Siberia than in Dartmoor or
Portland. There is far more of the human touch in the former, and a man
does not suffer in his manhood in the same way there as he does in the
English, French, Belgian, and Central American prisons I have known.

How, then, are we to account for all the well-known stories of miseries
and sufferings associated with that lone, and in winter very terrible
land? Most of us read in our youthful days _Elizabeth, or the Exiles of
Siberia_, and since then have always spoken of "the Siberian mines," and
"banishment" with bated breath! How have such impressions so gained
ground that the very name of Russia has taken us straightway out of
Europe into Asia to thoughts of the severest and most hopeless criminal
punishments in the world? I should say that the explanation is to be
found, very possibly, in the methods used before arrest. What is called
"administrative procedure" has long been the usual way of dealing with
suspected political offenders. A man or woman is arrested, and without
public trial is removed to Siberia, and there required to live under
police supervision. Arrests are made at any time. "A man may be seated
quietly at home with his family, in his office, or at some place of
public entertainment, when a touch upon his shoulder summons him away."
There are no press reports of his trial or examination, which is
conducted in private, nor any appeal from it, and there have been, and
perhaps are still, cases where a suspected offender's family remain in
ignorance of what has happened to him, or where he is. The thought of
such a disappearance from the midst of family and friends is enough to
chill any heart, and even if Russia does consider it necessary to deal
thus summarily with those who are enemies of social order and the
well-being of the State, without being unduly harsh in her treatment of
them when they are exiled, one may very well hope that what have been
called the "underground methods" of her police may soon be entirely laid
aside. It is still consistent, I submit, with the aim of a paternal
government to remove at once, and with no uncertain or hesitating hand,
those who are considered the most dangerous elements in its social life,
and the enemies of its stability and well-being.

It was in Siberia, however, that I learnt the positive side of Russia's
care for her peasant and working population. There I found, as soon as I
looked into the working of a great company, that it was