as his enemies, and glared at every officer as if he expected a blow, was half afraid of it, but was prepared to die fighting. Colonel Kononovich received him courteously and kindly; sent the wife of one of the political exiles to him with clean fresh underclothing; attended generally to his physical needs, and finally said to him, "Remember that nobody here will insult you or ill-treat you." The young convict was greatly surprised

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THE POLITICAL PRISON AND CAPTAIN NIKOLIN'S HOUSE. (A SKETCH FROM MEMORY.)

I regret to have to say that he was virtually driven out of Siberia by the worst and most corrupt class of Russian bureaucratic officials. He was called "weak" and "sentimental"; he was accused of being a "socialist"; he was said to be in sympathy with the views of the political convicts; and the ispravnik of Nerchinsk openly boasted, in the official club of that city, that he would yet "send Colonel Kononovich to the province of Yakutsk with a yellow diamond on his back." How ready even high officers of the Siberian administration were to entertain the most trivial charges against him may be inferred from the following anecdote. During the last year of his service at Kara there came to the mines a political convict, hardly out of his teens, named Bibikof (Bee'bee-koff). As a consequence of long

by such a reception, and in a letter that he subsequently wrote to a friend in European Russia he said, "I am glad to know, from the little acquaintance I have had with Kononovich, that a Russian colonel is not necessarily a beast." This letter fell into the hands of the police in European Russia, was forwarded through the Ministry of the Interior to General Ilyashevich (Ill-yah-shay'vitch), the governor of the Trans-Baikal, and was sent by that officer to Colonel Kononovich with a request for an "explanation." It seemed to be regarded as documentary evidence that the governor of the Kara prisons was on suspiciously friendly terms with the political convicts. Kononovich paid no attention to the communication. Some months later he happened to visit Chita on business, and Gov

ernor Ilyashevich, in the course of a conversation about other matters, said to him, "By the way, Colonel Kononovich, you have never answered a letter that I wrote you asking for an explanation of something said about you in a letter from one of the political convicts in your command. Did you receive it?"

"Yes," replied Kononovich, "I received it; but what kind of answer did you look for? What explanation could I give? Did you expect me to excuse myself because somebody regarded me as a human being and not a beast?

- or, in other words, releasing, for two or three hundred rubles per capita, young men who had been legally drawn as conscripts and who should render military service. He undertook to bring the corrupt officials to justice; but they had strong and highly placed friends in Irkutsk, they trumped up a set of counter charges, packed the investigating commission with their own associates, and came very near sending Colonel Kononovich to the province of Yakutsk "with a yellow diamond on his back," in fulfillment of the ispravnik's boast. Fortu

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Was I to say that the writer of the letter was mistaken in supposing me to be a human being that in reality I was a beast, and that I had never given him or anybody else reason to suppose that a Russian colonel could be a human being?"

This presentation of the case rather confused the governor, who said that the demand for an explanation had been written by his assistant, that it had been stupidly expressed, and that after all the matter was not of much consequence. He then dropped the subject.

After resigning his position at the mines of Kara, Colonel Kononovich, who was a Cossack officer, went to Nerchinsk, where he took command of the Cossack forces of the TransBaikal. He soon discovered that a small knot of officers, including the ispravnik, were engaged in selling immunity from conscription

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nately Kononovich had influential friends in St. Petersburg. He telegraphed to them and to the Minister of the Interior, and finally succeeded in securing the appointment of another commission, in having the ispravnik and some of his confederates thrown into prison, and in obtaining documentary evidence of their guilt. The conspirators then caused his house to be set on fire in the middle of a cold winter night, and nearly burned him alive with all his family. He escaped in his night-clothing, and, as soon as he had gotten his wife and children out, rushed back to try to save the papers in the pending case against the ispravnik, but it was too late. He was driven out by smoke and flames, and most of the proofs were destroyed. Colonel Kononovich then "shook his hand" against Siberia - to use a Russian expression and went to St. Petersburg. He did not

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